Item - 2025.MM29.16

Mayor Olivia Chow, seconded by Councillor Gord Perks, recommends that:

1. City Council reaffirm its request of the Province of Ontario to amend the Development Charges Act to authorize municipalities to adjust or remove annual indexing provisions without an amendment to the development charge by-law in order to incentivize building new housing.

2. City Council authorize the Chief Financial Officer, in coordination with appropriate City staff, and in the event that the Province of Ontario does not fulfill City Council’s previous request to waive the requirement for the City to index its development charges annually, to use Section 27 agreements, in a form satisfactory to the City Solicitor, on all new housing developments effective May 1, 2025 to freeze development charges at current rates until such time that the Chief Financial Officer completes the Council directed comprehensive review of development charges, and a new development charge by-law is adopted.

3. City Council request the Province of Ontario to amend the Development Charges Act to give municipalities the flexibility to reallocate development charge funds collected for specific service areas toward any development charge eligible project across other development charge service areas without the need to for future repayment or to merge services areas through a new By-law, so the City can meet critical infrastructure needs to support new housing.

4. City Council request the Province of Ontario to amend the Development Charges Act to allow federal and provincial infrastructure funding contributions to be directed to the non-growth share of development charge eligible projects and/or to offset revenue loss from Council’s discretionary rate reductions, so the City can optimize all available funding sources to get critical infrastructure projects finished more quickly.

5. City Council reaffirm its request of the Province of Ontario to make the City of Toronto whole for lost revenue as a result of Bill 23.