This week’s mid-summer council meeting shows that our cities are working harder than other levels of government, even though they seem set up for failure.
Our summer break from council activities was interrupted for a special meeting this week. Annoying? Sure, a bit, but this marks the third last-minute August council meeting in four years, so maybe it’s not worth complaining about.
What is worth discussing, however, is the content of the meeting.
In June, both federal and provincial governments revealed a new initiative aimed at boosting housing development in Ontario. To receive funding for housing-related infrastructure projects, participating municipalities must reduce their development charges by 30 to 50 percent for three years. Guelph plans to cut its development charges by 30 percent while seeking nearly $74 million to support three major water and wastewater projects.
A big shoutout to City of Guelph staff for their pragmatic approach and for putting together an application within just two weeks after the guidelines were released and before the provincial deadline. As Jodie Sales, GM of strategic initiatives and intergovernmental services noted, what usually takes eight to ten months was accomplished in a fortnight. Still, they’ve been left waiting without any response from Queen’s Park.
This was why Wednesday’s meeting took place. There hasn’t been any communication in over a month since the deadline about whether Guelph’s application for the Development Charge Reduction Program was successful. With municipal election nominations closing soon, we’re entering council’s “lame duck” period; staff will need to handle some matters on their own unless they hear good news about the application before Friday.
According to Mayor Cam Guthrie, the tight timeline comes from the federal government. While it might be easy to blame Doug Ford, it’s Ottawa that shows complete indifference towards municipal workloads and election timelines. Mark Carney has mandated that everything should happen according to his schedule without regard for other factors.
But let’s take a moment to slow down because this scenario has characterized housing policy over the past four years; higher levels of government insisting that municipalities drop everything-rewrite development rules, cut fees and taxes-and suddenly watch stagnated housing starts take off!
Let’s recap what’s happened.
At the provincial level alone we’ve seen Bill 109 – More Homes for Everyone Act; Bill 23 – More Homes Built Faster Act; Bill 97 – Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act; Bill 185 – Cutting Red Tape to Build More Homes Act; Bill 17 – Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act; and Bill 60 – Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act.
Notice any trends?
The federal side has introduced various acts too: The Fall Economic Statement Implementation Acts in both 2022 and 2023; The Budget Implementation Act of 2024; Making Life More Affordable for Canadians Act; Build Canada Homes Act; and notably, the Housing Accelerator Fund.
This amounts to almost a dozen pieces of legislation meant to pressure municipalities into taking responsibility for building homes within profit-driven markets-and here we go again.
The success of the Development Charge Reduction Program will ultimately be measured by how many new units are actually constructed; cities can plan all they want but if those homes aren’t built then it doesn’t matter.
If you feel like you’ve seen this before-it’s because Ontario already tried something similar with the Build Faster Fund which rewarded municipalities based on units built rather than approved.
Speaking of approvals, Guelph has given developers permission to build more than 7,000 units here-not counting thousands more when construction begins at Clair-Maltby or Dolime Quarry over the next decade.
The city aims through its application for the Development Charge Reduction Program is getting around 5,600 out of those more than 7,000 units constructed over three years-which means Guelph would have nearly double its average annual production rate of approximately 1,017 new units per year during that time frame. Since Guelph doesn’t control builders’ schedules directly unless significant changes occur between now and March 2029-we’re looking at another potential setup for failure here.
The real question is why? Why do provincial and federal governments keep shifting all responsibility regarding housing issues onto local governments? Why does cutting development charges seem like their only answer alongside “cutting red tape”? How much more red tape could possibly exist at this point?
Many economists believe that while DCs may hinder construction efforts there are varied opinions on who should cover those costs associated with DCs anyway. At minimum though Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation indicated back in June that simply cutting development charges won’t drive explosive growth in housing production-but we’ve been aware of this fact well before now.
Back in November 2022 shortly after our last municipal elections there was also a special council meeting focused on analyzing impacts resulting from Bill 23 where Ryan Scott-the senior vice-president at Fusion Homes-pointed out how it didn’t tackle labor pressures or supply chain issues effectively either adding no provisions enabling developers passing along savings gained via reduced fees onto homebuyers themselves either way..
Nearing four years later we’re stuck repeating ourselves concerning Development Charge Reduction Program as well..
I think one insightful remark made during last week’s gathering came from Coun. Cathy Downer who questioned whether governments weren’t creating further unpredictability since deals favoring developers continue improving while delays prolong reversing trends toward initiating construction-what incentives might arise if developers wait just a bit longer?
As mentioned previously regarding local issues stemming largely due largely how governmental authority plays disproportionately applied throughout recent times observed greater financial burdens assumed locally compared against what provincial/federal counterparts contribute thus far aligning responsibilities shared across them respectively instead..
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I mean perhaps investing properly into social housing could free up funds allowing us manage infrastructure needs ourselves-but unfortunately twisting arms seems unlikely when facing lack accountability backtracking meetings like those held every August amongst others caught up within same cycle endlessly chasing solutions without genuine follow-through on promises kept made leading nowhere productive anytime soon ahead..
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