Category Bill 23   Show all

  • Memos to Council

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    Below are a series of memos provided to Ottawa City Council on the provincial legislation and related projects.

    November 7th, 2022 Memo to Council - City Response to Bill 23

    November 25th, 2022 Memo to Council - Financial Impacts of Bill 23

    December 2nd, 2022 Memo to Council - Bill 23 Amendments




  • Bill 23 Next Steps

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    On November 30th, the Minister of Housing provided a commitment to work with municipalities to explore means to close funding gaps related to Bill 23 measures. This would commence with a third-party audit of select municipalities of their municipal finances, including reserve funds and development charge administration. It is not yet known if Ottawa will be included in this audit. As of this date, staff are not aware of any financial commitments or agreements from either the provincial or federal government to provide offsetting revenue and will monitor this.

    Staff will continue to review the impact of this legislation and will update this website with changes required to programs resources and operations, including the calculations of parkland and development charges, and future impacts on infrastructure and service delivery.

    Further, staff have submitted comments on regulations and bulletins posted to the Environmental Registry including the following postings, where permitted.

    • ERO No. 019-6162 Consultations on More Homes Built Faster: Ontario’s Housing Supply Action Plan 2022-2023
    • ERO No. 019-6172 Proposed Planning Act and Development Charges Act, 1997 Changes: Providing Greater Cost Certainty for Municipal Development-related Charges
    • ERO No. 019-6163 Proposed Planning Act and City of Toronto Act Changes (Schedules 9 and 1 of Bill 23)
    • ERO No. 019-6196 Proposed Changes to the Ontario Heritage Act and its regulations: Bill 23 (Schedule 6)
    • ERO No. 019-2927 Proposed updates to the regulation of development for the protection of people and property from natural hazards in Ontario
    • ERO No. 019-6161 Conserving Ontario’s Natural Heritage
    • ERO No. 019-6160 Proposed Changes to the Ontario Wetlands Evaluation System
    • ERO No. 019-6141 Legislative and regulatory proposal affecting conservation authorities to support the Housing Supply Action Plan 3.0
    • ERO No. 019-6197 Proposed Changes to 299/19 Additional Residential Units
    • ERO No. 019-6171 2031 Municipal Housing Targets

  • Bill 23 Summary and Implications

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    Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022, was introduced at the Provincial Legislature for First Reading on October 25th, 2022. The Bill was passed on November 28th, 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.