New Bill 17 another power grab that fails to address housing crisis

By Victor Doyle, RPP, MCIP

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Following on the heels of the power grabbing and endangered species abandonment of the recent Bill 5, on May 12 the Ford government continued its years long, failed legislative and policy attempts to get the development industry to build the housing we need. It introduced Bill 17- Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter Act, 2025.

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A deep dive into this omnibus bill again reveals virtually no meaningful, positive steps to address the housing crisis. The bill proposes to defer development charges to occupancy rather than building permit, make municipal development charge (DC) reductions retroactive to under construction homes which paid a higher DC, and exempt all Long-Term Care Homes from DCs (an exemption which should likely only be for municipal or not-for-profit projects). Otherwise, the Bill contains no concrete steps to address the cost or facilitate the construction of housing. 

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All the other proposed development charge provisions are minor tweaks or commitments to consult on other potential items down the road – like the government dictating how much of infrastructure costs should be borne by existing residents (worrying given the government’s penchant to favor developers) and exploring a water/wastewater utility model – a potentially positive model but extreme caution needed given this government’s track record. 

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Many other changes fall into the future study or minor procedural barrel such as streamlining school approvals, harmonizing construction materials, better data and DC reports from municipalities and amending the Building and Fire Codes to facilitate 4 storey townhouses – recalling the government refused to require municipalities to allow fourplexes in existing neighborhoods.

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Indeed, the most impactful parts of Bill 17 build on the government’s pattern of by-passing, ignoring or exempting Ontario’s land use and environmental policies – as well as decades of good planning policy – to spur low density urban sprawl and scattered subdivision development in the countryside. It does this by further concentrating power into the hands of provincial ministers while further removing municipal decision-making authorities by duly elected councils. 

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Key elements of the ongoing override of provincial policy and provincial power grab include giving the Minister of Infrastructure the power to issue Minister Zoning Orders (MZOs). We all know how the unprecedented use of MZOs (118 times) has gone completely off the rails as reported in excruciating detail by the Auditor General and ongoing and recent findings of the Integrity Commissioner. Expanding this extraordinary power to the Minister overseeing highly questionable and criticized infrastructure projects like Ontario Place and Highway 413 – both colored by specific legislative end runs to avoid all existing planning and environmental rules - raises the most serious of concerns.

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Yet this authority pales to the proposal in government briefing documents released with Bill 17 to allow the Minister to identify circumstances where he can ignore any and all provincial planning policies in making decisions under the Planning Act. This is a complete power grab in the same class as Bill 5’s Special Economic Zones where no laws or policies would apply. 

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Other examples of power grabs in Bill 17 include limiting municipalities to regulating any matters outside the Building Code. This is a direct attack on green development standards needed to both adapt to and mitigate climate change – which directly conflicts with the governments’ own recently passed Provincial Planning Statement. Similarly, limiting the studies municipalities can request to support a development application – with the threat of releasing a singular provincial list – represents more ill-informed provincial overreach. As well, proposing that a municipality cannot review any study submitted by a certified professional ignores the fact that municipalities must ensure public health and safety and adhere to critical provincial and municipal land use and engineering rules. To make matters worse, the bill proposes that the Government may establish a limit on what municipal official plans can address – an ominous prospect given the Ford government’s track record.

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And back to housing, any potential positives of the bill on housing are completely undermined by the Government delivering on its Fall 2022 commitment (Bill 23) to limit municipal use of inclusionary zoning by capping the number of affordable units to 5% of a project and limiting the affordability period to 25 years. This will severely reduce the number of new units and the durability of the affordability that can be attained. Policy in use in New York and approved by the City of Toronto (but sitting at the Ministry unapproved for 2 years) allow for up to 20% of units to be affordable with 99 year affordability periods. Clearly, the government is ignoring the true affordability crisis and continuing to rely on the private market which has demonstrated it cannot be relied upon to provide the housing we need on its own initiative.

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By proposing to streamline approvals for private communal water and wastewater services in the rural areas, the bill doubles down on the government’s dismantling of land use policies directing growth to serviced settlement areas while prohibiting scattered subdivisions in the countryside and restricting growth in un-serviced rural hamlets (as seen through the repeal of the Growth Plan and severed weakening of the Provincial Planning Statement).

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Private communal water and sewer systems have always been highly discouraged in Ontario given the environmental issues/impacts, liability and lack of municipal oversight of these critical systems. And because they facilitate growth in places that are not suitable for growth

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Overall, Bill 17 has little to facilitate housing or reduce its cost.  It builds on and continues the concentration of power in the hands of the Province and individual ministers in ways which can by-pass public input and provincial policies in unaccountable ways while continuing the disenfranchisement of local municipal decision-making – all to primarily support its commitment to low density urban sprawl and scattered development across the countryside.

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