Housing affordability measures coming ‘very soon’: Ontario premier

At Queen’s Park, Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown called for longer-term measures to address housing supply shortage, accusing the government of standing by as housing prices have reached “a crisis point.”

Brown said the government needs to reduce the “red tape and regulatory burden” on building new houses, and called for a panel of experts to develop housing market measures, as well as to address housing demand by collecting data on speculative vacancies.

“It’s nice that they’ve joined the conversation, but all they’re offering is conversation,” Finance Minister Charles Sousa said of the Progressive Conservative proposals.

Josh Gordon, a Simon Fraser University associate professor who is studying the Toronto-area housing market, said one thing the government could do is target the demand.

“Fundamentally, the government needs to change expectations and, in my view, the main thing that would change expectations and dramatically curtail this kind of panicked demand is something like a foreign buyers’ tax that is stiff and targeted at the Toronto market,” Gordon said.

“That would have an immediate impact on the amount of demand, by affecting foreign demand, but also would scare off a lot of the investor demand as they wait and see what happened,” he said.

Measures to expedite housing supply wouldn’t have an immediate impact on the housing market, he said.

The Building Industry and Land Development Association has said Ontario’s restrictive growth plan that’s been in place for the last decade — known as Places to Grow — has contributed to the current housing shortage and soaring home prices.

But Municipal Affairs Minister Bill Mauro dismissed that suggestion last week, saying there is enough serviced land — connected to municipal water and wastewater systems — in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area to accommodate three to four years’ worth of development.

Jessica Smith Cross, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Housing affordability measures coming ‘very soon’: Ontario premier

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