Human Resources Committee on June 6th, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madam Gladu.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, witnesses.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

We're a little over, but it was a good question and a good answer.

We'll go to Mr. Collins for six minutes.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and welcome to the witnesses.

My first question is for Mr. Thorne.

There's a narrative that's being spread across the country that the gatekeepers are holding us up as it relates to supply, so can I get your perspective on where we are with new units—the creation of new units and the approval process? I know that in Hamilton and the GTHA, there have been a record number of units created over the last number of years, so I'm trying to understand where this narrative comes from that demonizes the gatekeepers or municipalities and residents who come out to appear in front of municipal councils to speak to issues related to new supply.

Could you comment on that in terms of where you are with new units and what you see ahead of us in 2022-23?

[Jason Thorne]

In 2021, in the city of Hamilton, and I don't think we're alone on this in the province of Ontario, we had a record-setting year in terms of the number of residential units that were created in the city. It's not just residential, as we had a record year for industrial. We had a record year for commercial, and we had a record year for overall construction value. We exceeded over $2 billion in construction value in the city, which is far and away a record.

We are seeing significant increases in approvals and in supply. I'm also quite pleased to say that, preCOVID, we were seeing some of the fastest approvals we have seen. We track all types of different development applications and their approval timelines. In some cases, we had seen 100 or more days shaved off the approval timelines.

As with any process, I think it can always be approved and made more efficient, but the record for the past couple of years is that we are seeing record levels of development activity in our city and in other cities in Ontario.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'll go to Mr. John next.

Mr. John, you know what the wait-list looks like in Hamilton and many other municipalities. It's at an all-time high in terms of sheer numbers. I think when I left, there were 6,200 families and individuals who were on the affordable housing wait-list, and they were waiting three or four years on average to secure a home.

One of the main goals of the fund is to increase supply but to increase affordable supply. I know we have a long track record in Hamilton of partnering with the private sector, not just to create units but to create affordable units. Could you elaborate on how the fund might incentivize the private sector to partner with the affordable housing community as it relates to creating new units, not just new units but affordable units?

[Edward John]

Certainly, yes, in Hamilton we actually have a number of examples of working collaboratively with the development of a number of local organizations to not only build and intensify areas, but to do so by allowing affordability and also addressing local needs through that.

We have one example in our east end. It's an economically challenged area, but there's great access to highways and infrastructure, as well as the future LRT. We took advantage of using municipal incentives to ensure that the additional density that was created at those sites delivered on those local needs.

Through pretty much our only true, direct financial supports, being development charges and parkland exemptions, we were able to encourage a full rehabilitation of a former CityHousing Hamilton site to deliver over 1,000 units, with over 350 of those in rental tenure. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, rental tenure is a challenge in Hamilton. Then, on top of that, we were able to get those rental tenures actually delivered at some affordable rates below market.

Likewise, we also did a home ownership program, once again looking at that missing middle: How do we develop and provide for housing below market, but also allow for people to build equity in their homes going forward?

We built and predicated our funding approach on mixed income, building complete communities and basically liberating what was a socio-economically challenged area that had much infrastructure to support the residents that we knew would be flourishing in that area. We've done so; permits are being pulled right now and certainly units are being delivered far below the market.

It's the ability to continue and build on those. We had only a limited number of incentives coming from the city's levy. We could have gone to far greater depths of affordability had we had other financial supports with that process.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. John.

I will switch gears to Mr. Thorne. You have presented a number of recommendations that mirror those that have been provided by other witnesses from across the country. I think the one at the top of the list has been land acquisition.

Can you elaborate on what the municipality would do with the purchase of either existing units, existing buildings or vacant lots?

[Jason Thorne]

With existing buildings, we have seen the loss of some of the market-owned affordable rentals that we had. I think being able to acquire and protect some of those for long-term affordability would provide great value.

We also have, in Hamilton, a number of sites that are vacant, underutilized, pre-zoned and development-ready, but that are not necessarily in the hands or in the situation of someone who's looking to develop them in the short term. The inability to unlock some of that land supply, to de-risk those properties—we deal with a number of brownfield contamination issues that can hold back development—and to assemble what can often be smaller, fragmented parcels is something that creates impediments to development. I think where municipalities can be engaged, then, is in trying to unlock some of that land supply and getting some of that land back into productive use and onto the market. That could add great value.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Collins.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank the witnesses for being with us today.

The study we are conducting is somewhat exploratory. As we know, the government has decided to invest $4 billion over five years in the construction of 100 new housing units by 2024‑25. There is a lot of talk about affordable housing, but it will be important for us to agree on the definition of affordable housing. It will also be important to see how we can act on equity. The private sector seems to be playing a big role, but one has to ask whether this is the right way to do things.

Thank you for your opinion on this.

My first question is for Ms. Demers.

Ms. Demers, first of all, I wish the ROHQ a happy 50th anniversary. This is the first time you have appeared before the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities. For 50 years, the ROHQ has worked with the most vulnerable people in our society. It has been committed to helping them for all these years. I would like to congratulate you.

I have read one of the briefs on the urban planning strategy that you presented in 2021. This brief was related to Quebec. Earlier, you talked about equity. In the brief, the following was mentioned: "Social and community housing must not only be seen, but also understood by the government and municipalities as a strategic land-use planning tool for equity in the housing market."

Could you tell us more about what is meant by "equity in the housing market"?

[Anne Demers]

Thank you for the question.

If I may, I will give the floor to Ms. Le Roux, who will be able to answer this question better than I can.

[Coralie Le Roux, Senior Advisor, Regroupement des offices d'habitation du Québec]

Good afternoon.

When we talk about equity in the context of the affordable housing market, we have to distinguish between, on the one hand, median rents based on the market in general and, on the other hand, rents based on the incomes of the most vulnerable households. We find that affordable housing programs are generally based on median rents.

But do these median rents really meet the needs of the most vulnerable people we want to support in the area of housing? We need to ask ourselves who we want to target.

To establish equity in the supply of social housing, we must first ask ourselves who we want to serve when we develop projects related to affordable housing, whether they are called community or social housing.

I agree with you about the definition of housing affordability. There is an urgent need to define this notion. I don't think the provinces and the federal government all have the same definition of what is affordable.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

We know that this fund is aimed at building new housing. But even though we're talking about affordable housing in general, we've heard from a number of witnesses that the demand is mostly for affordable rental housing. It is not enough to create them, we must also ensure their sustainability.

In your opinion, could such a fund be used not only to build new housing, but also to renovate some existing housing to ensure its sustainability?

Could that be an option?

[Anne Demers]

Thank you for the question.

It is absolutely true. From our perspective, it's not necessarily a matter of starting from scratch and building a new building. We have to take advantage of existing opportunities. On the one hand, this could be federal properties or buildings, and on the other hand, it could be existing housing buildings, which could be acquired by social and community housing developers. This would certainly accelerate our society's ability to provide housing not only for our low-income citizens, for whom this is an extremely important social safety net, but also for middle-class people. They are finding it increasingly difficult to find rental housing at a reasonable, and therefore affordable, price, representing more or less 30% of their household income.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

We know that the definition of affordability can be broad. You mentioned certain criteria earlier. It is true that the definitions are not the same.

Do you believe that a common definition of housing affordability should also be applied in several federal government programs?

Have you already proposed definitions?

[Anne Demers]

Discussions on the various possible definitions are underway. The overall objective, which is clearly expressed and felt, is to respond as well as possible to the important needs not only of the most vulnerable people, who are the primary clientele served by the housing authorities, but also of middle-class households. Communication and collaboration are established to arrive at this definition in order to continue with the implementation of the programs, for instance.

If I may add another element, I would say that we advocate the use of social and community housing developers who have expertise in the management of the clienteles who live in these units and in the development of these projects.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

You only have 10 seconds left, Ms. Chabot.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

We now have Madam Zarrillo for six minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks so much to the witnesses today.

I want to thank the witnesses from the City of Hamilton for giving us that inside view, and I want to go back to something Mr. Thorne said.

Mr. Thorne, I'm going to ask you a question on this. You mentioned having a clarified goal. I'm not sure that the housing accelerator fund has a clarified goal.

I'm looking at what it was initially described as: housing supply to be increased in the largest cities everywhere in the country; creating 100,000 new middle-class homes by 2024-25; application-based to offer municipalities the opportunity to grow housing supply, increase densification and speed up approval times and these sorts of things.

Really, what the conversation has been about in this committee over the last few weeks is the need to address the core housing needs of the communities, and it has really moved towards rental housing and not-for-profit housing, which is not the same thing as the way the housing accelerator fund was positioned at the beginning. I think we really need to get an idea of what this housing accelerator fund needs to do, because I'd like to focus specifically on the rental housing.

In our testimony back on May 16, we heard from the executive director of the Neighbourhood Land Trust about the fact that we need to start protecting some of the affordable rental housing that already exists. I heard it again today. I would just ask you, Mr. Thorne, if you could give us a little more information for testimony around what you think the housing accelerator fund can do to protect purpose-built rental, low-income rental and rental that is going to address core needs in the community, and how saving or protecting that could be faster than new construction.

[Jason Thorne]

I'll offer a couple of thoughts.

One—and I think I've heard it from other witnesses as well—is around the direct acquisition by either municipalities or housing providers of some of that low-cost rental housing that is market housing but is at risk of escalating rents. I think that would be a useful part of the program.

As well, though, I don't want to shortchange the supply side of incentivizing and supporting new supply for rental, and that could be market rental, because if we don't do that, then we're going to direct that investment to some of the existing rental stock that we already have and to the acquisition of it in the private marketplace and the upscaling of the rents in those locations. There's an acquisition component to it.

I also think there is a component of acquisition of vacant lands in order to build new rental stock.

I would agree with the premise of the question. From my standpoint, it is a bit unclear where the focus of this program would be, and I would suggest that increasing housing supply is very important but that we cannot be agnostic to the important questions of affordability, tenure, type, location and environmental performance, which I think are equally important goals.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you very much.

I will now go to Mr. John around the work that the cities have been doing to get affordable housing and to get purpose-built rental on the ground.

You mentioned a few of the different density bonuses, like parking relaxations, maybe, density transfers, and all of these things that the cities have had to do on their own without support from the federal government. I wonder if you could clarify what the carrots are—rather than sticks—that the federal government could help cities with, so that cities don't have to put the burden on the community to increase density, relax parking regulations and give up things in the community just to get that affordable housing built. Could you be just a little clearer on what the federal government could do there?

[Edward John]

Paramount to this is building complete communities. This isn't sacrificing one thing for the delivery of affordability. Affordability needs to be in the lexicon of every new development. It needs to be understood that it is a pressing need, but it is also the right response for every community to accommodate the needs of every single resident.

As I mentioned, the federal government has had a number of funding envelopes that have actually supported the delivery of housing units in various elements of our housing spectrum. My understanding of the housing accelerator fund is that it isn't necessarily focused on deep affordability, but rather on supply. However, similar to previous comments today, we can target that supply so we're actually addressing local housing needs.

As I mentioned, rental housing is one of the key pieces in Hamilton. We've struggled to build new rental housing. The market is not strong, so any fund that can support the offsetting of those long-term costs of building rental tenure in Hamilton would be a significant step forward in addressing some of that.

The other piece is the operating side. We have a rich number of housing providers who deliver affordable housing. Engaging them in the discussion and understanding what the needs are from an operating perspective and a pro forma perspective will allow us to get meaningful rental in the right locations, at the right household composition, and delivered to those families in most need of sustainability.

Beyond just the direct financial tools the city is offering in terms of development charges and parkland dedication dispensations, I think you've picked up on a number of those planning-related pieces too. Parking is one. Often the requirement for over-provision of parking is a barrier to rental and affordable housing. We have to look at how we build in mixed incomes. How do we build a building that can appeal to those of lower economic means, remove stigma from affordability, and also build a complete community within the towers themselves? We have to stop looking at neighbourhoods as individual units, and start looking at them as buildings that are organic and delivering key messages throughout the city.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Madam Zarrillo and Mr. John.

Now we go to Madam Kusie for five minutes.