Big changes on horizon as planning authority shifts to local municipalities
Provincial legislation expected within days that gives cities new powers in housing development
New home construction for the subdivision on Waterloo’s west side started soon after final approvals 20 years ago, but eight years after it was supposed to be finished, only about half of the residences planned for the community are built.
In the midst of a housing affordability crisis, that slow pace does not help, so provincial legislation — Bill 185 — will enable municipalities to compel developers to build after approvals are granted.
There is a “use-it-or-lose-it” clause in Bill 185, said Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe.
“That is at least one good thing,” said McCabe. “It is so new I don’t know what the logistics look like, but we think that is positive.”
Local and regional municipalities around southern Ontario are making big changes in how new housing is planned, approved and built because of provincial legislation — Bill 162 and 185.
Earlier this week, Queen’s Park gave final approval to Bill 162, which opens up thousands of hectares of land for new development in several municipalities around southern Ontario.
Bill 185, which is expected to receive final approval within days, will remove all planning authority from the Region of Waterloo and hand it to the seven local municipalities.
Developers have long called for one-stop construction and development approvals for the region. Instead, they are getting seven freshly expanded planning departments, and 6,400 additional acres of land for new development in parcels big and small around the region.
The changes will see more cardependent suburbs built just as the region’s official plan and growth management plan appeared to be gaining serious traction.
The official plan had three components — the LRT, a countryside line around each municipality in the region to keep development from sprawling, and supported construction of condos, apartments and townhouses in mixed-use developments served by transit.
It cost $2 billion to have the LRT designed, built and operated. It took 17 years, but it attracted $4.5 billion in development during the 2011-2022 period.
Since first approved by regional council in 2011, Kitchener and Waterloo set records at different points for the value of building permits for multi-residential buildings.
One of the justifications for the LRT was to move people around without building the equivalent of 25 new Hespeler Roads in the region by 2050, when the population will be an estimated 900,000-plus.
McCabe does not want to see the City of Waterloo’s smart-growth progress squandered by new provincial legislation.
“There was a decision made years ago that we were going to grow in and up,” said McCabe. “We are committed to the strategy of using the land that we have, and infill developments.”
There was “upzoning” that allowed bigger multi-residential buildings in the Northdale neighbourhood and along the LRT line. Kitchener did the same thing along King, Victoria, Charles, Duke, Queen and Weber streets in the central neighbourhoods, and around LRT stations.
The federal government has recently started talking about special grants to municipal governments to support changes like that.
“We did that years ago and we don’t want to miss out on those grants when they become available,” said McCabe.
What is more concerning is how cross-boundary issues will be handled by local municipalities in the region, she said.
With seven different planning departments making decisions there will be conflicts, especially around developments near municipal borders.
The land opened to developers by Bill 162 is not serviced and some sewage treatment plants in the region can accommodate new development, some are nearing their limits and at least one is on the verge of a development freeze because the plant is almost maxed out.
“I think we still need the region to manage that,” said McCabe. “They manage the water and waste-water systems.”
Development boundaries around Kitchener, Cambridge, Baden, New Hamburg, St. Jacobs, Elmira, Breslau and Hespeler were all pushed out. More land was opened up in North Dumfries too. The legislation does not include a detailed map showing the exact location of the lands now open to development.
Neither the region nor the City of Kitchener can say precisely where those lands are located — except to say just about everything between the urban boundary and the countryside line are now open to development — and refer questions like that to the province.
“We are awaiting detailed mapping from the province,” said Lynsey Slupeiks, the region’s director of communications in an email.
Premier Doug Ford’s government has assigned quotas for new housing starts to municipalities, and Waterloo will meet its 2031 target of 16,000 new homes without building beyond the boundaries and countryside line in the region’s growth management plan more than 20 years ago, said McCabe.
“The more new development that goes onto land already serviced, like infill developments, the helps us manage our costs, both capital and operating costs,” said McCabe.
“Not only the building of new roads, but the maintenance of roads and snow plowing.”