Northern Ontario cities surpass province's housing targets for last year

All four northern Ontario cities on the province's housing tracker have surpassed their respective targets for new housing units.

In 2022, Ontario set a goal to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031. To help meet that goal, the province set annual housing targets for municipalities, with financial incentives for those that met or exceeded their numbers.

New homes, additional residential units such as basement apartments added to existing homes and long-term care beds all count towards the target.

Last week, Premier Doug Ford granted Toronto $114 million for surpassing its annual target.

In northern Ontario, the cities of Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, North Bay and Thunder Bay have all surpassed their targets.

Sault Ste. Marie Mayor Matthew Shoemaker said he was not yet sure how much the city would get for surpassing its yearly goal, but suspected it would be about$750,000.

The province set a goal for Sault Ste. Marie to add 110 new units in 2023, and it reached 213 by the end of the year.

"We're fortunate in this case that we're exceeding their targets quite substantively, so we'll take it," Shoemaker said.

He said the city will use the money to improve municipal infrastructure around new housing developments. That would include sidewalk extensions, new sewer runs and covering the additional cost of new garbage collection.

Shoemaker said new housing has always been a priority for the cityand additional targets from the province haven't changed that..

"I've been on council now, this is my 10th year, and don't remember one rezoning being turned down in that period of time," he said.

"So we have always wanted to see development in our community as a council at least, and that has never been something that the city's tried to shy away from or turned down."

Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre said he was not yet sure how much money the city would receive for exceeding its housing target.

But he said the money will be used to open up more land for development.

Lefebvre said housing demand remains high in Sudburywhile the available supply is low. He said the city needs a mix of new housing options, from bungalows to subsidized apartments.

"There are certain spaces that the market will drive and certain spaces that are more challenging on the affordable and rent-to- income and transitional housing supply," he said.

"And that's where the city needs to play a bigger role."

Lefebvre said the city recently had a housing policy review and has taken a number of steps to improve the supply of available housing, including allowing for up to three secondary units on a property.

North Bay exceeded its housing target by almost three times last year. The target was 73 units, but the city added 202 in 2023.

Beverly Hillier, the city's manager of planning and building services, said the city has taken a number of steps to remove barriers for developers.

We pride ourselves on being very efficient on processing our applications in terms of development application," she said.

"And the other thing that we're working on right now is electronic application submission, both for our building applications as well as our planning applications."

Hillier said the city expects to get about$800,000 for exceeding its goal. It will be up to city council to decide what it does with the money, she said.