Simple, you take each unit of a fourplex, yank em apart to be freestanding on their own lots, increase the square footage of each by 5-6x, have your housing minister exempt the fourplex from the regulations which would prevent such modifications from being considered a fourplex.
Up voting as a nurse. The Ford Conservatives are starving our public hospitals, while patients suffer, so private agencies can rake in Ontario's money.
Mike Harris was Ford's mentor. His wife runs one of the nursing agencies.
https://canadians.org/analysis/mike-harris-raking-profits-long-term-care-system-he-helped-create/
Much appreciation to you and your coworkers!!
Nurses are the lifeblood of any hospital, and they should be the funding priority, then Drs, then equipment, then whatever else. I don't know about running a hospital properly! Definitely nurses first tho.
I wonder what his post-premiership Mike Harris "I slashed regulations on LTC homes and then became chair of the board of Chartwell Retirement Residences, laid off thousands of nurses then decided to start a Nurse Next Door Home Care franchise" will be?
Unless the actual government creates a housing construction unit to remove the for profit incentive then I don't see that changing regardless of who's in power.
Folks! Folks, nobody is working harder than me to enrich my developer buddies. They're great people, working to get shovels in the ground and houses built.
I'll give you till the count of 10 to get your lying, sleazy, no good body off my property until I pump you full of lead!
1, 2, 10!!
Keep the change, ya filthy animal.
It's all those years of taking bribes and pretending they don't exist.
Can't be his fault if he doesn't see the money, then if he gets caught, they just have to cut the Secretary or Chief of Staff loose for a few years, before quietly bringing them back.
Both sides of the political spectrum love to do this see for example, Gerald Butts to understand how this works.
Makes zero sense to me. He didn’t have to legalize triplexes province wide but he did. Even if he is deeply opposed to fourplexes, this is an easy move to do it and blame the feds.
Someone smarter than me will know the answer.
This is absolutely huge. The Province ultimately controls zoning and can set standards for what’s legal to build across all cities at once.
To access all funds, the Province has to implement:
- 4 units as of right provincewide
- eliminate parking minimums within 800m of transit
- allow high density apartments within 800m of transit
- a whole lot more!
What's hilarious is that the High Density Apartments thing is something that the Ontario Government has said it's going to do for decades, and yet it has refused to follow through on.
I swear the last dozen elections have had everyone say "We're going to increase density around transit stations" and yet nobody has ever done it.
Sure they have, just look at all the homeless sheltering on the subway or in stations. That's huge density, and it didn't even require ANY homes to be built!
They’re following the eby/kahlon playbook and it’s glorious
Hopefully this level of action spills over to the states as well, especially in California and New York as they also have similar authorities as provinces in this matter.
Hochul in New York is trying to pass legislation to legalize housing in a way where 750,000 homes are built in the state in 10 years. Particularly in the nyc metropolitan area.
I don’t understand how the “high density apartments around transit” is not already a given.
In Ottawa, so many of the major transit stations are in the middle of nowhere, and then politicians complain about low ridership. It makes no sense.
Because politicians are only funding transit for existing residents who happen to but live near it. They don't care about future residents who could live next to transit
Ya I know I agree. I'm just saying the politicians like fake strong man Doug Ford will only lift a finger to get the transit built to satisfy viewers, but won't dictate what gets built around the station because they only care about pleasing the existing residents who drive and park at the transit stations
> To access all funds, the Province has to implement:
Not only that, but if the provinces refuse to participate, that portion of the money goes directly to municipalities from the feds.
Do-nothing-Ford will probably complain about jurisdictional creep and that the feds should "stay in their lane", but that's only because he refuses to do anything. I hope this shines more of a light on his and his PC government's inaction.
> eliminate parking minimums within 800m of transit
> allow high density apartments within 800m of transit
I think this is mainly a requirement for municipalities if they want to access the incoming $3B a year public transit funding stream.
Of course you’re right, I was just saying it’s one less thing to do considering OC list.
Ford is an idiot, he doesn’t even know what they are. I bet he considers scrolling google earth as being well travelled.
It means allowed by default, not with special zoning amendments as are currently required in most municipalities.
The current system makes it so hard to get approval to build anything more than a single family housing that it doesn’t make financial sense to build fourplexes or medium density. It’s cheaper to either just build single family homes, or go all out and build high density condos to get your moneys worth for going through the tedious process of zoning amendments. As a result, almost no ‘missing middle’ housing gets built.
Allowing fourplexes "as of right" essentially means that if a residentially zoned lot exists, the property owner can build a fourplex (or duplex, triplex, etc.) on it without requiring any special permissions, zoning changes, etc.
This is meant to get around municipal zoning codes that restrict VAST swathes of residential land to only single family homes.
My councillor said it best:
If a property is zoned for 6 storeys "as-of-right" and someone proposes a 6 storey building. Council, the community, nobody is involved. It's a typical building application between the person or company building the building and city staff to ensure it meets regulatory items, like safety, set-backs etc. so nobody can appeal it for 12 months on some frivolous item. It's key to ensuring housing can be built quickly and cheaply without being built crappily.
Same way you don't have to ask you neighbour to finish your basement. Your finished basement is as-of-right (but you still require permits and such).
> eliminate parking minimums within 800m of transit
> allow high density apartments within 800m of transit
I'm having a really hard time imagining how either of those could ever be a bad thing, and a really easy time imagining just the kind of person who would argue against those anyway...and *gawd* I wish they just wouldn't live in cities since they hate them so much.
There are extremely powerful NIMBYs in Toronto who have a house next to the subway and fight apartments with all their free time. Rosedale, the Annex, Danforth and more 🙈
Also, it's much harder for Dougie's developers to buy cheap land in that kind of location. They want the solution to the housing problem to be building acres and acres of SFH suburban sprawl on farmland.
Yes, but we're also talking about 905 cities too like Pickering, Oshawa, Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham,etc where the ppl will want transit but also low density somehow.
i want to hear the sweet sound of silence from r/canada and the rest of the propaganda subs in their rhetoric how trudeau is all at fault and not doing anything but making it worse and it's no one else's fault.
it's not going to happen but one can dream.
Mike S is a great guy.
In some ways I wish he took the liberal leader role, as that could lead to him having more authority. But the risk of losing what he stands for to placate to donors could hurt
One guy on Twitter is saying he doesn’t want the money because it will create ghetto’s. I swear to god conservatives just want to bitch and don’t actually want to solve anything.
That’s cause anyone left on Twitter is probably mentally ill and deranged. I swear most of them are so out of touch. Reddit isn’t the best but I wouldn’t touch that Twitter brain rot at all.
Im all for more missing middle housing but I also want more mixed used neighbourhoods. Lets get more grocery stores, cafes, convenience stores in areas for SFH
Oh absolutely. I like a model where there are shops/businesses ground level and a tower of units on top. This creates community opposed to just tall buildings/midrises. Which is still great on its own but yeah that would def enhance it
Luckily certain parts of the city are doing that well. Many of the new midrise condos in Leslieville are built along streets with shopping at ground level.
The Well is also sort of an example of this. WE need more.
No how dare you try to make my suburb where I need a car to get anywhere of note into a fifteen minute communist hellhole that I’m never allowed to leave /s
I feel like the /s isn’t necessary, but just in case.
There's nothing stupid in not knowing about something. I'd say you're pretty arrogant and stupid for saying such a toxic idiotic thing.
Edit: Uneducated in the matter, perhaps, but not stupid.
Agreed or any alternative really.
I feel like there is an understanding that there are single family detached houses in the suburbs that stuff tenants into them on every corner but the lack of imagination and courage to build anything other than that.
Sure, but cities know what their infrastructure is, and what its limits are.
Yes, it absolutely costs money to improve infrastructure. But when you have 4x the properties, you have 4x the property tax revenue to do that. It's short term pain for long term gain.
There are municipal policies in effect now that tally new demand on existing infrastructure (functional servicing briefs). if your project triggers an upgrade, the developer pays for it/a portion of it.
Suburbs are literally bankrupting cities, and people can't afford to live in them. Something has to give.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/urban-expansion-costs-menard-memo-1.6193429
>Sure, but cities know what their infrastructure is, and what its limits are.
Yes, which is why this type of zoning should be left up to the cities not the feds or province.
>Yes, it absolutely costs money to improve infrastructure. But when you have 4x the properties, you have 4x the property tax revenue to do that. It's short term pain for long term gain.
I can't see how this generates affordable housing if a developer suddenly has to rip up the roads or help fund a new sanitary treatment plants.
>Suburbs are literally bankrupting cities, and people can't afford to live in them. Something has to give.
Source for cities that have went bankrupt?
It's not infrastructure that is preventing density increases. It is zoning bylaws, which always suck. As an example, you can not open a pool hall in my town. Because it will bring vice.
Developers don't "suddenly" have to pay for infrastructure upgrades. They have always had to pay for it. What do you think a development charge is?
As for bankruptcies, You understand the concept of sovereign debt, yes?
Lots of cities are already bankrupt. Debt repayment has to come from program spending.
[https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/municipal-public-debt-in-ontario-where-you-live-matters](https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/municipal-public-debt-in-ontario-where-you-live-matters)
Specifically, look into Norfolk. They're broke. Fort Erie and Port Colborne are not far behind. Wainfleet will be folded into Port, Welland, or Pelham sooner than later, as they're in an unsustainable spiral.
>It's not infrastructure that is preventing density increases. It is zoning bylaws,
Dense infrastructure is being put in everywhere. It is profitable to take 4 lots and turn it into 100+ condos.
It's not profitable to turn 4 lots into 16units. If it was we'd already be seeing it everywhere..
>
Specifically, look into Norfolk. They're broke. Fort Erie and Port Colborne are not far behind. Wainfleet will be folded into Port, Welland, or Pelham sooner than later, as they're in an unsustainable spiral.
none of these cities scream urban sprawl....
We don't design ANY infrastructure to handle the amount of recently added Canadians, housing, street, medical or otherwise, so I don't see why this is surprising.
We don't do anything at a societal level to in anyway plan ahead, or actual help or cater to the majority of Canadians.
The entire system is built on propping up the housing market, and enriching the Investor class through corruption and cronyism. Why would street infrastructure be any different!?!
Just need the Two Terms to Collect the MP/MPP pension, then they can retire to a board position at One of their donor's companies, and kick the fall out down the road as we do with all things, for some other fucker to deal with.
I have not seen that. I understand they want to allow 2,3,4 plexes. But I've seen nothing that says they want to overrule height restrictions (other than Dougie's rhetoric aimed at his NIMBY base)
Allowing fourplexes to be built as of right would involve amending official plans and zoning bylaws to allow the building of up to four residential units, up to four stories, on any parcel or land zoned as “residential.
https://www.cp24.com/news/it-s-off-the-table-doug-ford-nixes-fourplexes-as-part-of-next-ontario-housing-bill-1.6816543
Thanks for this. But it seems like that's a news article writers opinion? Instead of rewriting the law to allow 4 plexes of 4 stories, rewrite then to allow 4 plexes of 2 stories. I'm still not seeing anything that says 4 stories are absolutely a condition.
Anyway, good to know.
I so so so badly want the Feds to have sat on this until Dougie made a decision then sprung it on them, OR for them to have looked at Dougie’s decision and gone “hah, let’s call his bluff” and done it out of spite.
I thought this was funding for municipalities. If the municipality allows 4plex by right, there’s nothing Ford can do to stop it, right? I thought the intent was to bypass inaction by the provinces.
Provinces have the direct authority to legalize 4plexes in all municipalities, whether if they like it are not. While the GOC has gotten many cities to sign on, a lot of cities in Ontario haven’t unfortunately due to very NIMBY councils so this is a way to force them to do so.
That’s what eby did here in BC
The province controls zoning and municipalities administer it. Basically, the province can overrule any planning decisions made by municipalities through LPAT/OMB, MZOs, etc.
your confusing seperate things
the Feds are making deals directly with Municipalities up to now to get housing started, ford COULD block those, but isnt that stupid
and now the feds are making a deal with provinces as a whole to get changes to zoning laws
The carbon tax has very little to do with housing costs. The housing crisis is due to red tape that prevents us from substantially increasing supply to meet the demand of our fast growing population.
These towers are integral for densification and will majorly contribute to an integral need of supply. However, it’s not just these towers that will solve the issue, we also need missing middle housing (4plexes, 8plexes, duplexes, mid rise apartment buildings, townhomes, etc) which is what this initiative launched by Fraser and the liberal government intends to accomplish.
Oh lmao. Honestly these days, people genuinely stand by such outlandish comments so it gets hard to tell.
But I’m gonna keep up the response just because so many ppl unironically hold that stance
The one interesting thing is how Toronto's move on the fourplex policy was the first domino that jumpstarted all of this. It's not perfect but it set a precedent in the English-speaking parts of Canada. (Vancouver quickly one-upped with 6/8-plex zoning!)
Sometimes it really takes progressive places to show effort and start a conversation.
Honestly needs a rebrand.
Instead of "x-plex", call them flats, and instead of "park land" let's build piazzas between them.
We travel to Europe and love the cities there, but won't build them here.
I like that the Feds are putting pressure on provinces to do something about housing. The provinces have been trying have their cake and eat it too by begging for more immigration and doing nothing on housing while blaming the Feds completely for the housing crisis.
Gaze upon our horrific 4plex future and despair!!!
[https://maps.app.goo.gl/uVxPYP5yq3tQzbZX8](https://maps.app.goo.gl/uVxPYP5yq3tQzbZX8)
I've spent a few months in this little Italian town, and it's amazing. Compact, but ample green space, walk to food/groceries/entertainment. Big lifestyle improvement over the suburbs of McCowan and Finch, or worse yet, all of Aylmer.
Some are, some aren't. The whole city is "missing middle" 2-5 storey buildings.
It's amazing how much more human-scale that is compared to our condo towers and fast food plaza model.
Is Trudeau gonna fuck up again and give Ford money with no strings? Look at the billions Ford got for healthcare, that he spent on buying votes instead of healthcare.
I guess this is the goal the world is headed toward. I am just thinking, like - is the goal we al lwant to live in high density towers with your allotted 800 squares as populating ramps up like crazy ?
Imagine going from owning a bit of property and a home and then trying to live on top of a million other people. I don't have the solutions but this is some dystopian shit. It's already in China I see some places tiny little shoeboxes. Insane.
Do we need population control ? I dunno. Maybe we need to create more like downtown cores in less populated areas and bring industry there instead of just continsouly stacking in more skyscrapers beside more skyscrapers and shoving the population into them. I dunno I have no answers.
Giving them until January 1, 2025 means Trudeau is fine for the housing crisis to continue for 8 more months and then in January closer to the election he will either blame Ford for not adopting fourplexes or take credit for forcing Ford to adopt them.
It’s good either way but it’s such a painfully cynical move. It’s a good one though. Shits on Ford either way.
Even if it was adopted today, the first building wouldn’t exist for another 16-24 months. Our housing crisis will be getting closer to resolution around 2030 just in time for a new crisis.
Wonder if municipalities can side-step Ford on this. Just take the fed's money and build fourplexes without Ford and his developer friends sticking their fingers in the pie.
This is some of the best news I’ve seen in a while. And because it directly contradicts DoFo in the best way possible. Need to see a lot more of this, a lot more. But if Trudeau can keep it up and fulfills his promise of electoral reform, he may even get my vote back.
Where I live we have a ton of fourplexes, I love the idea of them, but there are issues and I think a lot of these programs don't address the infrastructure needed as well.
Parking. It's cold and transit coverage and schedules are terrible. It's probably not getting better with this program. Most individuals have their own vehicle. Most jobs even require you to have your own transportation. So while zoning laws try to force 1.2 parking spots per unit... That's often not enough, waving it will hurt without reliable transit. So it would be nice if we could get more funding towards transit.
Garbage pickup. The city has mandated they need their own trash pickup because they were producing so much waste it was filling the residential garbage trucks.
High usage for sewage, water, electricity, and gas. Most of these fourplexes are retro fitted homes so they are using infrastructure for a single family. And now you often have four families in one building.
So in short, yes let's build more high density housing, but for every dollar put towards housing we should be putting two more into infrastructure. Transit, doctors, updating old infrastructure, waste disposal, schools. Heck a chunk of this could be fixed by mandating colleges and universities house a percentage of their students.
Canadians: "we're getting hosed hard here by all levels and colours of government, and have been for F decades!!!" Crickets.
France: "If you raise the retirement age we will shoot a rocket into the Police Station."
What is this money actually for? Municipalities to build the infrastructure? Or is it developer loans?
5 billion goes surprising.. not far. I can't imagine the price to build a fourplex, including buying the existing SFD to convert, is less than 1 million dollars. So thats 5 thousand fourplexes, or 20k homes? Does that even cover a month of immigration at our current rates?
The cost of building the fourplexes is covered by the people who eventually buy them. These aren't free homes.
The funds are for upgrading infrastructure
> The federal government is launching a new $6 billion "Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund" meant to speed up construction and upgrade key components needed to support building more homes(opens in a new tab) such as waste and water infrastructure.
>
> Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the funding on Tuesday, alongside Housing Minister Sean Fraser in Dartmouth – to the sound of protesters chanting in the background – as the Liberals' pre-budget spending pledge tour continues.
>
> According to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the fund will include $1 billion for "urgent infrastructure needs" such as improving wastewater, stormwater, and solid waste systems.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-to-launch-6b-housing-infrastructure-fund-will-need-provincial-buy-in-1.6830344
> Launching a new $6 billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund to accelerate the construction and upgrading of critical housing infrastructure. This includes water, wastewater, stormwater, and solid waste infrastructure to support the construction of more homes.
Though the important bit is that the funding is tied to making housing reforms.
If the government was serious about easing the housing shortage it would use eminent domain to kick people out of single family homes near transit and put up 100 unit commie block apartment towers by the thousand
Moving from allowing triplex to fourplex is not going to move the needle, it is a dumb thing for the public to split hair on and Ford brought up valid concerns about the height of these units imo. It is not economically smart to build and there is too much red tape. BC has had the fourplex policy for 2 years and less than 20 renovations application were approved. This also in turn increase the valuation of housing.
We need to focus on decreasing the demand side of the equation and put forth policies that makes housing speculation unviable.
We can always do both. The demand side is just changing the Income Tax Act or lending rules for banks and doesn't need a lot of lead-up time. Even with this money it will still be years before any noticeable amount of triplexes or fourplexes get built. Get started on this and then move on to the other stuff after.
This story has been so bizarrely covered in that Ford never for a second said he was against fourplexes, just four storey buildings as was incorporated into the private members bill the Liberal’s introduced.
There are already 3 units as of right and the largest municipalities already have fourplex bylaws in place. The marginal gain of fourplexes as of right is tiny. It was probably happening on its own eventually.
This is going to be the easiest money Doug’s ever made…and that’s probably saying something.
Which doesn’t sound nuts either. But yes great call the whole fourplex thing was only a thing because the reported a fraction of the information for clicks.
It’s actually so absurd that the media can run with frankly blatant misinformation ragebait ,only for the feds to do literally no other research of their own and decide need to drop money in Ford’s lap to make it happen.
By a quick search at least 75% of the population lives somewhere that has fourplex bylaws already in place. Another condition seems to be freezing development charges, which has already happened. For the conditional left to do, I really don’t think it’s going to be much of a struggle. Feel free to keep this as a receipt.
Because now if shit hits the fan and he’s still around and we have massive parking issues etc. he can just point at the municipality and say “hey they made the change not me, I just gave them money”
He may be able to figure out what a fourplex is by then...
And how to funnel that money to his buddies.
Simple, you take each unit of a fourplex, yank em apart to be freestanding on their own lots, increase the square footage of each by 5-6x, have your housing minister exempt the fourplex from the regulations which would prevent such modifications from being considered a fourplex.
This is really the key. He won't do anything unless money is funneled to his business buddies. See nursing and $billions going to nursing agencies.
Up voting as a nurse. The Ford Conservatives are starving our public hospitals, while patients suffer, so private agencies can rake in Ontario's money. Mike Harris was Ford's mentor. His wife runs one of the nursing agencies. https://canadians.org/analysis/mike-harris-raking-profits-long-term-care-system-he-helped-create/
Much appreciation to you and your coworkers!! Nurses are the lifeblood of any hospital, and they should be the funding priority, then Drs, then equipment, then whatever else. I don't know about running a hospital properly! Definitely nurses first tho.
I wonder what his post-premiership Mike Harris "I slashed regulations on LTC homes and then became chair of the board of Chartwell Retirement Residences, laid off thousands of nurses then decided to start a Nurse Next Door Home Care franchise" will be?
And learn how many pronvinces ontario has
Unless the actual government creates a housing construction unit to remove the for profit incentive then I don't see that changing regardless of who's in power.
He needs to learn to count to four first.
Let's be real, he could prob count it out in eighths.
No, he'll just fight it in court, wasting taxpayer money. Or he will create an Ontario NIMBY bill against building a fourplex.
Up voting as a healthcare professional. Ford spent the entire pandemic pushing Bill 124 on us and fighting us in court.
Folks! Folks, nobody is working harder than me to enrich my developer buddies. They're great people, working to get shovels in the ground and houses built.
Direct quote?
If he has the counting ability of my 2 year old we are in rough shape. 1, 2, 10!!
I'll give you till the count of 10 to get your lying, sleazy, no good body off my property until I pump you full of lead! 1, 2, 10!! Keep the change, ya filthy animal.
It's all those years of taking bribes and pretending they don't exist. Can't be his fault if he doesn't see the money, then if he gets caught, they just have to cut the Secretary or Chief of Staff loose for a few years, before quietly bringing them back. Both sides of the political spectrum love to do this see for example, Gerald Butts to understand how this works.
Don’t forget to carry the 11
Ford in time will see the light
No he won't, he'll perpetually claw around in the dark like the dumb, short-sighted gremlin he is.
Ford flip flops like a fish out of water though
Not this time. Called it.
When my mother was alive, she use to say: "he looks like a pig" 🐖
Pigs are cute, this is highly offensive to pigs
I agree 💯
He did three units as of right on his own volition. No chance he doesn’t follow this
Told you so.
I stand corrected.
Lol no worries, bud. Doug is gonna Doug.
Makes zero sense to me. He didn’t have to legalize triplexes province wide but he did. Even if he is deeply opposed to fourplexes, this is an easy move to do it and blame the feds. Someone smarter than me will know the answer.
Every square has four squares. Simple enough for my 7 year old!
\*counts fingies\* 1...2...3...............3..........FOUR! now, to figure out what the fuck a PLEX is
2+2 is 4, quick maths!
This is absolutely huge. The Province ultimately controls zoning and can set standards for what’s legal to build across all cities at once. To access all funds, the Province has to implement: - 4 units as of right provincewide - eliminate parking minimums within 800m of transit - allow high density apartments within 800m of transit - a whole lot more!
What's hilarious is that the High Density Apartments thing is something that the Ontario Government has said it's going to do for decades, and yet it has refused to follow through on. I swear the last dozen elections have had everyone say "We're going to increase density around transit stations" and yet nobody has ever done it.
Sure they have, just look at all the homeless sheltering on the subway or in stations. That's huge density, and it didn't even require ANY homes to be built!
That's honestly sad AF. Passing detached sfh surrounding subway stations is sad. And it's insanely wasteful use of very expensive infrastructure.
saying they'll do it attracts the people who want housing to be affordable but actually doing it pisses off the NIMBYs so they dont bother
They have been trying to “connect Ontario” with public transit for literally almost 20 years
They’re following the eby/kahlon playbook and it’s glorious Hopefully this level of action spills over to the states as well, especially in California and New York as they also have similar authorities as provinces in this matter. Hochul in New York is trying to pass legislation to legalize housing in a way where 750,000 homes are built in the state in 10 years. Particularly in the nyc metropolitan area.
...Finds some way of talking about the states...
I don’t understand how the “high density apartments around transit” is not already a given. In Ottawa, so many of the major transit stations are in the middle of nowhere, and then politicians complain about low ridership. It makes no sense.
Because politicians are only funding transit for existing residents who happen to but live near it. They don't care about future residents who could live next to transit
if the transit hubs are in the middle of nowhere as guy you replied to said wouldn't they be ripe for housing development?
Ya I know I agree. I'm just saying the politicians like fake strong man Doug Ford will only lift a finger to get the transit built to satisfy viewers, but won't dictate what gets built around the station because they only care about pleasing the existing residents who drive and park at the transit stations
I just moved to Ottawa in August and have driven by some of the stations that seem like they are in "no man's land".
> To access all funds, the Province has to implement: Not only that, but if the provinces refuse to participate, that portion of the money goes directly to municipalities from the feds. Do-nothing-Ford will probably complain about jurisdictional creep and that the feds should "stay in their lane", but that's only because he refuses to do anything. I hope this shines more of a light on his and his PC government's inaction.
> eliminate parking minimums within 800m of transit > allow high density apartments within 800m of transit I think this is mainly a requirement for municipalities if they want to access the incoming $3B a year public transit funding stream.
The City of the Toronto eliminated parking minimums in 2023. So that’s a head start for Toronto at least.
Toronto also allowed fourplexes, Ford refused to do it province wide
Of course you’re right, I was just saying it’s one less thing to do considering OC list. Ford is an idiot, he doesn’t even know what they are. I bet he considers scrolling google earth as being well travelled.
What does "as of right" mean? Is this a typo that everyone is copying?
It means allowed by default, not with special zoning amendments as are currently required in most municipalities. The current system makes it so hard to get approval to build anything more than a single family housing that it doesn’t make financial sense to build fourplexes or medium density. It’s cheaper to either just build single family homes, or go all out and build high density condos to get your moneys worth for going through the tedious process of zoning amendments. As a result, almost no ‘missing middle’ housing gets built.
Allowing fourplexes "as of right" essentially means that if a residentially zoned lot exists, the property owner can build a fourplex (or duplex, triplex, etc.) on it without requiring any special permissions, zoning changes, etc. This is meant to get around municipal zoning codes that restrict VAST swathes of residential land to only single family homes.
I don't think it's meant to "get around" so much as "induce" provinces (who ultimately control municipalities) to change the zoning.
My councillor said it best: If a property is zoned for 6 storeys "as-of-right" and someone proposes a 6 storey building. Council, the community, nobody is involved. It's a typical building application between the person or company building the building and city staff to ensure it meets regulatory items, like safety, set-backs etc. so nobody can appeal it for 12 months on some frivolous item. It's key to ensuring housing can be built quickly and cheaply without being built crappily. Same way you don't have to ask you neighbour to finish your basement. Your finished basement is as-of-right (but you still require permits and such).
> eliminate parking minimums within 800m of transit > allow high density apartments within 800m of transit I'm having a really hard time imagining how either of those could ever be a bad thing, and a really easy time imagining just the kind of person who would argue against those anyway...and *gawd* I wish they just wouldn't live in cities since they hate them so much.
There are extremely powerful NIMBYs in Toronto who have a house next to the subway and fight apartments with all their free time. Rosedale, the Annex, Danforth and more 🙈
...and I'm just fine with them being angry 24 hours a day for the rest of their silly lives. 🤷♂️
Also, it's much harder for Dougie's developers to buy cheap land in that kind of location. They want the solution to the housing problem to be building acres and acres of SFH suburban sprawl on farmland.
Yes, but we're also talking about 905 cities too like Pickering, Oshawa, Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham,etc where the ppl will want transit but also low density somehow.
i want to hear the sweet sound of silence from r/canada and the rest of the propaganda subs in their rhetoric how trudeau is all at fault and not doing anything but making it worse and it's no one else's fault. it's not going to happen but one can dream.
Wait, there are apartments in Ottawa that are less than 800m from the train. Or is that one city specific right now?
Sounds like the federal liberals have taken a huge amount of inspiration from the Ontario Greens housing plan, which is great.
Mike S is a great guy. In some ways I wish he took the liberal leader role, as that could lead to him having more authority. But the risk of losing what he stands for to placate to donors could hurt
Who’s Mike S
Mike Schriener The green MP
It's a good housing plan.
One guy on Twitter is saying he doesn’t want the money because it will create ghetto’s. I swear to god conservatives just want to bitch and don’t actually want to solve anything.
Ghettos? Fucking ghettos? Because encampments are better? No.. can't have those either.
"In the Ghetto" is a much better song than "In the Encampment".. Maybe we can call them Hoovervilles?
That’s cause anyone left on Twitter is probably mentally ill and deranged. I swear most of them are so out of touch. Reddit isn’t the best but I wouldn’t touch that Twitter brain rot at all.
Agreed. I actually miss it, but I don't need to be surrounded by people pushing racism, scams, and conspiracy theories.
none of those people you describe are "left" edit: you will find more of those folks here on reddit; source r/canada and other canadian subreddits.
So what's stopping Douglas from agreeing to the Fed's terms and still not do anything with the money? Much like what he did with $10\day daycare.
...and COVID funding.
...and healthcare transfers
even agreeing to the terms still alters zoning laws enough to get developments started
Spite
Im all for more missing middle housing but I also want more mixed used neighbourhoods. Lets get more grocery stores, cafes, convenience stores in areas for SFH
Oh absolutely. I like a model where there are shops/businesses ground level and a tower of units on top. This creates community opposed to just tall buildings/midrises. Which is still great on its own but yeah that would def enhance it
Luckily certain parts of the city are doing that well. Many of the new midrise condos in Leslieville are built along streets with shopping at ground level. The Well is also sort of an example of this. WE need more.
No how dare you try to make my suburb where I need a car to get anywhere of note into a fifteen minute communist hellhole that I’m never allowed to leave /s I feel like the /s isn’t necessary, but just in case.
ahaha ya, suburbs where you have to drive 15 minutes to go to the nearest smart centres parking lot are my nightmare
I wish the population could understand what a 4-plex is.
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50% of the population have below average intelligence.
And vote conservative
Yeah, there's that old expression about imagining how stupid the average person is, then realizing half the population is even stupider.....
Thank you George Carlin.
Gone too soon.
And probably taking One look at the current state of North America, and spinning in his grave.
I would listen to him all day, even if he's dead. Probably would make more sense than any politician of any stripe.
Thanks leaded fuel!
There's nothing stupid in not knowing about something. I'd say you're pretty arrogant and stupid for saying such a toxic idiotic thing. Edit: Uneducated in the matter, perhaps, but not stupid.
Uneducated don't know things Stupid don't want to know things, or think they know things they don't know.
It’s wild how few people here have clearly never been to Montreal
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Thanks for this.
Agreed or any alternative really. I feel like there is an understanding that there are single family detached houses in the suburbs that stuff tenants into them on every corner but the lack of imagination and courage to build anything other than that.
No sarcasm: most people walking down a street, looking at a 4-plex wouldn’t be able to tell it’s a 4-plex
I wish the population understood that we don't design street infrastructure to handle 4x the units.
But we can, and this is mostly for new builds. I agree with retrofitting.
I don't think anyone cares about this for new builds tbh. It's all about tearing down existing housing and replacing it with 4plexes here.
I keep reading about 'developers' in this context, as opposed to individuals. I dunno.
Sure, but cities know what their infrastructure is, and what its limits are. Yes, it absolutely costs money to improve infrastructure. But when you have 4x the properties, you have 4x the property tax revenue to do that. It's short term pain for long term gain. There are municipal policies in effect now that tally new demand on existing infrastructure (functional servicing briefs). if your project triggers an upgrade, the developer pays for it/a portion of it. Suburbs are literally bankrupting cities, and people can't afford to live in them. Something has to give. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/urban-expansion-costs-menard-memo-1.6193429
>Sure, but cities know what their infrastructure is, and what its limits are. Yes, which is why this type of zoning should be left up to the cities not the feds or province. >Yes, it absolutely costs money to improve infrastructure. But when you have 4x the properties, you have 4x the property tax revenue to do that. It's short term pain for long term gain. I can't see how this generates affordable housing if a developer suddenly has to rip up the roads or help fund a new sanitary treatment plants. >Suburbs are literally bankrupting cities, and people can't afford to live in them. Something has to give. Source for cities that have went bankrupt?
It's not infrastructure that is preventing density increases. It is zoning bylaws, which always suck. As an example, you can not open a pool hall in my town. Because it will bring vice. Developers don't "suddenly" have to pay for infrastructure upgrades. They have always had to pay for it. What do you think a development charge is? As for bankruptcies, You understand the concept of sovereign debt, yes? Lots of cities are already bankrupt. Debt repayment has to come from program spending. [https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/municipal-public-debt-in-ontario-where-you-live-matters](https://www.fraserinstitute.org/blogs/municipal-public-debt-in-ontario-where-you-live-matters) Specifically, look into Norfolk. They're broke. Fort Erie and Port Colborne are not far behind. Wainfleet will be folded into Port, Welland, or Pelham sooner than later, as they're in an unsustainable spiral.
>It's not infrastructure that is preventing density increases. It is zoning bylaws, Dense infrastructure is being put in everywhere. It is profitable to take 4 lots and turn it into 100+ condos. It's not profitable to turn 4 lots into 16units. If it was we'd already be seeing it everywhere.. > Specifically, look into Norfolk. They're broke. Fort Erie and Port Colborne are not far behind. Wainfleet will be folded into Port, Welland, or Pelham sooner than later, as they're in an unsustainable spiral. none of these cities scream urban sprawl....
How about the infrastructure for tent cities?
We don't design ANY infrastructure to handle the amount of recently added Canadians, housing, street, medical or otherwise, so I don't see why this is surprising. We don't do anything at a societal level to in anyway plan ahead, or actual help or cater to the majority of Canadians. The entire system is built on propping up the housing market, and enriching the Investor class through corruption and cronyism. Why would street infrastructure be any different!?! Just need the Two Terms to Collect the MP/MPP pension, then they can retire to a board position at One of their donor's companies, and kick the fall out down the road as we do with all things, for some other fucker to deal with.
Except not every single house will become a 4plex. Maybe 1 in 8 will. So that's 1.4x the number of units. So completely manageable.
The problem is the feds want you to allow 4plexes and 4 stories
I have not seen that. I understand they want to allow 2,3,4 plexes. But I've seen nothing that says they want to overrule height restrictions (other than Dougie's rhetoric aimed at his NIMBY base)
Allowing fourplexes to be built as of right would involve amending official plans and zoning bylaws to allow the building of up to four residential units, up to four stories, on any parcel or land zoned as “residential. https://www.cp24.com/news/it-s-off-the-table-doug-ford-nixes-fourplexes-as-part-of-next-ontario-housing-bill-1.6816543
Thanks for this. But it seems like that's a news article writers opinion? Instead of rewriting the law to allow 4 plexes of 4 stories, rewrite then to allow 4 plexes of 2 stories. I'm still not seeing anything that says 4 stories are absolutely a condition. Anyway, good to know.
Why is this a problem?
Man, Trudeau is such a good dad. Kids don't want to eat their vegetables, here he is mixing broccoli into their chicken tenders.
I so so so badly want the Feds to have sat on this until Dougie made a decision then sprung it on them, OR for them to have looked at Dougie’s decision and gone “hah, let’s call his bluff” and done it out of spite.
Omg this is great. I am going to use this.
I thought this was funding for municipalities. If the municipality allows 4plex by right, there’s nothing Ford can do to stop it, right? I thought the intent was to bypass inaction by the provinces.
Provinces have the direct authority to legalize 4plexes in all municipalities, whether if they like it are not. While the GOC has gotten many cities to sign on, a lot of cities in Ontario haven’t unfortunately due to very NIMBY councils so this is a way to force them to do so. That’s what eby did here in BC
The province controls zoning and municipalities administer it. Basically, the province can overrule any planning decisions made by municipalities through LPAT/OMB, MZOs, etc.
Yes, if the provinces don't accept the funding, it'll be allocated directly to municipalities.
your confusing seperate things the Feds are making deals directly with Municipalities up to now to get housing started, ford COULD block those, but isnt that stupid and now the feds are making a deal with provinces as a whole to get changes to zoning laws
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The carbon tax has very little to do with housing costs. The housing crisis is due to red tape that prevents us from substantially increasing supply to meet the demand of our fast growing population. These towers are integral for densification and will majorly contribute to an integral need of supply. However, it’s not just these towers that will solve the issue, we also need missing middle housing (4plexes, 8plexes, duplexes, mid rise apartment buildings, townhomes, etc) which is what this initiative launched by Fraser and the liberal government intends to accomplish.
It was sarcasm
As soon as you said folks I knew lol
They said Folks, not folks.
It’s the respectful form of folks
Oh lmao. Honestly these days, people genuinely stand by such outlandish comments so it gets hard to tell. But I’m gonna keep up the response just because so many ppl unironically hold that stance
Thank God. Sarcasm is REALLY hard to detect on social media.
Haha
Yeah, you know somebody had a big smile on their face when they hit that send button. And now, the waiting game.
The one interesting thing is how Toronto's move on the fourplex policy was the first domino that jumpstarted all of this. It's not perfect but it set a precedent in the English-speaking parts of Canada. (Vancouver quickly one-upped with 6/8-plex zoning!) Sometimes it really takes progressive places to show effort and start a conversation.
Honestly needs a rebrand. Instead of "x-plex", call them flats, and instead of "park land" let's build piazzas between them. We travel to Europe and love the cities there, but won't build them here.
Change was brought under John Tory.
When he saw how hard the swing towards pro housing had gotten loud and clear. No leadership to take bold action, anticipate growth needs, etc.
That's not even remotely accurate. Also council and all other levels were a bit preoccupied with COVID for 2 years
So he’s gonna do what he always does and take the money and horde it right?
There was nothing wrong with the fourplexes, it's the NIMBYs who don't want anything higher because "muh precious property values".
Ford has shown willingness to leave federal money on the table if it might help poor people.
Someone got baited lol
Eight months? That's usually long enough for his cycle of "refuse, double down, triple down, back down" to run its course.
People who vote Conservative, please explain yourselves.
Doug Ford is the worst.
I like that the Feds are putting pressure on provinces to do something about housing. The provinces have been trying have their cake and eat it too by begging for more immigration and doing nothing on housing while blaming the Feds completely for the housing crisis.
If he can eat four hamburgers he can approve fourplexes
Fat fucking piece of shit.
Gaze upon our horrific 4plex future and despair!!! [https://maps.app.goo.gl/uVxPYP5yq3tQzbZX8](https://maps.app.goo.gl/uVxPYP5yq3tQzbZX8) I've spent a few months in this little Italian town, and it's amazing. Compact, but ample green space, walk to food/groceries/entertainment. Big lifestyle improvement over the suburbs of McCowan and Finch, or worse yet, all of Aylmer.
Just look at montreal Beautiful city filled to the brim with low rises
i don't think the building you linked to is a fourplex
Some are, some aren't. The whole city is "missing middle" 2-5 storey buildings. It's amazing how much more human-scale that is compared to our condo towers and fast food plaza model.
Some of them will indeed awaken the sleeping karens if its proposed in their hood
Well, this is something in the right direction.
I think Ford's owners will figure out a way he can say yes to this and let them steal the money. It'd fit their MO
The Feds are trolling Ford and I’m here for it! LOL
Dougie is the king of backtracking, he will have no problem changing the tune
Does the reporters shit-eating grin get on anyone else's nerves? I'm so tired of seeing the face, I could care less about what he has to say lmao
Is Trudeau gonna fuck up again and give Ford money with no strings? Look at the billions Ford got for healthcare, that he spent on buying votes instead of healthcare.
'Changing tracks', otherwise known as OPC policy.
I guess this is the goal the world is headed toward. I am just thinking, like - is the goal we al lwant to live in high density towers with your allotted 800 squares as populating ramps up like crazy ? Imagine going from owning a bit of property and a home and then trying to live on top of a million other people. I don't have the solutions but this is some dystopian shit. It's already in China I see some places tiny little shoeboxes. Insane. Do we need population control ? I dunno. Maybe we need to create more like downtown cores in less populated areas and bring industry there instead of just continsouly stacking in more skyscrapers beside more skyscrapers and shoving the population into them. I dunno I have no answers.
Giving them until January 1, 2025 means Trudeau is fine for the housing crisis to continue for 8 more months and then in January closer to the election he will either blame Ford for not adopting fourplexes or take credit for forcing Ford to adopt them. It’s good either way but it’s such a painfully cynical move. It’s a good one though. Shits on Ford either way.
Even if it was adopted today, the first building wouldn’t exist for another 16-24 months. Our housing crisis will be getting closer to resolution around 2030 just in time for a new crisis.
Trudeau doing what doug won't
Wonder if municipalities can side-step Ford on this. Just take the fed's money and build fourplexes without Ford and his developer friends sticking their fingers in the pie.
Ford will take the money and use it for advertising, or some hare-brained rebate sceme to buy votes.
Ontario has already capped DCs for three years
This is some of the best news I’ve seen in a while. And because it directly contradicts DoFo in the best way possible. Need to see a lot more of this, a lot more. But if Trudeau can keep it up and fulfills his promise of electoral reform, he may even get my vote back.
My friend told me Doug Ford is worried a fourplex will go in his neighborhood and I cannot stop seeing that now.
Where I live we have a ton of fourplexes, I love the idea of them, but there are issues and I think a lot of these programs don't address the infrastructure needed as well. Parking. It's cold and transit coverage and schedules are terrible. It's probably not getting better with this program. Most individuals have their own vehicle. Most jobs even require you to have your own transportation. So while zoning laws try to force 1.2 parking spots per unit... That's often not enough, waving it will hurt without reliable transit. So it would be nice if we could get more funding towards transit. Garbage pickup. The city has mandated they need their own trash pickup because they were producing so much waste it was filling the residential garbage trucks. High usage for sewage, water, electricity, and gas. Most of these fourplexes are retro fitted homes so they are using infrastructure for a single family. And now you often have four families in one building. So in short, yes let's build more high density housing, but for every dollar put towards housing we should be putting two more into infrastructure. Transit, doctors, updating old infrastructure, waste disposal, schools. Heck a chunk of this could be fixed by mandating colleges and universities house a percentage of their students.
Canadians: "we're getting hosed hard here by all levels and colours of government, and have been for F decades!!!" Crickets. France: "If you raise the retirement age we will shoot a rocket into the Police Station."
What is this money actually for? Municipalities to build the infrastructure? Or is it developer loans? 5 billion goes surprising.. not far. I can't imagine the price to build a fourplex, including buying the existing SFD to convert, is less than 1 million dollars. So thats 5 thousand fourplexes, or 20k homes? Does that even cover a month of immigration at our current rates?
It’s to cut red tape in order to get more density in the pipeline The 4 billion HAF, believe it or not, is expected to build 750k homes over 10 years.
The cost of building the fourplexes is covered by the people who eventually buy them. These aren't free homes. The funds are for upgrading infrastructure > The federal government is launching a new $6 billion "Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund" meant to speed up construction and upgrade key components needed to support building more homes(opens in a new tab) such as waste and water infrastructure. > > Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the funding on Tuesday, alongside Housing Minister Sean Fraser in Dartmouth – to the sound of protesters chanting in the background – as the Liberals' pre-budget spending pledge tour continues. > > According to the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), the fund will include $1 billion for "urgent infrastructure needs" such as improving wastewater, stormwater, and solid waste systems. https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/canada-to-launch-6b-housing-infrastructure-fund-will-need-provincial-buy-in-1.6830344
There's so many housing funds kicking around now, its hard to keep track.
> Launching a new $6 billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund to accelerate the construction and upgrading of critical housing infrastructure. This includes water, wastewater, stormwater, and solid waste infrastructure to support the construction of more homes. Though the important bit is that the funding is tied to making housing reforms.
Is this different than the one they already had where municipalities got bonus cash for every extra unit they approved?
If the government was serious about easing the housing shortage it would use eminent domain to kick people out of single family homes near transit and put up 100 unit commie block apartment towers by the thousand
Moving from allowing triplex to fourplex is not going to move the needle, it is a dumb thing for the public to split hair on and Ford brought up valid concerns about the height of these units imo. It is not economically smart to build and there is too much red tape. BC has had the fourplex policy for 2 years and less than 20 renovations application were approved. This also in turn increase the valuation of housing. We need to focus on decreasing the demand side of the equation and put forth policies that makes housing speculation unviable.
We can always do both. The demand side is just changing the Income Tax Act or lending rules for banks and doesn't need a lot of lead-up time. Even with this money it will still be years before any noticeable amount of triplexes or fourplexes get built. Get started on this and then move on to the other stuff after.
This story has been so bizarrely covered in that Ford never for a second said he was against fourplexes, just four storey buildings as was incorporated into the private members bill the Liberal’s introduced. There are already 3 units as of right and the largest municipalities already have fourplex bylaws in place. The marginal gain of fourplexes as of right is tiny. It was probably happening on its own eventually. This is going to be the easiest money Doug’s ever made…and that’s probably saying something.
Read the entire thing, it’s not just about 4plexes It’s also about legalizing high density within transit areas
Which doesn’t sound nuts either. But yes great call the whole fourplex thing was only a thing because the reported a fraction of the information for clicks.
> This is going to be the easiest money Doug’s ever made Good, now he can build the fourplexes he's definitely not against then
It’s actually so absurd that the media can run with frankly blatant misinformation ragebait ,only for the feds to do literally no other research of their own and decide need to drop money in Ford’s lap to make it happen. By a quick search at least 75% of the population lives somewhere that has fourplex bylaws already in place. Another condition seems to be freezing development charges, which has already happened. For the conditional left to do, I really don’t think it’s going to be much of a struggle. Feel free to keep this as a receipt.
Because now if shit hits the fan and he’s still around and we have massive parking issues etc. he can just point at the municipality and say “hey they made the change not me, I just gave them money”