City councilors in Stratford have joined a growing number of municipal officials raising concerns about new housing legislation fast tracked at Queen’s Park this month.
City councilors in Stratford have joined a growing number of municipal officials raising concerns about new housing legislation fast tracked at Queen’s Park this month.
The governing Progressive Conservatives argue Bill 109 will reduce costly delays to building more housing in Ontario, but Coun. Danielle Ingram pushed back this week, criticizing the “lightning” speed at which the province’s More Homes for Everyone Act was recently approved and its potential impact on Stratford’s bottom line.
“I really want to note the financial impacts that this is going to have,” Ingram said during Monday’s council meeting. “If the municipality has to start refunding application fees … it is going to have vast budgetary impacts.”
The Tories unveiled the bill on March 30. Among its more eye-catching policy actions is a phased refunding of application fees for zoning bylaw amendments if municipal decisions on those requests aren’t reached by legislated deadlines.
The bill received royal assent on April 14 and is scheduled to come into effect at the beginning of next year. The legislation is meant to bring more homes to market more quickly, according to the government, but many planners are warning that the bill’s stiff deadlines could lead to more appeals at the Ontario Land Tribunal.
Without the requirement to begin refunding application fees, current deadlines for zoning bylaw amendments aren’t quite as scary. Although a developer has the right to appeal if a decision on their zoning bylaw amendment isn’t made within 90 days, most cases just require more back-and-forth between builders, city council and the public, said Alyssa Bridge, Stratford’s planning manager .
“If a municipality has to refund the fee, and we haven’t got to the point where we are ready to make a decision on an application or that dialogue is ongoing, my concern is that the city and other municipalities may then just end up refusing an application,” Bridge said. “Then the application will just end up at the Ontario Land Tribunal, which ultimately delays new housing and adds costs for both the developer and the municipality.”
Stratford doesn’t keep track of the number of applications that miss the 90-day deadline, but the city “has very, very rarely had an appeal for a non decision,” Bridge said.
“What could potentially happen now … is that some of that dialogue that happens between the developer, city council and the public could be cut short or reduced,” she added. “I think we often end up with a better planning product as a result of that dialogue. To me, that’s the biggest impact. It’s going to cut down on the ability to have that dialogue and end up with a better development.”
Some provisions in the new legislation aren’t quite as controversial. Extending site plan application reviews from 30 to 60 days “more accurately represents how long it takes to get from a site plan submission to a site plan approval,” Bridge said.
But councilors in Stratford are concerned the province’s push to build much-needed housing in Ontario will have negative consequences. Ingram said Bill 109 also places too much pressure on municipal planning processes to address the province’s housing shortage.
“It doesn’t take into account the fact that (tradespeople) have been hard to come by,” she said. “You can open up any amount of plans that you want and have any number of development applications coming forward, but if you can’t get the (workers) to be able to build the houses they’re not going to happen.
“It also doesn’t take into account the cost of materials and servicing, which (have) a vast impact on housing affordability,” Ingram continued. “So there’s a number of different (pieces) to this whole puzzle that just haven’t been put into place.”
Ingram tabled a motion Monday to send her concerns about the legislation to provincial officials, including Premier Doug Ford and Perth-Wellington MPP Randy Pettapiece.
It was unanimously supported.
-With files from Taylor Blewett, Ottawa Citizen