Housing is top of mind for Canadians with the federal election less than a week away, but unless political parties cut the red tape responsible for the chronic undersupply of housing in key markets, the affordability woes will persist, says RE\/MAX.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the federal platforms don\u2019t touch on the jurisdiction limitations when it comes to housing. Our point is that there needs to be a plan involving all three levels of government working together,\u201d said Christopher Alexander, senior vice president of RE\/MAX Canada. \u201cThe only way we\u2019re going to achieve more supply is if we start to unlock land that has been restricted from development for a variety of reasons, specifically in Greater Vancouver and Greater Toronto, where there\u2019s such a lock on development that there has been upward pressure on prices because there\u2019s no way to keep pace with the amount of demand we\u2019re experiencing.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to lacking a cogent action plan between municipalities, provinces and the federal government, Alexander says the painstakingly slow approvals and rezoning process in the aforementioned metropolitan regions is preventing housing units from being completed in a timely manner.<\/p>\n
\u201cA year and a half is a long time and it\u2019s because there\u2019s a lot of bureaucracy,\u201d he continued. \u201cA perfect example is the Rail Deck Park that was debated for almost two years. But there\u2019s no reason, other than bureaucracy, that approvals should take that long. Bureaucracy has led to the constriction of the approvals process.\u201d<\/p>\n
RE\/MAX isn\u2019t the only organization that thinks so. The Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) has long advocated, albeit in vain, for a more seamless approvals and rezoning process. Although it isn\u2019t an all-encompassing solution to the logjam, the Ministerial Zoning Order (MZO) is a tool the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing could use to regulate land use, building location, height, size, use, even spacing. Essentially, MZOs can push developments mired in delays through the system.<\/p>\n
But according to RESCON\u2019s president, there is only so much that can be accomplished with MZOs because the system needs to be overhauled.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe use of MZOs is reflective of a systemic problem in the planning approvals process,\u201d said Richard Lyall. \u201cThe present system, quite simply, is inefficient and needs to be modernized and digitized. Going forward, we need the entire development and building approvals process to be online. However, we aren\u2019t even close to that happening. Presently, there are too many government agencies and ministries that all have their fingers in the pie, which only bogs down the approvals process.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Housing is top of mind for Canadians with the federal election less than a week away, but unless political parties cut the red tape responsible for the chronic undersupply of housing in key markets, the affordability woes will persist, says RE\/MAX. \u201cAll the federal platforms don\u2019t touch on the jurisdiction limitations when it comes to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23934,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9303\/revisions\/23934"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}