Item - 2023.PH3.10

The Planning and Housing Committee:

1. Received the report (April 11, 2023) from the Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning for information.

This report responds to a request from Planning and Housing Committee on a new approach to securing affordable housing units within new developments. The report highlights the range of tools to deliver complete communities through securing new affordable housing and community infrastructure.

Provincial legislation, as well as the City's Official Plan policies, encourage and support the development of complete communities with a full range of housing options and adequate community infrastructure. The City currently implements a suite of policies and programs to secure new affordable housing, to maintain and preserve the existing affordable housing stock, and secure needed community infrastructure.

The City is currently leveraging all available land use planning tools under the Planning Act and City of Toronto Act to secure new affordable housing and community infrastructure. Changes to provincial legislation have limited the City's ability to make full use of existing policies and approaches including those advanced by the Province such as Inclusionary Zoning. Provincial changes have also changed the opportunity for the City to secure successful negotiated outcomes.

Other potential tools are laid out in this report that could help to advance the delivery of these matters, however action is required from the Province to introduce new legislation and/or regulations. These include enabling zoning with conditions, aligning community benefits charge (CBC) rates with growth-related costs, and providing the legislative policies for Inclusionary Zoning to be implemented city-wide. City Council has previously requested the Province to enable zoning with conditions (2022.PH33.11), ensure the community benefits charge sufficiently pays for growth related infrastructure (PH33.11), and allow for implementation of Inclusionary Zoning city-wide (2023.CC1.2).