Proposed Legislation to Promote Housing Development and Regulatory Proposals

The government has introduced a new bill to promote the construction of new housing, with several proposals affecting municipalities. 

If passed, the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025 would:

• Streamline approvals and site plan control
• Undertake a section-by-section review of the Ontario Building Code
• Introduce changes to attempt to reduce the backlog at the Landlord and Tenant Board
• Introduce a common set of road construction standards across municipalities
• Enable a new public corporation model for water and wastewater in Peel Region
• Prohibit the reduction of vehicle lanes when municipalities install new bicycle lanes
• Strengthen eligibility requirements to get an Ontario driver’s license
• Support building housing for seasonal farm workers by making it easier to put septic systems in place on farm properties

It is worth noting that in the days since this bill was introduced, the government has walked away from its initial proposal to consult on an alternative option to lease expiry rules. 

There will also be corresponding regulatory consultations on several of the proposals listed. Three that have been posted that are relevant for municipalities include:

• Modern Transportation – Prohibiting Vehicle Lane Reduction for New Bicycle Lanes
  • The government is seeking feedback on its legislative proposals to amend the Highway Traffic Act to prohibit municipalities from reducing motor vehicle lanes when installing, implementing, or marking new bicycle lanes. The proposed amendments would also create regulation-making authorities to allow the Minister to prescribe additional prohibited activities and to provide exemptions from the prohibitions. The amendments would provide the Minister with greater discretion when determining municipal reimbursement for the existing bicycle lane review framework. 
  • Comments due: November 22, 2025
• Seeking Feedback on Proposed Amendment to the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 to Shorten the Period of Time Available to Request a Review of an LTB order
  • The government is seeking feedback on its proposal to amend the Residential Tenancies Act to reduce the time period available for requesting a review from 30 days to 15 days. Requests for an extension of time would continue to be available for extenuating circumstances. 
  • Comments due: November 22, 2025
• Proposed Changes to the Planning Act
  • The government is seeking public feedback on its proposals in Schedule 10 of Bill 60, Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025, which proposes several amendments to the Planning Act, including:
    • Minor Variances: changes are proposed to provide regulation-making authority that would reduce the necessity for planning applications for minor variances by providing for variations to be permitted “as-of-right” for performance standards identified in the regulation on specified lands
    • Policy Statements and Minister’s Decision: changes are proposed to make provincial policy statements inapplicable with respect to all Minister’s decisions outside the Greenbelt area
    • Minster’s Zoning Orders: changes are proposed to enable Minister’s zoning orders to be made by non-regulatory orders and published on a Government of Ontario website
    • Protected Major Transit Station Areas: changes are proposed that would allow official plan amendments to modify the authorized used of land within a Protected Major Transit Station Area (PMTSA) to be exempt from Minister’s approval if the authorized use(s) after the amendment will include residential but maintain the restriction on exempting amendments changing the other required PMTSA official plan policies (e.g. minimum densities) from Minister’s approval
    • Community Improvement Plans: changes are proposed to support flexible implementation of Community Improvement Plans (CIPs), including enabling upper-tier municipalities to establish regional CIPs to allow funding to lower-tier municipalities for their CIPs
  • Comments due: November 22, 2025
• Implementing Reforms to the Development Charges Framework
  • The government is seeking feedback on potential regulatory changes in connection with the proposed Bill 60, Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025, which would help implement changes made by Bill 17, Protect Ontario Act, 2025, as well as the changes proposed in the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025:
    • Merging water supply services and wastewater services for the purpose of development charge (DC) credits
    • Making the benefit to existing allocations more transparent in DC background studies
    • Requiring details on land acquisition costs to be set out for each service in DC background studies
    • Requiring municipalities to make certain information available in a treasurer’s statement for projects financed by DCs including:
      • The amount from each reserve fund that was committed to a project, but had not been spent as of the end of the year
      • The amount of debt that had been issued for a project as of the end of the year
      • Where in the DC background study the project’s capital costs were estimated
  • Comments due: November 23, 2025

This omnibus bill includes many legislative and regulatory proposals that may have an impact on municipalities, affecting operational and administrative burden, decision-making authority, and municipal finance. We will continue to monitor this bill and the corresponding regulatory proposals for impacts on our members.