London, Ont., will not be meeting its housing start goal set out by the province, according to a report from city staff.
The municipal goal is part of the provincial government’s goal of 1.5 million homes built by 2031. To incentivize municipalities to get homes approved and built, the province launched the Building Faster Fund earlier this year.
The fund will provide $400 million in annual funding to municipalities that reach 80 per cent of their annual housing target each year.
London’s target for 2023 was 3,447. So far, the city has had 1,260 housing starts.
The city staff report shows that as of Oct. 17, 3,061 units had been approved by council. It’s anticipated that council will have approved units in excess of the target, but actual units constructed will fall well below the target.
“We need the mechanisms to turn what is permissions into units,” says London Mayor Josh Morgan.
“We have over 18,000 of them already here in the city. Permissions that are substantially completed to the municipal process. We need tools to turn those into actual units.”
Morgan says that the city has been doing what it can to approve units, but it’s on developers to get homes built.
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“If the permits don’t get pulled, we’re not going to be able to access needed infrastructure and critical infrastructure funding that we need to permit housing in this province and in the city through the BFF fund.”
So far, out of the 20 largest cities in Ontario, only two have either met, or on track to meet their targets by the end of the year.
Housing starts are in the hands of the market and developers, not the city. Developers have said that high interest rates are impacting the number of projects breaking ground.
Ward 8 Coun. Steve Lehman predicts that once interest rates level out, the city will be “flooded with permits.”
“We’re laying the groundwork now to handle that increase in permits and applications site plan approvals,” Lehman said.
“These rezoning applications will translate into site plans will translate into shovels in the ground.”
Lehman says that there has to be discussions with the province about the criteria used for the housing starts and that housing starts will naturally “ebb and flow” with interest rates.
Ontario’s big city mayors have been pushing for a change to criteria based on approvals instead of housing starts.
According to Morgan, the province is open to discussing different ways of thinking about the housing goals, but hasn’t offered a commitment or timeline to changing them.
Ward 4 Coun. Susan Stevenson says that city council needs to focus on creative solutions instead of asking the province to change the criteria.
“The hard truth is that building permits don’t put a roof over Londoners’ heads. I’m not sure that asking the province to make that the goal is going to help us achieve what we all want, which is more housing for the city,” Stevenson said.
“I want to hear us rise to the challenge, get excited about the opportunity and provide the homes that Londoners both need and deserve. We don’t benefit by making excuses.”
In order to meet 2024’s target, London will have to build at the same rate of building activity it had in 2021, when 3,999 units were constructed.
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