How to fix the housing crisis? Experts, mayors bring ideas to annual Ontario summit

Key players in Ontario and the Greater Toronto Area's housingsector, along with municipal leaders, gathered virtually Thursday to highlight the problems perpetuating the housing crisis and to discuss possible solutions.

The event, organized by theResidential Construction Council of Ontario,is the third by theresidential builders association since the event's launchlast year to help tacklethe province's housing crunch.

Here's what the panelists had to say.

What'sunderpinningthe housing crisis?

Toronto Regional Real Estate Board chief market analyst Jason Mercer says multiple factorshave contributed to today'stight housing market, particularly in the GTA. Of the most pressing factors arehigh lending rates that hit in a short periodof timeand the rate of construction not keeping up with population growth overthe past two decades, said Mercer.

That means not only is the province behind on housing supply, it needs to overcompensate forthe influx of newcomersexpected to arrive. If it doesn't, the health of the local, provincial and even national economy is at stake, he said.

"If people don't feel comfortable with their ability to move to Canada and specifically the GTA ...they're going to start to look elsewhere," said Mercer.

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Despite this, Marlon Bray, the head of Altus Group'sOntario pre-construction and contract administration services, said the country is building slower thanks to the overall labour shortage ofconstruction workers.

"All of these sources [that]arebringing in labour have kind of been tapped out ... This is being worked on, but it takes time," said Bray, pointing toimmigration reforms and a provincial emphasis on the skilled trades as an in-demand career.

Mayors have a say

With those problems serving as a backdrop for their terms, three mayorsweighed in on their top priorities when it comes to housing.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow says the city set a target to approve 40,000 new affordable rental homes by 2030, and that a new report coming to council in the next few weeks is suggesting that be increased by some 20,000 units.

As part of that effort,she says the city has already committed $8 billion over the next decade that will go toward things like using government-owned land, speeding up development processes andconsolidating city departments.

But she says the city needsmore fundingfrom both the province and the federal government, citing a gap of billions of dollars between what Toronto has requested and what both governments committed.

"We're asking them to provide land, provide financial support, so we could accelerate," said Chow.

Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie says his council is looking to "get out of the way" of development processes and allow more projects as of right, along with rehabilitating the city's brownfieldslandwhere past industrial or commercial activities may have left contamination for affordable housing projects.

Butfollowing through on the city's plan has been made more complicated by the flurry of recentchanges in provincial legislation, he said.The changes, he said, have"bogged" down staff who have to spend time on consultations and catching up with the latest directives instead offocusing on planning approvals and development.

"Make whatever changes they're really looking at making, andthen please leave us alone," said Guthrie, in a message to the province.

Wilmot Township MayorNatasha Salonensays tackling NIMBY sentimentsthat may be getting in the way of developmentand encouraging secondary suitesremains high on her list.

The issue affects her personally even as mayor, she says she can't afford a home in her own municipality. That's partly why finding ways to de-incentivize using housing as a form of investment is something the industry and government should keep in mind, she said.

"When everybody has their own incentives and commissions along the way, that adds up to housing affordability not working out," said Salonen.

So what are the solutions?

Similar to previous years, panelists reiterated the need to streamline and digitize development processes and to do away with restrictive zoning.

New to this year's event was a focus on the need formodular housing.

Panelists argued the country's development industry couldfocus more on mass producing modular homes housing units that are builtoff-site and assembled on-site. It's a method ofconstruction that some non-profitgroupshave used to get housing built faster for those who need it.

Albert Bendersky, the vice president of design at construction company BECC Modular, says the housing industry has suffered from being slow to innovate and educate stakeholders on new tech.

Modular homes can helpbring the cost of projects down while bringing the speed of completion up, he said. The Canadian development industry hashad the benefit of watching other players in different countries bring these homes tomarket, and can help lead the success of it here with more investment from governments, he added.

"You cannot resolveexisting crisis with the old tools. And in order to use new tools, you have to learn how to use them," said Bendersky.

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Another focus this year was how the federal government can furtherreform its tax schemes to be more equitableto other governmentsand helpincentivize rental development.

Paul Smetanin,president of the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis, says recentresearch from the centre suggests new housing in Ontario is taxed at 31 per cent of its purchase price, with governments taking more than three times than the builder.

One of the main problems lies with the federal government, which takes almost 40 per cent of tax revenuesbut only invests about 7.1 per cent back into Ontario's public infrastructure, Smetanin said.

"The money is being raised and yet it's leaving the province and it's not coming back to the province in a way, shape or form that would actually help the municipalities on the ground," said Smetanin.

And while thefederal government recently announcedit would waive GSTin the construction of new rental apartmentsto spur new development, Mike Moffatt, the senior director of policy and innovation at the Smart Prosperity Institute, says it's not enough.

"The GST was a great move, but we got to do more," said Moffatt.

"Governments need to find other ways to fund this infrastructure that don't involve treating new building [as]something thatshould be taxed out of existence."