Bill 23 Summary and Implications

Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022, was introduced at the Provincial Legislature for First Reading on October 25^th, 2022. The Bill was passed on November 28^th, 2022 and received Royal Assent the same day. It is now in effect.

Bill 23 implements recommendations from the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force Report.

The Bill proposes extensive changes to a number of Acts and regulations including the Development Charges Act, Planning Act, Municipal Act, and others.

These changes have been broken into categories such as, housing, financial implications, parkland, heritage and sustainability.

You’re welcome to provide feedback on the provincial legislation in our Comments section. The City of Ottawa will draw upon resident feedback in our dialogue with the Province on this legislation.

Housing

Bill 23 has changed several important areas of land use planning. Rules around the number units per lot, their minimum size and the role of Site Plan in design have been significantly impacted.

Units:

• The Provincial legislation now allows up to 3 units “gentle intensification” on any lot in all urban-serviced parts of the city.
• The City of Ottawa will no longer be able to regulate a minimum size of such units.
• There can’t be a requirement for more than one parking space per unit.

Site Plan Control:

• If a building has 10 units or less, it is exempt for Site Plan Control.
• Site Plan no longer has oversight on the design of exterior of buildings. For example, what materials are used on the outside of a building.
• Landscaping features in the right-of-way are not included in Site Plan unless they touch on heath, safety and accessibility.

Other Zoning Changes:

• The City will need to get all zoning by-laws completed within one year when creating a Protected Major Transit Station (PMTS).
• Inclusionary Zoning is allowed in PMTS areas, but now there is a cap of a maximum of 5% of IZ units in the PMTS. The maximum term for IZ units will be 25 years.

Financial Implications

• Exempting the 3 unit “gentle intensification” from Development Charges (DC), Parkland and Community Benefit contributions.
• Exempting affordable, attainable and inclusionary zoning units from DCs, and discounts to Community Benefits and Parkland Dedication. Attainable housing is still to be defined.
• Requiring a discount on development charges for purpose-built rentals, and a greater discount for larger units.
• Requiring a phase-in period for introduction of new or revised development charges.
• Removing cost of studies from development charges.

Parks

• Setting a maximum parkland dedication cap of 10% for sites less than 5 ha in area, and 15% for larger sites.
• Halving the maximum parkland dedication rates for land and cash-in-lieu.
• Allowing the possibility of encumbered lands and privately-owned parks to be counted for parkland credit.
• Requiring 60% of DC and Parkland funds to be spent or allocated to be spent on an annual basis.

Heritage

• Increases the threshold for individual designation to require a property meet two instead of one criteria for designation under O.Reg 9/06
• Introduction of criteria for designation of new Heritage Conservation Districts
• Requires that a non-designated property listed on the Heritage Register be removed after two years if Council has not initiated the designation process. The City of Ottawa has approximately 4600 listed properties to review.
• Introduces a limitation where a property that has been removed from the Register cannot be re-listed for five years.
• Limits Council’s ability to designate a property that is subject to certain Planning Act applications if that property is not already listed on the Heritage Register

Sustainability

• Changes to Conservation Authorities to amend levels of responsibility and oversight.
• Changes to the Ontario Wetland Evaluation System to remove wetland complexing.