It’s wonderful to rise this morning to talk about our most recent red tape bill and ensuring that we get more homes built across Ontario. I hear often in my riding that we need to do more to help the people of Ontario have a home that meets their needs and their budget, and I want to present some of the details about these various themes in our proposed bill, Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act, as well as some targeted housing measures in that piece of legislation.

To begin, I’d like to touch on some additional aspects of this bill and supporting initiatives that address our goal of building homes faster at a lower cost.

Our government continually seeks ways to help reduce the cost of building new homes, whether it’s through the most recent legislation the Minister of Energy has brought forward or whether it’s ensuring that we are proposing building code amendments that ensure costs remain low for our builders, ensuring that they continue to build the homes we need.

That’s why we’re proposing to remove requirements to have at least a minimum number of parking spaces for developments in certain areas near most major transit stations.

The proposed changes to the Planning Act would apply to the lands, buildings or structures that are located within certain areas near transit called protected major transit station areas. It would also apply to areas where municipalities choose to accommodate more housing around subway, rail or bus rapid transit stations, which is what we mean when we talk about higher-order density.

Instead of mandating minimum parking requirements, our proposal would let homebuyers and home builders decide for themselves, based on the market needs, the number of parking spaces for new residential development near transit. I think this is a very important proposal, a very good proposal, from a Progressive Conservative government—letting the market decide how many parking spaces would be needed around a major transit area.

Importantly, this proposal, if passed, could remove construction costs of between $2,000 and $100,000 per parking space per project, helping to make more projects viable.

I know we are in very challenging economic circumstances with the high interest rates, and I was discouraged to see the Bank of Canada not choose to cut interest rates yesterday. Our Premier continues to call on the Prime Minister to do more to lower interest rates as soon as possible.

We will continue to take action to ensure that we reduce the costs of building homes and apartments near transit, and this initiative, if passed, would do just that. Under existing requirements in some municipalities, this could save $50 million for a 500-unit development and make it cheaper to build and purchase new homes near transit. It will also make transit more accessible for the people of Ontario.

In keeping with the same theme, we’re also proposing changes to the Planning Act that, if passed, would help eliminate barriers to building additional residential units. We would do this by providing authority for regulations related to ADUs. Our proposed regulation-making authority would support the creation of additional residential units such as garden, laneway or basement suites. The importance of these additional suites cannot be overstated. Even in rural Ontario, which I have the honour of representing in this place, these additional residential units are a way for our seniors to downsize. I know a common term is “over-housed individuals”—who may live in a larger house but have nowhere to downsize within their community. Having these additional residential units gives them that option to remain in the community that they helped build, be close to their children and grandchildren potentially, and to enjoy their golden years. These basement suites, laneway suites and garden suites are just ensuring that we have those options for a variety of housing that our government continues to support being built across Ontario. We will enable future regulations that can eliminate municipal barriers such as maximum lot coverage and limits on the number of bedrooms allowed per lot.

I have the privilege of serving on the Standing Committee on Heritage, Infrastructure and Cultural Policy, and we were travelling recently across Ontario for regional governance review and that study. We heard very often from our municipal partners on a use-it-or-lose-it policy. I’m pleased to see our government bring forward this aspect in this bill before this place right now. It is important to prioritize the infrastructure for ready-to-go housing projects, and that’s what this use-it-or-lose-it policy will do.

We have heard many times from our municipal partners, as I mentioned, that stalled development and unused service capacity can be a barrier to meeting provincial housing targets. For example, seven municipalities have reported that over 70,000 housing units with planning approval have remained inactive for at least two years. For that reason, we’re proposing a use-it-or-lose-it process. This process will help address stalled developments and support efficient allocation of housing-enabling infrastructure, such as water and sewage servicing capacity.

If passed, our proposed changes to the Planning Act, Municipal Act and the City of Toronto Act would enable municipalities to adopt policies setting out how sewage and water servicing capacity can be allocated or reallocated to developments that are ready to proceed. This will result in fewer barriers and fewer delays prior to construction—or put another way, this will get shovels in the ground faster.

I know the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing spoke earlier. We meet often with AMO and ROMA as well as many other municipal associations in Ontario, and they have stressed the feedback to us around addressing stalled development.

Consulting with our municipal partners was very important with this legislation, and so we are enabling municipalities to better use existing revenue tools to pay for the development of housing-enabling infrastructure and other needs. We would do this through our proposal to eliminate the five-year phase-in of development charge rates.

Speaker, let me remind you that development charges are fees that municipalities can apply to a new development or redevelopment to help pay for the capital costs of infrastructure that may support this new growth.

Our proposal to eliminate the five-year phase-in would apply to development charge bylaws passed on or after January 1, 2022. For municipalities that have to amend their development charge bylaws to remove the phase-in, we are proposing that they be able to do so using a streamlined approach.

What’s more, this June 1, Ontario will bring into force exemptions and discounts on municipal development charges for affordable residential units. I think we can all agree in this place that it is important that we do not levy development charges on non-profit—the good work that Habitat for Humanity does. They were here a few weeks ago in Queen’s Park, meeting with a variety of members, and they told us time and time again, “Thank you for removing the development charges on Habitat for Humanity homes.” That is helping them get more homes built for those who need it in our communities, and I know our non-profit sector appreciates that—in ensuring that our affordable residential units do not have those charges levied on them. This would provide incentives to build more affordable housing across the province.

Speaker, obviously, this bill looks at amending the Planning Act, a document that I have the pleasure of reading often. I’m not sure if my colleagues in this place read it as much as myself and the minister and the associate minister. This time, we’re proposing to amend the Planning Act under the theme of improving consultation and providing municipalities and builders with greater certainty to get homes built faster. This proposed change would streamline certain third-party appeals to the Ontario Land Tribunal to help communities get quicker planning approvals for housing projects. This would help reduce building costs and, in some cases, reduce project delays by up to 18 months. That could mean getting shovels in the ground a full year and a half earlier, meaning people and families will move in even sooner to new homes, faster. To put that into perspective, between 2021 and 2023, approximately 67,000 housing units were subject to third-party appeals of official plans and rezoning. This simply cannot continue.

We’re proposing further changes to the Planning Act, and these would allow appeals when a municipality refuses an application or simply does not make a decision within the statutory timeline or a settlement boundary change that would accommodate future growth outside of the greenbelt.

We know that times change, and along with that, so have the methods for consulting on and communicating land use planning changes. That’s why we’re proposing a regulatory change to enhance public engagement on new planning applications and other Planning Act matters. We would do this by modernizing public notice requirements to enable municipalities to give notice on their website if there is no local newspaper available. Unfortunately, in many rural communities, there are no local papers still present. So this provides an opportunity for our rural municipalities, in particular, to have those public consultations on their website or through a newsletter they may mail out with their property tax statements, for example, giving them that flexibility to be even more accessible to the residents they serve.

Similar regulatory changes are proposed under the Development Charges Act. If our bill is passed, we will work with our municipal partners to develop best practices for modernizing public engagement and consultation. This could include expanding our reach to include multilingual notices. Ontario is a very large province, a very diverse province, which is wonderful, to see the variety of cultures represented in Ontario—but ensuring that our consultation process and our municipal consultation process around development is accessible to all. I look forward to having those consultations with our municipal partners as we move forward.

Our fourth and final theme is related to building more types of homes for more people. Under this theme, our proposal is to get shovels in the ground faster for priority projects. Under the Planning Act, municipalities can make decisions that determine the future of their communities. This includes making decisions on official plans, zoning bylaws, plans of subdivision, and site plan control.

We know a new development may require many municipal planning approvals before construction begins. Unfortunately, some Ontario priority projects have encountered delays when navigating the planning approval process. To solve this, we will consult on a new expedited approval process for community service facilities. We’ll be starting that with, for example, K-to-12 public schools, potentially extending in phases to long-term-care facilities and hospitals.

I know our government has put forward an ambitious infrastructure plan, which was announced in the budget a few short weeks ago—whether it was the over $1.8 million in housing-enabling infrastructure; whether it’s the Building Faster Fund that we announced last year at AMO, $1.2 billion; whether it’s the doubling of our capital budget for our schools, which I know was very well received across Ontario. We have many growing communities. I know this government is committed to ensuring that we build complete communities with schools, child care, hospitals, and ensuring that those planning approvals get done as quickly as possible, ensuring that those processes are seamless. That is what our goal is through these consultations—to ensure these priority projects are moving forward.

Speaker, we’re also moving forward with our consultations around the PPS, or the provincial planning statement, ensuring that we are putting forward a provincial planning statement that will get more homes built faster and sets out the rules for, obviously, land use planning in Ontario.

I know this is a very ambitious piece of legislation—ensuring that we work with our municipal partners who we heavily consulted with and with our home builders and our other community builders across Ontario; ensuring that we build the homes that Ontarians need, whether it’s the home for a grandma and grandpa, or whether it’s a home for a new family or a new Canadian to our shores. It’s ensuring that we have those places for those individuals too—it’s not just a building; it’s a place that they can build a community, they can raise their family, they can enjoy those golden years. That is what our government is focused on—ensuring every Ontarian has the opportunity and the ability to achieve home ownership and an affordable place to rent.

It’s wonderful to rise to talk about some important investments that our government is making, through our recent provincial budget, across Ontario, whether it’s the $1.8 billion for housing-enabling infrastructure, critical infrastructure to get more homes built across our province, whether it’s the $1.2 billion in the Building Faster Fund; $200 million for recreational facilities over the next 10 years; $15 billion to build new schools, doubling the amount of funding for capital this year in our provincial budget for our schools; and, of course, $50 billion over the next 10 years for hospitals across this province, from Toronto to Windsor, to the north and to Ottawa. We’re investing in Ontario, investing in the people in Ontario.

I know it was important to see the $50 million for stabilization of health care capacity in our northern and rural communities. It was also great to hear that we’re going to make the clinical extern program permanent. I know this is very important to our rural hospitals.

It was also great to see our government continue to build on our historic investments in primary care. Over $500 million will be invested to expand primary care across Ontario to ensure more people can get care closer to home.

Unfortunately, all the members of the opposition voted against the provincial government. They voted against primary care expansion. They voted against victim quick response programs. It is shameful.

We will continue to stand with the people of Ontario.