Ontario Legislation

In Ontario, the province has established a highly restrictive legislative scheme in the Planning Act (PA) for allowing inclusive zoning. At the present time inclusive zoning is only permitted under three circumstances as follows:

  1. Being a prescribed municipality (s.16(4) PA),

  2. If not a prescribed municipality, being a municipality that has a protected major transit station area (s.16(5) PA) in accordance with the requirements of s.16(15) PA, or

  3. If not a prescribed municipality, being a municipality that has an area in respect of which a development permit system is established in response to an Order issued by the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing pursuant to s.70.2.2(1) PA.

As of the date of the writing of this report the status of these three circumstances in Windsor is as follows:

  1. No municipality in Ontario has been prescribed by regulation pursuant to s.16(4) PA.

  2. S.16(15) PA indicates that a protected major transit station is the area surrounding and including an existing or planned “higher order transit” station or stop that has been so delineated in the applicable Official Plan. The PA defines “higher order transit” to mean “transit that operates in whole or in part in a dedicated right of way, including heavy rail, light rail and buses”. At the present time Windsor does not have any areas that fall within the definition of “higher order transit”.

  3. The Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing has not issued any Order to Windsor under s.70.2.2.(1)PA.

As of the date of writing this report inclusionary zoning is not legislatively available in Windsor.

DISCUSSION:

While different forms of inclusionary zoning are used in a number of US Cities as well as Vancouver and Montreal—no municipality within Ontario has implemented inclusionary zoning. While a number of Ontario municipalities have expressed an interest in inclusionary zoning, the PA effectively restricted the use of this affordable housing tool to municipalities that have higher order transit systems, which are primarily located within the Greater Toronto area.

Requirement for Assessment Report

Where municipalities are permitted to establish inclusionary zoning policies, they must prepare an assessment report before adopting the parts of an official plan that contain