Housing Revisited: Report of the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force, Part One

A couple weeks ago the Ontario government released The Report of the Housing Affordability Task Force. As the chair of the task force, Jake Lawrence, described in the cover letter; the mandate it followed was to come up with practical solutions to the housing crisis:

Jake Lawrence

When striking the Housing Affordability Task Force, you and Premier Ford were clear: you wanted actionable, concrete solutions to help Ontarians and there was no time to waste. You asked us to be bold and gave us the freedom and independence to develop our recommendations.

This bears emphasis because when I talk about housing issues with my friends and neighbours---all of whom already own their own homes---I hear a lot of airy-fairy suggestions that I think wouldn't go anywhere. These include:

• ending money-laundering (that's the federal government's jurisdiction and something of a game of whack-a-mole anyway)
• stopping the rise in population (that's a great idea---except that both these people and myself are usually also in favour of allowing more immigration---like the Ukrainian refugees already on their way here)
• having the federal and provincial government drive dump truck loads of money into Guelph to build more social housing (good luck with that!)
• Make the rich pay!!!!! (except the rich usually seem to be very good---for one reason or another---at not paying)
• stop allowing people to change apartments into Air BNBs (that wouldn't have much effect except in tourist zones---and enforcement would be a huge pain)
• raising interest rates (that would cause problems for the entire economy)
• financial subsidies for first-time home buyers, like writing-off mortgage payments on your income tax (the US does this, and it doesn't help anyone because the savings just go into pushing up housing prices even higher)
• reform the bureaucracy to speed up the approval process for new housing
  

Here's a video clip from a TVO show where a past governor of the Bank of Canada---and member of the Housing Affordability Task Force---Stephen Poloz, explains what he thinks is really behind the high cost of housing in Ontario. 

It appears that he puts most of the blame on local government. This is the same thing that I've heard time and time again from other experts---municipal councils give far too much power to small groups of local citizens to block developers from building new housing.

If something happens in one community, it might make sense to blame the municipal government. But if it happens all over North America and much of the world beyond, I'd say that there is a bigger issue at play. So if I'm going to blame Guelph's Council for anything, it's a timidity that has kept it from thinking "outside of the box". But as someone who always thinks this way---and was profoundly unsuccessful as a politician---I suspect that the real problem comes down to a few things that are common almost everywhere:

• most people don't vote in municipal elections
• the few who do overwhelmingly already own their own homes
• conversely, people who don't own a place----even if they would like to some day, usually don't vote
• similarly, people who live in a neighbourhood and want to keep it the same will show up at Council meetings---and those who might eventually buy some new housing in that area won't
• retirees (like me) generally have more time to be involved in these sorts of things---and they also tend to the most adverse to change
  

What this means is that there is a conflict of interest in our democratic system that discriminates against potential new home owners plus a system that results in almost no one advocating on their behalf.

&&&&

 

This particular article has been an especial slog for me. Probably because I feel that advocating for people who are suffering from the high price of real estate is such a thankless task, I've found wading through these complex issues really hard to do, even though none of this is new to me. That's just to say that even though I am interested in the subject, a lot of writing these articles is plain hard work. If you think that it's worthwhile and you can afford it, why not support it with a subscription? Patreon and PayPal make it easy to do.
 

&&&&

 

The best way to understand the report's recommendations is to break them down into several different operational categories:

• accurately assess the needs and options for creating housing
  
• re-order the priorities of city council
• take away some key powers from municipalities and give them to the province
• change rules that have gotten in the way of building affordable housing 
• create regulations and penalties that will force municipalities to "get with the program"
• cut the "red tape" that strangles new development
  

&&&&

 

First off, the report points out that in the past both the province and municipalities have badly under-estimated the rising demand for housing. The shortfall has been identified as coming mostly from increased permanent and temporary immigration from both outside of the country and from other provinces. (I discussed this in a previous article.)  

Secondly, most discussions about development have been around the preservation of farmland and water recharge areas. (Doug Ford famously promised the development community that if elected, he'd unravel the Green Belt legislation brought in by previous Liberal governments.) The Task Force side-steps this issue by suggesting that there is already plenty of room to build new housing in low-density suburbs.
 

The recommendations of the task force aimed at these specific parts of the problem are:

• commit to building 1.5 million new homes in ten years
• "Amend the Planning Act, Provincial Policy
  Statement, and Growth Plans to set “growth in the
  full spectrum of housing supply” and “intensification
  within existing built-up areas” of municipalities as
  the most important residential housing priorities in
  the mandate and purpose."
  

I've quoted number "2" in full because it raises an important point. If you look at the current official plan of Guelph, you will see the following statement of goals for the document:

The Official Plan:
a) Establishes a vision, guiding principles, strategic goals, objectives and policies to manage future land use patterns that have a positive effect on the social, economic, cultural and natural environment of the city.
b) Promotes long-term community sustainability and embodies policies and actions that aim to simultaneously achieve social well-being, economic vitality, cultural conservation and enhancement, environmental integrity and energy sustainability.
c) Promotes the public interest in the future development of the city and provides a comprehensive land use policy basis which will be implemented through the Zoning By-law and other land use controls.
d) Guides decision making and community building to the year 2031

As you can see, nowhere in the above statement is there a direct statement that it is a goal of the city to provide adequate housing for all the citizens. 

There's a saying in science to the effect that you can't understand something until you measure it. Well, a somewhat similar thing could be said about governance: if you don't mention it directly, it won't be a priority. Guelph has never made growth in the housing supply or increasing the density of housing into priorities, which means that it has always been "traded off" for other considerations that are specifically mentioned in planning documents. Actually putting these two considerations into our planning documents and also defining them as the top priorities of planning---even ahead of things like creating enough parks, protecting heritage architecture, or, preserving a neighbourhood's "traditional character"---would go a long way to really dealing with the current housing crisis.

The report also makes the case that there already is lots of land to build housing on in Ontario municipalities---it's just been locked-up through exclusionary zoning that restricts it to only single, fully-detached housing. As a result, the population density in our cities is far, far less than that seen in other major cities of the world. Take a look at the following graphic that I've copied from the document.

I've mentioned this issue in previous posts on this subject. But it really does need to be hammered home because almost all of the people I meet simply refuse to admit that this is a real problem. So here's a short explanation of the "yellow belt" in Toronto and where all the land the Task Force says could be used to build the housing needed to end the current crisis.

 

The Task Force is focusing on the issue of building housing stock to lower the cost of living. But there is another side to this issue that also should be mentioned. Low density housing is tremendously expensive for cities to service. In fact, most experts would suggest that in most cases it can only exist because older, higher-density neighbourhoods subsidize them. Here's an excellent video from the YouTube channel Not Just Bikes that explains this issue while talking about a variety of cities---including Guelph.

 

Please note that while the creator of this video is lauding Guelph for building enough higher density housing to keep the city from bankrupting itself, this doesn't mean that it is building enough to keep all it's citizens housed. These are two different issues. Guelph may have enough higher density housing to successfully subsidize its huge swathes of low-density housing, but if we had much more, we might also be able to supply affordable housing to most of the people who want to live here. People have a bias towards thinking in either/or dichotomies---but the universe usually works with percentages. 

&&&&

 

OK, then. How does the Affordability Task Force think that cities like Guelph can increase the density of its housing? 

 

One phrase that they use a fair amount is "as of right". That's a fancy, legal way of saying that they are resetting the "default" of planning. What is now a special case that you have to argue in front of Council or appeal to the Planning Appeal Tribunal (what used to be called the OMB), would be assumed OK "from the get go". The Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force Report identifies a series of different planning decisions that should be considered standard operating procedures across the province from now on:

• building a fourplex of up to four stories on any given single lot
• converting commercial properties to housing
• allowing things like "granny flats" 
• allowing multi-tenant housing (ie: no laws against renting rooms)
• allowing 6 to 11 story buildings with no minimum parking requirement on any existing transit corridor 
• support municipalities to ensure that any greenfield development---both within and outside of existing municipal boundaries---to ensure that it adheres to the same density requirements identified in this report
  

In effect, the Task Force realizes that municipal politics has made increasing a city's density into a "kiss of death". Since it is political suicide to advocate for it, no one on Council wants to support it anywhere. The solution proposed simply takes away the power to veto development that would raise density from the hands of local government. With the power diffused over the entire province, the hope is that no provincial government will be afraid of a local backlash against building more housing in any particular neighbourhood.
 
&&&&

 

Another issue that stands in the way of building more housing are a variety of building code and other rules that have refused to "keep up" with the latest technology and social trends. What they do is artificially inflate the cost of building housing without actually improving the safety or value of the home. 

 

To understand this point, consider the following housing requirements that the Task Force suggests should be changed to allow:

• a single set of stairs in an apartment building
• wooden multi-story apartment buildings
• housing without dedicated parking spaces

The first recommendation deals with a section of the building code that mandates that apartments must have a two separate, closed-off sets of stairs on opposite sides of the building. The reasoning has been that by doing so, the individual units are protected from air intake that would feed a fire, and, give occupants a second option if one of the stairwells is impassable because of the fire.

The problem with this law is that the second set of stairs are an added expense. 

 

Enclosing and separating the stairs from the aisles also removes the potential to use natural ventilation and lighting for the corridors outside of apartments. Take a look at a European apartment stairwell. (Single stairwells are the standard in Europe.) If you add a skylight and cupola on the top of the central stairwell, then light will stream down, and, hot air can exit the top. If tenants open the doors of their apartments (or a vent at the top of their doors) then hot air will get drawn out of their unit and cooler air will come in through open windows (because of the "chimney effect")---increasing ventilation and reducing air conditioning costs.

A Paris apartment building stairwell. Image c/o The Urbanist.

While it's true that the two stairs code was designed to save lives, modern construction techniques (no more hollow plaster and lathe walls, fire resistant solid flooring, etc) plus requirements for mandatory smoke detectors and sprinklers have pretty much removed any reason for this old rule---at least for mid-sized and smaller apartment buildings.

   

A second recommendation is to allow builders across the province the option of building small apartment buildings with modern wooden construction methods instead of forcing them to exclusively use reinforced concrete. I did a quick non-scientific survey of statements wood versus concrete construction, and noticed what seemed to be a great deal of motivated reasoning that seemed to based on which side of the industry was paying the bills. (Could this be why it's taken so long to reform the building code?)

 

After winnowing through the chaff, it seems to me that the key issues to understand are that a new technology has emerged using something called "mass timber" construction for small apartment buildings. This uses "cross-laminated timber" to replace slabs and beams of reinforced concrete or steel.

Cross-laminated timber floor slab being lowered onto beams made from the same material. Image c/o Think Wood.

As you can see from the above picture, the slabs of wood are much bigger and thicker than the two-by-fours most people see in single family homes. This makes them much more resistant to fire.
 

As near as I can tell, the wood itself is not cheaper than either steel or reinforced concrete. What it is, however, is lighter---which helps cut construction costs. It also seems to be easier to work with, which means that labour costs and speed of build are better. This is where wood cuts costs. Moreover, as a renewable resource, mass timber construction is less carbon intensive than traditional methods.

 

There are already quite a few examples of successful mass timber constructed buildings, such as the 2016 T3 (Timber, Technology, Transit) building in Minneapolis below. It's a seven story office building and was constructed over just 2.5 months and used half the construction labour of a comparable reinforced steel building.  

 

The T3 building in Minneapolis. Image c/o Think Wood.

Finally, as I pointed out in a past article, using the numbers provided by an expert in the field---Donald Shoup---plus Guelph's then current parking regulations, underground parking in apartments and condominiums adds something like $75,000 to the cost of each housing unit. If developers were able to stop automatically adding expensive parking to a building---whether it is needed by tenants or not---it could result in real savings for both home buyers and renters. 

 

&&&&   

 

Finally, in any attempt to deal with an existing problem it's important to not only change the rules, but to also provide for enforcement. There are lots of examples where governments brought in really good rules to deal with a substantive issue but they were simply ignored and this dramatically reduced their effectiveness. (If you want to check out one example, take a look at this depressing story I wrote about solid waste.) The housing emergency is too important to the well-being of this nation to come up with a good-sounding strategy that just gets sabotaged in implementation.  

 

To that end, there are a series of recommendations from the Task Force aimed at ensuring minimal sabotage to government programs based on it's recommendations:

• if a municipality hasn't raised density levels to provincial minimums within 2 years, the province will allow unlimited height and density next to major transit stations (think about the proposed tower on Wyndham St. across from  the Guelph police station)

If Guelph didn't have it's act together vis-a-vis density, it would be forced to accept this building by the province. Image c/o Skyscraper Page.

• force municipalities to change their zoning and plans to ensure the following:

• preserving the character of a neighbourhood would no longer be a priority
• remove site plan approval and public consultation from any development proposal that conforms to the official plan and has 10 or less units
• create province-wide standards with regard to things like lot size, building depth, landscaping, etc---including reducing or eliminating minimum parking requirements
• remove all floor plate restrictions on towers to allow for the creation of more efficient high-density housing
  

• stop municipalities from having more public meetings on a project beyond those required under the provincial Planning Act 
• force municipalities to allow digital participation in public consultation
• force municipalities to delegate decision-making vis-a-vis site plan approvals and minor variances to staff
• prohibit municipalities from making bulk listing on city heritage homes listings and retroactively declaring a home as being "heritage" after a development listing has been filed. In addition, any home owner who has had their property designated as being preserved for historical reasons should be compensated at the fair market rate for loss of revenue.
• restore the right of developers to appeal municipal plans and Municipal Comprehensive Reviews 

&&&&

This pig of an article is already longer than most of my readers will probably like, so I'm going to take a pause here. In part two I'll deal with more Task Force recommendations---the ones aimed at stream-lining the bureaucracy to let housing get proposed and build without years of studies and consultation. I'll also add my own thoughts about what this all means and what I'm going to be looking for this year in both municipal and provincial elections. 

Until then, cross your fingers and hope that the pandemic is finally winding down. If you can, help support the Ukraine war effort any way you think best. Be nice to each other, we've been going through "interesting times"---and they are never fun. 

&&&&

Furthermore I say unto you, the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!