Ontario Construction News staff writer
The Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) supports Toronto Mayor John Tory’s call for a 2023 Housing Action Plan to enable the city to meet or exceed a new provincial target of building 285,000 new homes over the next 10 years.
“RESCON applauds without reservation Toronto Mayor John Tory and Planning and Housing Committee Chair Councillor Brad Bradford as they advance meaningful and measurable solutions to the city’s housing affordability and supply crisis with their 2023 Housing Action Plan,” said RESCON president Richard Lyall.
Council will debate the mayor’s plan on Wednesday. It includes a broad range of initiatives that will substantially advance crucial policy changes.
“The commitment to meet or exceed provincial housing targets as a result of Toronto’s new Housing Action Plan is a once-in-a-generation change to housing policy that RESCON fully supports, endorses and will assist the city in every way possible to deliver upon,” Lyall said.
The mayor wants to chage zoning policies to prioritize housing construction, increase zoning permissions on major streets, create transition zones between commercial and potential residential areas, expand permissions for multiplexes and additional housing forms, remove exclusionary zoning restrictions along with myriad provisions specifically designed to escalate significantly residential housing construction.
“The scale of the changes proposed by the 2023 Housing Action Plan are so extensive that they are precisely the character of initiatives that RESCON has been calling for in order to address the housing affordability and supply crisis,” Lyall said.
“The mayor’s commitments to outcome management, transparency and in particular the delivery of a multi-tenant housing regulatory and enforcement framework are a massive step forward in protecting so many of our most vulnerable residents.”
RESCON “unreservedly supports” what Lyall calls some of the most significant changes to planning and development policies Toronto has ever seen.
“Mayor Tory and councillor Bradford are demonstrating the kind of leadership and commitment that is absolutely necessary to address the housing crisis and we encourage all councillors and housing stakeholders to support their challenging and outstanding work on this issue,” he said.