CENTRE FOR URBAN RESEARCH AND LAND DEVELOPMENT - RYERSON UNIVERSITY
Association of Municipalities of Ontario's "Fixing the Housing Affordability Crisis" Paper Misses the Mark on Land Supply

The Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) recently released a paper, "Fixing the Housing Affordability Crisis: Municipal Recommendations for Housing in Ontario", which purports to provide a road map to fixing the housing affordability crisis in Ontario through the coordinated actions of the three levels of government. The paper includes 63 recommendations in total, 40 of which are intended to increase the supply of affordable housing.

According to Dr. Frank Clayton, the Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development (CUR), however, AMO's recommendations fail to address aspects of the provincial legislative framework (e.g., the Ontario Places to Grow Act) and the municipal land use planning system that put the biggest constraints on the supply of affordable housing - those that limit the availability of serviced sites for development. The most important step the Province can make to ease the affordability problems for all households is to enforce Policy 1.4.1 of the Provincial Policy Statement (PPS), which requires municipalities to meet minimum thresholds in providing development-ready land at all times to accommodate a range of new housing.

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