Community planning can hurt housing affordability
It’s a common misconception that land can quickly be designated for building homes, or that new condominiums can be built anywhere, any time.
The reality is that land-use planning and development is governed by a complex process under the provincial government’s Planning Act. And when it comes to building new communities around the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), that process is currently stalled.
New communities in the suburbs have traditionally played an important role in providing cost-effective, familyoriented housing to accommodate population growth. These communities are built on lands referred to by planners as Designated Greenfield Community Lands, which have been added to municipal boundaries in anticipation of future growth needs. “Greenfield” refers to undeveloped land and is not to be confused with the Greenbelt, the protected land surrounding the Golden Horseshoe.
Before shovels can hit the ground, greenfield land has to go through a multi-step planning process to determine all the features and aspects of the future community. It is not uncommon for the policy planning stage to take five-to-10 years and the development planning and building process to take another five-to-10 years. That means it can take a minimum of 10 years to move from a raw piece of land to the start of a new community.
In 2006 and then in 2017, the provincial government introduced new requirements in the planning process through its Places to Grow plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe area. These had the praiseworthy objective of encouraging the development of complete communities that are compact, transitsupportive and that make efficient use of investments in infrastructure and public service facilities.
Unfortunately, they also significantly encumbered and lengthened the landdevelopment process. Specifically, the 2006 plan introduced density targets and planning requirements that municipalities struggled to meet. In 2017, the plan changed those requirements and municipalities now essentially need to start all over again.
So, while there is enough land to meet the region’s development needs through to 2031, a big part of that land is delayed by planning and approvals needed to allow homes to be built. This is one of the key constraints affecting the development of new communities around the GTHA and is having a significant impact on the cost of land. Since 2006, lot values around the GTHA have tripled and, in some cases, nearly quadrupled.
We will all feel the effects of this bottleneck if nothing changes. As we continue to fall behind on building new housing, inflationary pressures will ripple through the housing market, affecting the prices of both new homes and resale homes.
We need to make it quicker and easier to move land already earmarked for development through the planning and approval process, and build more homes in a timely manner.
It’s a crucial step in solving our region’s generational challenge around housing affordability.
David Wilkes is president and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and a contributor for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @bildgta