“Bill 23 is proceeding quickly through the legislature, which means it is likely to pass before many municipal Councils have been sworn in, and before the AMO Board can prepare a response. […] Bill 23 and the province’s new More Homes Built Faster Plan, as proposed, will have economic, social, and environmental implications that cannot be ignored. […] While AMO would like to support the province’s housing objectives, it cannot support changes that largely place the burden of carrying the costs associated with development onto municipalities. AMO believes that the proposed changes may contradict the goal of building more housing in the long-term as it merely shifts the financial burden of growth-related infrastructure onto existing taxpayers. […] Bill 23 proposes sweeping changes to the regulatory responsibilities of Ontario’s 36 conservation authorities that, if passed, will undermine the collaborative and productive changes put forward by the Ministry led Conservation Authority Working Group over the past two years.”

“The Ontario government calls it an incentive that will help speed up new home construction and make housing more affordable across the province. But Toronto officials say a system of new planning deadlines with attached refunds, outlined in a provincial housing bill on Wednesday, is more penalty than incentive. It could amount to millions of dollars in refunds for cities and will have the “perverse” effect of delaying development by sending more planning applications to the already backlogged Ontario Land Tribunal. […] Luisa Sotomayor, an associate professor in York University’s Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, said the bill undermines local planning autonomy and won’t enhance affordability.”