Can a zoning ‘revolution’ save Canada from a housing crisis?
On Oct. 20, Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie came back from her temporary leave to overrule a previous rejection by city council and allow the building of four-unit housing on low-rise residential lots.
The move not only kept Mississauga in the running for a federal housing grant, but it also added the city to the growing list of municipalities around Canada pushing through massive zoning changes to address Canada’s housing crisis.
Since the federal government’s $4-billion Housing Accelerator Fund was launched in May of this year, cities have been rushing to claim the incentives that are tied to zoning changes. In the last few months, the Ontario cities of Brampton, London, Vaughan and Hamilton, as well as Halifax and Kelowna, have all signed agreements with the federal government. Others, like the Ontario cities of Mississauga, Kitchener and Burlington, as well as Calgary, were making significant gains in zoning changes.
This has led some experts to argue that Canada was witnessing nothing short of a zoning “revolution.” In much of the country, zoning restrictions mean developers are allowed to build only single-family homes or condo towers in residential areas. There is a huge chunk of housing options, often referred to as “missing middle housing,” that does not get built.
“It’s been really fascinating to watch how quickly that’s happened after almost 50 years of that (single-family) zoning being locked in place,” Carolyn Whitzman, a housing policy expert and expert advisor to the Housing Assessment Resource Tools Project, told Global News this week.
“That’s a revolution.”
Whitzman said cities around Canada are beginning to realize that single-family zoning is not only serving them poorly but is exacerbating the
Read more on globalnews.ca
