09/20/2023
Jennifer Keesmaat former Chief Planner Toronto
Make no mistake, Canada is a nation of renters: Fully one-third of Canadians rent their homes, with higher percentages in our major cities.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of our already-insufficient rental stock was built before the 1980s and is aging out, making the rental shortage the most acute dimension of our overall housing shortage.
Eliminating the massive structural deficit in the supply of rental homes in Canada will take a whole-of-government approach.
theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl…
While eliminating the sales tax on new rental construction is an important step, there’s more that can be done to reach our rental housing target:
✔️ Reinvigorate affordable construction financing programs by lowering the effective borrowing rates.
✔️ Provincial governments should follow Ontario’s example and act quickly to remove the provincial portion of HST.
✔️ Jurisdictions that levy development charges on new housing can waive those costs on rental and affordable housing projects.
✔️ Expedite approvals processes for projects that have significant affordable and rental housing components
✔️ End exclusionary zoning practices that have made it illegal to build new multifamily housing
✔️Implement as-of-right permissions for developments with affordable rental housing specifically.
We couldn’t find the page you were looking for one of the following reasons:It has moved, it never existed, or an agreement with an outside provider has expired.