The responses to the Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force report are coming in from all directions, and many municipal leaders are choosing to embrace the status quo without even recognizing the housing crisis. Disappointingly, Mississauga is the latest municipality to come out in opposition to the broad housing reforms proposed by the task force. Their summarized and detailed responses were posted publicly last week.
As Mississauga is the second largest municipality in the GTA and one that many MNTO members have strong connections with, we spent the time to respond to each and every one of the city's points. We disagree with the City's lack of ambition in going for broad zoning reforms, and their belief that their existing Official Plan is sufficient in producing housing in large enough numbers to tackle this crisis. The fact that the average house price in Mississauga is over a million and is well out of the reach of most Ontarians is proof of the urgency of this crisis.
On top of that, Mississauga was uniquely the only large municipality in Canada to have lost population in the latest census - underscoring the lack of sufficient intensification in Mississauga to make up for the shortage of greenfield development.
You can read our response to Mississauga's response in detail.