Mandatory affordable housing
in new condos

As David Reevely's column below states, the federal and Ontario governments will not—or cannot—fund any new affordable housing projects so the provincial and municipal governments are moving from their present position of encouraging condominium developers to add a few affordable units to their new developments to forcing condominium developers to add affordable housing to all new projects.

The latest one to jump on this bandwagon is Liberal MPP Peter Milczyn, a long-time Toronto councillor who introduced Bill 39, the Planning Statue Law Amendment Act, into Queens Park and it has passed Second Reading.

Its main goal is to severely limit the OMB's powers and give the municipalities more power to decide what kind of development should be built in heir communities.

This Bill will also give the municipalities the power to force developers to add affordable rent and family-size units in their new developments if a rezoning permit is required.

Who wins?
The federal and provincial governments are the big winners as they will be able to download most future social housing costs onto the private developers who will pass them on to individual condo owners.

Since the two levels of government will not have to fund the building of new affordable housing, they won't have to raise taxes to pay for them.

The municipalities will love this because they will not have to maintain new affordable housing units, that responsibility will, at least partially, be absorbed by the condo corporation.

The social agencies that will be granted the contracts to manage the new affordable units are winners as they can hire more staff and they get to decide who will get the privilege to move into these new units.

Who loses
The developers pick up the initial tab but they pass the extra costs on to the people who buy the new units. So this is a short-term cost for them.

The owners that initially buy the units are the first ones to pay as part of their purchasing costs help pay for the construction of the affordable units.

Then they, and all future purchasers of these units—when they go on the resale market—will pay extra common element fees and, depending on how the declaration is written, extra special assessment costs or loan costs to help subsidize the affordable units.

Somebody has to pick up the tab
If the different levels of government demand that the private sector build affordable units and then help maintain them, then it is the condo owners who will stuck with the bill.
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Bill would neuter Ontario Municipal Board
Ottawa Citizen
25 November 2014
David Reevely

City councillors who’ve moaned for years that they’re helpless to control controversial development projects could soon get all the power they’ve said they wanted.

A private member’s bill from rookie Liberal MPP Peter Milczyn would sharply limit the authority of the Ontario Municipal Board, a provincial tribunal that can overrule city councils’ planning decisions. More rezonings than I can count have rolled through Ottawa city council with politicians saying they don’t like them, but the OMB will just approve them anyway.

Not anymore, if Milczyn gets his way.

His bill isn’t government legislation, whose success would be almost certain, but it’s been moved through Queen’s Park so far with votes from both Liberals and New Democrats. It passed its last vote 34-7.

It’s shot through with the idea that urban planning is significantly a matter of philosophy, and therefore the domain of representative politicians — not a science only for credentialed experts.

Milczyn, an architect, is a new MPP but he was in Toronto city politics on and off for 20 years. His last gig as a city councillor was chairing Toronto’s planning committee. He knows this stuff as well as anybody.

“These reforms would allow development to continue apace,” Milczyn said in the legislature, explaining the bill. “They would ensure, however, that those who are elected in their local councils, when they stand up, pass a bylaw and tell their residents that the process that they participated in to establish a bylaw or an official plan or a secondary plan —that it has some meaning, that zoning bylaws don’t simply become zoning guidelines and official plans don’t simply become something that can be amended on a daily basis.”

To start with, the bill would make it impossible to appeal cities’ own decisions about their official land-use plans for five years after they come into effect. That’s a big, big deal.

Ottawa, obeying provincial law, revises its official plan every five years already. It’s a gruesome process, involving very major decisions about what neighbourhoods should grow and which ones shouldn’t and — a big-money question for developers — which green fields on the edges of town should be opened for new subdivisions. Landowners always appeal.

Last time, the city was already working on the new version before it got a final OMB ruling on the one from years earlier. The OMB threw out a city council effort to rein in suburban sprawl, resulting in 1,100 hectares (or nearly 70 Lansdowne Parks) being opened for development against city council’s wishes.

On individual projects, the OMB would still have a place but it’d be much more restricted. The law currently says the board must “have regard to” city council decisions. Milczyn’s changes would require most important OMB rulings to “be consistent with” what city councils have said. Much more deferential.

affordable units

The third big thing the bill would do is give cities the power to require developers to include “affordable” units in buildings that need significant rezonings. It would cost developers money, so we could expect a lot of brinkmanship over whether imposing such a demand would screw up the economics of a particular proposal so badly it wouldn’t be worth doing. Councillors couldn’t push too hard. But it would give toothless targets — Ottawa has one for 25 per cent affordable housing in new developments, which we’ve never met — some bite.

Note: As you can read below, Peter Milczyn, in his website, downplays the "affordable units" part of his Bill 39 and mentions it in only six words: "the provision of affordable housing".

The Tories voted against the Milczyn bill because, as their municipal affairs critic Ernie Hardeman said, much of it “eliminates the ability of having a real appeal” for city council decisions. There is a real division that has to be acknowledged, between larger cities with full-time city councillors and planning departments, and smaller towns with less professional organizations.

Arthur Potts is a Liberal who voted for the bill. He represents Beaches-East York in Toronto, about as urban a riding as you’ll find. He addressed Hardeman, who represents Oxford — a rural riding west of Brantford centred on Woodstock.

“I get the sense that your residents’ associations want to use the OMB to protect against bad decision-making at a local level, where our residents’ associations don’t want the OMB to protect developers from good decision-making in our municipalities,” Potts told him.

But, he said, the important thing is to force decision-making into the hands of local politicians, not an unelected board.

Exactly. Into the hands of people who have to answer for their decisions to voters.
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Queen’s Park newcomer aims to move the yardsticks on housing: Goar
Toronto Star
By: Carol Goar Star Columnist
25 Nov 2014

It was a modest breakthrough. But in the fight for affordable housing, every victory counts.

Last week, Peter Milczyn, the newly elected MPP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, introduced his first private member’s bill: the Planning Statute Amendment Act. If it passes — and that’s a big if — it would give municipalities across Ontario the authority to direct developers to set aside a number of units in every residential project as affordable housing.

It’s called inclusionary zoning. The idea is not new, but it has never gained enough traction at Queen’s Park to become law.

What is different this time is the bill’s sponsor is a member of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government. It set off a flurry of online cheers, tweets and e-mail exchanges among housing activists. Even Jennifer Keesmat, Toronto’s chief planner, got into the act. “Peter Milczyn introduced essential changes to improve planning in Ontario. Exciting!” she tweeted.

His bill would amend the Planning Act, the City of Toronto Act and the Building Code Act, giving cities a new tool to address the chronic scarcity of affordable accommodation in their jurisdiction. It would give the 165,000 Ontario households on the waiting list for social housing a sliver of hope. And it would allow urban planners such as Keesmat to accelerate Toronto’s move toward a mix of market-priced and rent-geared-to-income housing.

Inclusionary zoning is certainly not the whole answer to the shelter woes of low-income Ontarians. But it would make a tangible difference.

“It aims to restore local decision-making,” Milczyn told the legislature. “This bill will grant municipalities the right to promote (a) built form that is well-designed, encourages a sense of place and provides for public spaces that are of high quality, safe, accessible, attractive and vibrant.”

Hundreds of communities in the U.S. have implemented some form of inclusionary zoning since the mid-1970s. In Canada, it has been studied, promoted by anti-poverty advocates and debated by legislators for at least a decade. Parkdale-High Park New Democrat Cheri di Novo has put no fewer than five private member’s bills on the order paper calling for inclusionary zoning.

But Milczyn is the first MPP from government ranks to champion the concept. As an architect, he knows it is feasible. As a 14-year veteran of Toronto city council — and chair of its planning growth management committee — he has consulted with developers, community groups and planners in other municipalities.

Typically, 10 to 30 per cent of the units in new residential developments are set aside as affordable housing. Milczyn estimates that would work out to about 20 units per project. He isn’t rigid about the formula or the implementation. The designated units could be handed over to a non-profit housing organization such as Habitat for Humanity, he says. They could be entrusted to the city to rent out at an affordable rate. Or the developer could donate the cash equivalent of their value to build affordable housing elsewhere.

He projects a newcomer’s confidence that all or most of the provisions of Bill 39 will eventually become law. His supporters are less sure:

• The odds of a private member’s bill being enacted are extremely low. Most run aground at the committee stage or die on the order paper, as Di Novo’s five-year crusade for inclusionary zoning illustrates.

• The government is sending mixed signals. If this were a Liberal priority, the bill would have come from Housing Minister Ted McMeekin, not a first-term backbencher.

• Condo developers, on whom the Liberal Party of Ontario relies for election funds, don’t like the prospect. To them it constitutes an additional tax.

• Purchasers of new condos and townhouses don’t like the idea. They fear it will lower the value of their market-priced units.

Even some anti-poverty groups don’t like it. They contend inclusionary zoning serves moderate-income households, not those in the greatest need.

Given their choice, most housing advocates would rather have a comprehensive national housing strategy or an aggressive provincial investment program in affordable housing than a zoning adjustment. But neither of those is on offer. Harper is ideologically opposed to national social programs and Wynne, constrained by a $12.5-billion deficit, is promising a mere $80 million a year.

Inclusionary zoning is within political reach. All it would take is an effort of will at Queen’s Park.

—†—

Private Member’s Bill 39
Planning Statue Law Amendment Act
Liberal MPP Peter Milczyn
 
"Over the course of the summer I spoke to many Etobicoke Lakeshore residents about my commitment to attempt to make much needed changes to the Planning Act.
 
I am pleased to advise you  that on November 20, 2014 my Private Member's Bill, "Bill 39, An Act to amend the City of Toronto Act, 2006, the Planning Act and certain regulations" passed second reading in the Ontario Legislature by a vote of 34 - 7.  Bill 39 may go before the Legislature's Standing Committee on General Government over the winter or spring.
 
In late 2013, as Chair of the City of Toronto's Planning and Growth Management Committee, I led Toronto's process to develop a response to the Ontario government's consultation on Planning Act reforms. Toronto City Council overwhelmingly endorsed a series of positions upon which my bill is formulated.
 
The Hon. Ted McMeekin, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, is currently conducting a review, and is likely to bring forward legislation next year to reform the provincial Planning Act. My Bill is designed to accelerate the debate and generate more interest in the issue in order to influence government policy.
 
This Bill proposes changes to the planning process in Ontario that follow three broad themes;
• Restore more local decision making on planning matters to municipalities
• Modernize aspects of the planning process in Ontario
• Grant municipalities more powers to address the impacts of growth and
  development.
 
It also contains some amendments to the City of Toronto Act which address specific concerns of the City of Toronto, most notably as they relate to the establishment of a Local Appeal Body by the city.
 
Restoring more local decision making on planning matters to municipalities.
Bill 39 would ensure local municipalities have the final word on many planning matters, and that the scope of the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) to overturn municipal planning decisions would be limited, while balancing the need to maintain a mechanism to appeal faulty decisions. The OMB is a politically appointed, quasi-judicial board with the power to overrule municipal governments' planning decisions.

These measures will restore the public's confidence in the planning system, restore accountability to elected officials and potentially save municipalities significant resources that are expended on preparing for and defending against numerous appeals.
 
Under the bill, municipally initiated Official Plan Amendments, and zoning bylaws that implement them, and approved site-specific zoning bylaws, once passed, would no longer be subject to appeal to the OMB for a period of five years.  Meaning that if a municipality refuses to make a change to these documents there would be no right to appeal.  If changes are granted by a municipality appeals could proceed.

However, the rules of evidence would be tightened at the OMB to limit only evidence that was before the City Council as part of the decision making process to be used at the OMB, the need to clearly and specifically outline the reasons for an appeal will mandated, and finally the OMB would be required to make decisions that are consistent with municipal decisions and plans.  These are significant changes from the current practices.
 
The Bill will also allow a municipality to restrict developers from seeking minor variances for three years after the passage of a zoning bylaw.

By significantly reducing the number and type of appeals to the Ontario Municipal Board municipalities will be able to concentrate their efforts on more pro-active planning, save significant time and money preparing for and defending at the OMB, as well as being more confident in finding planning solutions which are right for their communities.
 
Modernize aspects of the planning process in Ontario
The Bill will allow for electronic notice to be given of various planning meetings and applications thereby making information more accessible and saving municipalities' money.
 
The process of seeking "minor" variances from local Committees of Adjustment has long frustrated residents and community groups.
 
There are four tests to determine what is a "minor" variance under the Planning Act, and three of the four tests are subjective and vague. The definition of minor variance should be enacted by regulation. The idea is it could cap the percentage or deviation of a variance from a bylaw. Such a reform is long overdue.

Municipalities will be granted more power to establish and fund the creation of Local Appeal Bodies to hear appeals of Minor Variance applications, rather than having those matters go before the OMB.  While still on City Council I led the Council to approve the creation of a City of Toronto Local Appeal Body, but this was subject to getting the power to fund and manage the Local Appeal Body.
 
Grant municipalities more powers to address the impacts of growth and development it would give municipalities the right to demand "excellence in design" in development and require developers to provide for public spaces that are "high quality, safe, accessible, attractive and vibrant.

The bill would grant municipalities the power to address a chronic shortage of affordable housing by requiring developments with 20 or more new housing units to provide a portion that is affordable, whether that be, ownership, rental or not-for-profit housing.
 
The bill would also lengthen the time municipalities would have to review applications before allowable appeals could be filed to the OMB.
 
The time to review Official Plan Amendments (OPA) and concurrent zoning bylaw amendments to an OPA would extend from 180 days to 240 days, and a zoning bylaw amendment from 120 days to 180 days to allow municipalities more time without the threat of a pre-emptive appeal to the OMB.
 
 How the amendments would apply to the City of Toronto
Conditions imposed upon development proposals would be able to be registered on title of the property to prevent subsequent developers who buy properties to avoid complying with previously approved conditions of rezoning.
 
When the City of Toronto would pass an Interim Control By-law to prevent redevelopment in an area until the City completes a thorough planning review such a by-law cannot be appealed to the OMB.  This would give the City up to one year to conduct proper study and analysis of a neighbourhood, street, or district.
 
Additional powers be granted to set fees and require mediation for the City's Local Appeal Board for Committee of Adjustment matters.
 
All of these measures combined would significantly increase the ability to control and regulate development and afford greater stability and certainty to local communities about future redevelopment.  Defining what a minor variance actually is would be a significant achievement as well.

The ability to ensure better design, significant public spaces, and the provision of affordable housing would all improve the quality of life in cities and towns all across Ontario.

I will continue to update you on the progress of this Bill through the Legislature as well as steps the government is taking on planning reform and other related issues."

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