Ontario housing crisis to continue, September building permit data shows
Designing a housing approach around big land speculators' demands for sprawl isn't working for renters, house-seekers or construction industry jobs
For the twenty-eighth successive month, the Ontario PCs’ approach will fail to spur the housing starts needed to improve affordability and create jobs, according to September building permit data from Statistics Canada released today.
Just prior to the June 2022 election, Dour Ford’s own Housing Affordability Task Force reported the residential construction industry needs to start building 12,500 housing units every month to bring price balance to the housing market.
In September, building permits for just 8,445 new Ontario housing units were approved, more than 4,000 units below the monthly need.
Month after month, Data Shows has reported on how various nudges on and supplements to the housing market by BC’s NDP government has spurred monthly housing starts often double those in Ontario, adjusted for size.
But the Ford PCs won’t follow the proven path the BC government has created. They won’t even follow their own advice.
Planning for sprawl puts land speculators in charge
More than two years after endorsing the Task Force report, many of its 55 recommendations remain untouched. Earlier this year the Ford government reversed course on requiring high density around transit hubs and rejected calls to allow fourplex construction.
Explaining his inaction, the Conservative premier has blamed his fear of “shouting and screaming” from density opponents. By blocking density and using provincial planning powers to develop housing through land sprawl, the Ford PCs have turned large-scale land speculators into housing construction gatekeepers.
Slowing housing supply adds upward pressure on prices, a helpful outcome for land owners. But constricting supply destroys housing affordability and holds back job creation in the residential housing construction sector.
In contrast, a strategy using provincial planning powers to create land parcels within urban centres, by-passing land speculators and giving priority to housing constructors, has gone entirely untried.