Law360 Canada (October 8, 2026, 4:55 PM EDT) -- A major trade association is recommending Ontario make significant changes to its laws around zoning and development to help spur housing growth in light of promises to build 1.5 million new houses by 2031.
The Toronto Region Board of Trade’s “
A Blueprint for Growth: Towards a New Deal for Housing” notes the Ontario government will fall far short of its goal, saying current rules are “standing in the way of delivering the new housing we need.” It is arguing that reform of zoning rules and the provincial building code would be a big step forward in addressing the challenges of getting new homes built.
The report noted Ontario doesn’t have one housing market — it has hundreds.
“Every municipality writes its own zoning bylaws, each with its own terminology and rules on features like building heights, parking requirements, lot size and dozens of other factors,” the report said. “Builders who complete a successful project in one city and want to replicate it in another need to go back to the drawing board.”
The report recommends developing a provincial zoning code that gives every municipality the same framework and terminology, requiring municipalities to publish every zoning bylaw and official plan being enforced, and promoting performance-based standards that show municipalities how to manage a building’s impact using clear, measurable standards, instead of writing a separate zoning category for every situation.
Ray Mikkola, Pallett Valo Lawyers
Ray Mikkola of Pallett Valo Lawyers said navigating zoning rules across municipalities “can be pretty complex.”
“These bylaws are sometimes really hard to read, and we as lawyers sometimes get asked for a general zoning opinion, and we refer clients to professionals like planners and architects because it’s difficult for someone who isn’t a builder to say how things are going to work for you,” he said. “Even permitted use provisions in zoning bylaws take a long time to work through. So, it makes sense to have something that’s clear.”
If provincial rules on zoning were in place and effective, Mikkola said bylaws across municipalities would be more consistent and more easily interpreted.
“Municipalities would retain authority over standards, but regulations available to them would be more clearly defined,” he said. “The reforms that are proposed in the report don’t purport to be the final word on housing policy, but the report says we need to have clear and simple zoning provisions — and who doesn’t want that?”
Meaghan Barrett of Aird & Berlis LLP agreed that there are a lot of factors that contribute to barriers to housing growth, but the report’s recommendations are helpful in working to remove them.
“And one thing in the report that I thought was interesting was the fact that they emphasize that it’s just not the number of units that need to be built, but the types of units,” she said.
But Barrett said she struggled with the idea of standardized zoning.
“Our neighbourhoods have all different characters. That’s what makes them interesting, and zoning is part of what helps keep that character,” she said. “I think imposing a consistent set of zoning standards across the province — or even across the GTA — doesn’t really make sense.”
The report also said some rules in the provincial building code, including how many exit stairs a building needs and how large its elevators must be, cause mid-sized housing to be harder and more expensive to deliver.
“The provincial government should create opportunities to enable lower-cost or innovative solutions that can meet the same standards for safety and livability by a different method,” the report said. “We have already seen that provincial leadership can remove barriers to housing delivery. The same approach now needs to be applied to the rules that determine what can be built.”
As part of its
current building code review, the report recommends that Ontario amend the code to permit single-egress buildings up to six storeys, subject to some limitations; review elevator requirements for low-rise, missing-middle and mid-rise buildings; and allow smaller accessible elevator formats where they can meet safety and accessibility objectives.
For all future code reviews, the report says the province must assess new and existing building code requirements not only for the public-interest objective they serve, but also for their impact on construction cost, operating and lifetime costs, and project feasibility.
The report does contain a major caveat, however — even if Ontario adopts every reform being recommended, municipalities would need several years to update their plans and change their bylaws.
But, as Mikkola noted, “you have to start somewhere.”
“Who can argue with efficiency and making things more effective?” he said.
Representatives of the provincial Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing did not supply comment by press time.
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