A rural property on Hwy 48 in Markham, Ont., on Jan 16. This farmland is one of several bought shortly before an announcement of housing being built on the Greenbelt. Provincial opposition leaders are asking for a probe.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
Premier Doug Ford and his top ministers got an earful from members of the Rural Ontario Municipal Association on Monday, as mayors and councillors from small communities raised concerns about the province’s housing plan and its move to allow development on parts of the protected Greenbelt.
The three-day ROMA conference in downtown Toronto is being held at a time when the province is under fire from local governments for Bill 23, passed in November, which orders the reduction or elimination of the development charges that municipalities can levy on builders for affordable and rental housing. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario, or AMO, has warned that the changes could cost local governments $5.1-billion over nine years and force them to raise property taxes to cove the costs of new infrastructure such as parks and water pipes.
ROMA chair Robin Jones, the mayor of the Eastern Ontario village of Westport, told delegates in her speech Monday that the past few months have been “challenging” for the relationship between municipalities and the province. In a document distributed at the meeting, her organization calls on the government to reconsider Bill 23 and its moves to limit the powers of local conservation authorities to block developments in sensitive wetlands.
Ontario revises Bill 23 legislation aimed at speeding up housing construction
“Housing is a social and economic crisis that calls for everyone to stop finger-pointing and work together,” she said. “We need real collaboration.”
Colin Best, president of AMO and a regional councillor in Halton, west of Toronto, earned widespread applause both when he called on the province to “fully offset” the losses municipalities could see from Bill 23 and when he said fast-tracking housing while skimping on environmental regulation was a “false economy.”
Speaking to the hundreds of councillors and mayors at the conference, Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark defended the legislation as a way to cut the cost of housing. He has previously pledged to make municipalities “whole” if coming audits show they are short money for infrastructure after the changes.
“We are going to be doing this in the spirit of co-operation,” Mr. Clark said. “We want to work together to increase Ontario’s housing supply.”
Mr. Ford defended his government in a speech, saying more needs to be done to meet the province’s goal of building 1.5 million new homes by 2031.
“You just can’t keep saying, ‘Not in my backyard,’ ” he said. “Where are we going to put these people?”
But Mr. Ford also said he would listen to the ideas of municipalities on the housing crisis, calling small communities “the lifeblood of this province.”
The government’s move to allow housing on parts of the protected Greenbelt attracted a noon-hour protest of about 100 sign-waving environmentalists outside the hotel. The Opposition NDP’s next leader, Marit Stiles, told the crowd her party will fight the Greenbelt changes and would cancel the move if elected in 2026.
“We’re going to fight every step of the way,” Ms. Stiles said. “I believe we can get these guys to reverse course.”
Janet Horner, the mayor of the Township of Mulmur in Dufferin County, and executive director of the Golden Horseshoe Food and Farming Alliance, said farmers in the Greenbelt area have lost the certainty they thought they had about their land being protected and will now look to move outside the province.
“The next generation of farmers will roll north, roll east, roll west,” Ms. Horner said.
Many mayors at the conference say they agree with the province’s goal to build more housing, but that they need more support to make it happen.
Mike Hentz, the mayor of the primarily agricultural Dutton Dunwich, a Southwestern Ontario municipality of 4,000, said it has added 100 homes in the last three years – with new residents attracted by its proximity to London, about a half-hour away.
But he said growth will eventually be choked off unless the province, or the federal government, come up with $9-million to expand the area’s water treatment plant. He said there is land set aside in the Town of Dutton for another 400 homes.
“That’s a building boom to us,” he said in an interview. “We’ve got a lot of growth, and growing pains.”
Editor’s note: In an earlier version of this story, comments made in a document circulated by the Rural Ontario Municipal Association about the Ontario government’s housing legislation were wrongly attributed to a speech by the chair of ROMA, Robin Jones.