The city of Hamilton is considering rules that might require anyone wishing to demolish an existing apartment building to provide an equal number of affordable units in a new building. Toronto has such rules. But under Bill 23, the More Homes Built Faster Act, the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has the right to create regulations across the province and there are concerns about how he will use that right.
The government is consulting on what the regulations should be, with a deadline of December 9. It is crucial that we have regulations that require existing affordable rental units to be replaced, or we will lose vital existing rental supply.
Deadline December 9, 2022 You can participate here https://www.ontariocanada.com/registry/view.do?postingId=42808&language=en and also send letters to your MPPs.
In the consultation, “The government is seeking input on whether and how municipal rental replacement bylaws may be impacting housing supply and renter protections.
- What types of requirements should municipalities be able to set around residential rental demolition and conversion?
- What types of requirements should municipalities not be able to set (e.g., are there requirements that pose a barrier to creating new or renewed housing supply or limit access to housing)?
- What impact do you think municipal rental replacement bylaws might have on the supply and construction of new housing?”
Your Affordable Housing Team thinks this should be a local municipal responsibility, not provincial, to account for all the differences among Ontario municipalities, some with lots of old housing, some newer, with varying degrees of rental supply, rental vacancies, etc.
But if there are to be provincial regulations, municipalities should be able to require that if a rental building is to be demolished, it must be replaced by a rental building or a mixed-use building that includes rental units; that the number of new rental units must exceed the number in the original building; that the new rental units at least have the same number of three-or-more bedroom units as the old building, to preserve family housing; and that any units in the old building that rented for less than Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation average market rent for the CMHC zone when last occupied must be replaced by new units of the same size and at the same rent, increased only by the annual rent control guidelines.
What is critical in this kind of regulations is the impact on rental housing supply. There is a distinct shortage of rental housing construction, except at high market rents, and it is essential to discourage loss of existing rental and to ensure replacement where units are lost because the original building is probably beyond saving or where replacement will significantly add to the supply of new rental housing.
These proposed regulations will not discourage new supply but in fact encourage new supply. They will encourage construction of large buildings, buildings that significantly exceed the number of replacement units required by the municipality, to provide the revenue to pay for the required units.