How will Ontario municipalities handle housing?

The Ontario government has made a series of policies over the past year that will alter the trajectory of development.

By opening the Greenbelt and other farmland, reclassifying wetlands, reducing density targets and allowing municipalities to expand beyond established urban limits, Doug Ford’s government says it aims to encourage speedy housing construction.

Some say these changes will exacerbate the loss of farmland but the province hasn’t elaborated on its vision.

Why it matters: Statistics Canada data indicates Ontario lost an average of 319 acres of farmland per day to development in 2021. Recent policy changes by the provincial government could exacerbate that loss.

Many policy changes are in various stages of the legislative process, from proposal and consultation to amendment, readings and official adoption.

Fatima Syed, an investigative journalist with The Narwhal, is on a team that is examining the development policy changes. She finds it challenging to convey the volume and complexity of the government’s development-related actions.

The government hasn’t been forthcoming with information so Syed’s data comes almost entirely from discussions with municipal planners, who themselves have questions.

“It’s almost impossible to get the housing minister to constructively engage with a lot of changes that have been made. In our experience, we’ve either got the government line or you get non-answers,” she told Farmtario.

“I think that’s not helpful to reporters who are trying to explain the impacts of very complicated, complex, very nuanced policies.

It’s not helpful to the public on issues that affect them. It doesn’t help the municipalities, as they have no idea what’s going on.

“The fact is, homes are not going to be built by these legislative documents. They’re going to be built by people understanding these legislative documents and know what to do with them … I can’t tell you one person in the (provincial) government who has sat down with me to explain this. …

“They’re not dissecting how things will work, explaining the rational behind those changes, or making them less bureaucratic. If governments want to make significant changes, then they should be able to also communicate the rational, the impact, and supports they’re going to offer alongside these massive changes.”

Syed said the speed with which the province has unveiled development legislation has kept journalists, municipal employees and many others from “coming up for air.” It has also heightened concerns around longer-term impacts as each municipality determines its way forward.

“Municipalities can’t do this alone,” she said. “They also have to look beyond those boundaries and neighbouring jurisdictions. It’s kind of impossible to do that when the sand keeps shifting beneath their feet.”

Drew Spoelstra, Niagara-area farmer and vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA), expresses similar concerns.

“You really need to let the dust settle before you make more changes. Eventually you need to see what’s working and what’s not working,” he said.

OFA has provided comment to the province on land development policy changes and reiterated its support of previous farmland protection policies. Spoelstra says Bill 23 mentions better housing resources in rural areas, which could help spur growth in rural communities and local farm businesses. However, farmland protection is a significant concern.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty right now on how we’re going to protect farmland. Is every area looked at as the next place to develop?

“Frankly, we need people in those communities to fill jobs, work and be part of that ag system. But I think it’s fair to say we have legitimate concerns on rural lot severances from losing prime agricultural land … there are other concerns like the environment as well. All houses are going to be on wells and septic,” says Spoelstra.

“What does the future look like for identifying prime agricultural areas, specialty crop areas, and how does that relate to development? Really, what’s going to be left for the future?”

Minimum distance problems

John Vanthof, MPP for Timiskaming-Cochrane, says government assurances that development policy changes will not hurt the longevity of Ontario’s farm sector — and particularly the livestock sector — are inadequate. He is concerned about the impacts of repeated policy changes.

Vanthof takes particular issue with Bill 97 and the increase in severance allowance. It could be good for farm families, given that the ability to build on-farm homes for family or workers has been touted by the provincial government as a critical benefit to the agriculture sector.

But Vanthof notes anyone, not just farmers, can sever and sell land for housing.

“Where that impacts agriculture is with Ontario’s minimum distance separation requirements … Once you start plunking houses all over, livestock farmers may not be able to build due to minimum distance requirements.

“There could be parts of the province where you can no longer build livestock operations,” said Vanthof. As a farmer, he said he faced this very problem when trying to expand his livestock operation. An adjacent house had to be purchased to do so.

Jack Chaffe, beef farmer and president of Beef Farmers of Ontario, said he can’t see any real benefit to livestock producers in the province’s development plans. This is particularly true for Bill 97 and its implications for minimum distance requirements. Chaffe believes it will mean fewer livestock farms and more housing severances.

“Normally the first sale, it’s someone you know and they understand it’s a farming area. It’s when they get resold. It’s the second owners that we end up having problems with … Even for crop farmers, there’s lots of work done at night and people may not like them being in the field at 3 a.m.,” Chaffe said.

Vanthof says the decline in number of livestock businesses and farms will be slow but steady.

“It’s obvious this government believes the secret to success is trashing everything that was done before and blundering ahead,” he said.

“Can things be made better? Obviously, but there’s a reason things were done. When you move really fast and scrap everything — they don’t even know what the impact was of the last thing they did.

“To pave over the world’s greatest resource without thinking about it, we are making a big societal mistake. We’re going to look back and wonder why we did it.”

– This article was published in the May 15, 2o23, issue of Farmtario.