Ontario-Municipal Summit Seeks Solutions to Build More Homes
Today, Ontario’s Big City Mayors (OBCM), Mayors and Regional Chairs of Ontario (MARCO), and AMO President Jamie McGarvey met with Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Minister Steve Clark, at the Ontario Housing Affordability Summit.
Premier Ford announced more than $45 million for a new Streamline Development Approval Fund to help Ontario’s 39 largest municipalities modernize, streamline, and accelerate processes for managing and approving housing applications. Over $8 million was announced through the Audit and Accountability Fund to help large urban municipalities identify potential savings and efficiencies through third-party reviews to further accelerate the creation of new housing and modernize municipal services.
The provincial government has also committed to working with the municipal sector to develop a data standard for planning and development applications to help accelerate approval timelines. This work is part of the Ontario Data Authority initiative, designed to accelerate Ontario’s economic and social growth through improved data sharing. AMO’s Digital Government Task Force has been recently re-purposed to work on this needed data standard.
AMO agrees with the province that everyone has a role to play in addressing Ontario’s housing crisis and reiterates that housing affordability is a shared responsibility requiring commitment and coordination from all orders of government and the non-profit, co-operative, and private sector. Today’s Summit was a good start and there is more work to do.
AMO looks forward to continuing to work with our partners to address Ontario’s housing crisis, including at the upcoming Rural Housing Affordability Roundtable. The Premier and Minister will be hosting this Roundtable at the ROMA Conference on January 23rd with rural, remote, and northern municipal leaders.
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