Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force Report – Town Staff Response

The following are key points for consideration with respect to this report:

• The Town continues to take action to ensure that housing is accessible to all residents at any age or stage in life.
• In February 2022, the provincially appointed Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force released its report with 55 recommendations.
• This staff report provides Council with an overview of the Task Force’s report and key areas of applicability and/or concern to Halton Hills.
• Town staff agree that significant action is needed to address housing affordability. Although Town staff generally and in principle support the overall intent of the Task Force recommendations, specifically in terms of the need to urgently address housing affordability challenges, staff have major concerns with several of the recommendations, especially those that appear to limit local autonomy and would have significant financial impacts to municipalities.

• This report is administrative in nature and does not directly impact or address climate change and the Town’s Net Zero target.
• Although this report is administrative, Town staff note that the housing intensification-related recommendations have the potential to support the Town’s climate change objectives.
• However, Town staff also note that the Task Force recommendations do not address the need to modernize the Ontario Building Code to ensure that new housing construction implements elevated standards (i.e. Green Development Standards) to address climate change.
• At its April 11, 2022 meeting, Council passed the “Build it Right the First Time” resolution requesting the province to include energy performance tiers and timelines for increasing minimum energy performance standards step-by-step to the highest energy performance tier in the next edition of the Ontario Building Code, consistent with the intent of the draft National Model Building code and the necessity of bold and immediate provincial action on climate change