Connected Communities
We consider in creating vibrant neighbourhoods where we are able to live, work and play. It’s time to stop Ontario’s expensive pro-sprawl, anti-climate agenda.
Mike Schreiner, Leader, Green Party of Ontario
Thriving communities are places where there are a combination of homes people can afford near transit, amenities and parks.
Unfortunately, the affordability crisis signifies that finding a reasonable home to rent or buy is pushing us further and further away and forcing us into long, soul-crushing commutes. It’s also turning homeownership right into a pipedream for many Ontarians. Greens have a daring plan that the Toronto Star called a “master class in housing policy,” and it begins with cracking down on land speculators driving up housing prices.
Past governments watched the issue worsen, but now we have a plan to unlock solutions like triplexes, fourplexes and midrise apartments, and to revive protections for renters. We are going to work with nonprofits to construct 182,000 reasonably priced community housing rental homes because everybody deserves a roof over their head.
Community is greater than a house – it’s the streets, parks, workplaces, schools, and shops that give communities their spirit and identity. Our goal is to construct communities where we are able to access work, services and recreation inside quarter-hour of home, because less time commuting means more time for family and friends.
It just so happens that constructing dense, mixed-use connected communities can also be one of the best thing we are able to do for the environment, because it cuts down on automotive pollution and spares our natural areas from more urban sprawl. Our vision is one in every of bustling fundamental streets, bike lanes, urban gardens, electric buses, convenient EV charging spots, walkable streets, and so far more.
We’ll also deliver on the urgent needs that rural and Northern communities have been waiting for – like high-speed Web across rural Ontario and passenger rail service to Northern Ontario.
Where we live, work, and play all mix to affect quality of life. Our vision is to create livable, reasonably priced and connected communities.
And now we have a plan to do that that won’t sacrifice the environment or our health, and won’t create policies that line the pockets of land speculators on the expense of constructing great housing and communities for people.
Address the Housing Crisis
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Now we have solutions to make housing cheaper. To create neighbourhoods without paving over nature. And to construct for a climate-friendly future.
Aneep Dhade, GPO candidate
Housing affordability is an actual challenge to many individuals across the province. Housing costs are rising faster than people’s incomes. So many households are spending greater than 30% of their income to fulfill their basic housing needs.
The struggle to search out reasonably priced housing looks different to residents of Northern communities, small towns, and rural counties than it does within the GTHA. But wherever you’re, it’s a challenge to search out a liveable, reasonably priced place to call home.
The crisis is province-wide. There are not any neighbourhoods in Barrie, Guelph, Hamilton, Kitchener, Peterborough, Ottawa or Thunder Bay where the common one or two-bedroom apartment is reasonably priced for a full-time minimum wage employee.
We urgently need to construct more well-designed, reasonably priced, purpose-built rental housing and to repair and maintain the availability now we have. We want to adopt a Housing First strategy and work to finish homelessness. We want to clamp down on speculation and supply funds that could be reinvested back into reasonably priced housing, and we want to create more pathways to home ownership.
Our comprehensive housing plan, “Constructing Livable & Inexpensive communities,” lays out a method for ensuring everyone has a protected, reasonably priced and accessible place to call home.
Construct reasonably priced housing & protect our existing reasonably priced supply
- Construct 182,000 recent permanently reasonably priced community housing rental homes over the subsequent decade, including 60,000 everlasting supportive homes.
- Mandate inclusionary zoning and require a minimum of 20% reasonably priced units in all housing projects above a certain size.
- Create a seed fund for co-operative housing through direct funding and mortgage support.
- Renew 260,000 community housing units over the subsequent decade, in partnership with the federal government, under the National Housing Strategy.
- Provide nonprofit housing providers with the support and access to capital needed to buy rental buildings to take care of affordability in perpetuity and explore preemptive right-to-buy for nonprofits.
- Partner with nonprofits, co-ops, and community land trusts to make use of public land for permanently reasonably priced rental housing and attainable home ownership options through low-cost long-term leases.
- Prioritise and speed up the event approval processes for projects led by or in partnership with non-profit housing providers, and supply low-interest loans via a recent revolving fund.
Create more pathways to ownership
- Allow single family dwellings to be divided into multiple condominium units to create more attainable home ownership opportunities inside existing neighbourhoods.
- End blind bidding to be sure that the house purchase process is transparent.
- Make home inspections mandatory, at the vendor’s expense, to save lots of recent homebuyers money on unexpected repairs.
- Seek the advice of on and develop a down payment support program to assist low and middle income first-time homebuyers.
- Develop and support alternative homeownership pilot programs corresponding to cohousing, tiny homes, and rent-to-own to help low and middle income first-time homebuyers.
- Increase incentives and streamline the appliance process for first-time homeowners so as to add reasonably priced rental units to their primary residence to assist pay down their mortgage.
Provide security and support for renters
- Reinstate rent controls on all units to manage rental increases year-to-year and implement emptiness control to limit rent increases between tenancies.
- Extend financial support to 311,000 Ontario households via the portable housing profit.
- Establish a transparent system for above-guideline rent increases that governs which renovations are crucial and may qualify for a rise in rent.
- Update and strengthen sections of the Residential Tenancies Act that cope with the state of repair for multi-unit buildings to make sure tenants have homes which might be protected.
- Strengthen rules and penalties for renovictions and bad faith evictions to maintain apartments reasonably priced.
- Increase funding for the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) to rent additional adjudicators, add transparency to the appointment process, and eliminate forced online hearings. This may help address delays in order that each landlords and tenants have timely access to justice.
Address speculation and corruption within the housing market
- Implement a multiple property speculation tax on people and corporations who own greater than two houses or condominium units in Ontario. The tax will begin at 20% on the third home and increase with each additional property owned.
- Work with municipalities to implement a province-wide vacant homes tax to make it harder to make use of vacant homes as a lucrative place to park money.
- Implement an anti-flipping tax on quick turnaround sales.
- Crack down on money laundering and implement a helpful ownership registry to avoid the practice of nameless firms trading properties.
- Implement a database that tracks pre-construction condo sales. Developers shall be required to gather and report comprehensive details about buyers to provincial tax authorities to make sure compliance.
- Work with all levels of presidency and housing experts to develop regulations to ease the financialisation of each our reasonably priced rental housing stock and single family homes.
Take a Housing First approach and end homelessness
- Restore the goal of ending homelessness in Ontario inside ten years.
- Resume the homelessness census cancelled by the Ford government.
- Utilise a Housing First model to be sure that stable, everlasting housing solutions are the primary priority when helping those in need.
- Engage communities who’ve lived experience with homelessness in program development, in addition to communities that face disproportionate levels of homelessness, including newcomers and racialized people.
Expand housing options for people in crisis and transition
- Construct 60,000 everlasting supportive housing units over the subsequent decade through revolutionary partnerships with public, private, and non-profit housing organisations.
- Deploy temporary and everlasting supportive modular housing projects on provincially owned land as quickly as possible.
- Increase annual funding for girls’s shelters in addition to protected and accessible transitional and supportive housing options for girls and their families. Increase funding for culturally appropriate transitional housing.
Strong neighbourhoods
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Urban sprawl is pricey, terrible for the environment, and destroys farmland and wetlands.
Laura Campbell, GPO candidate
We are able to’t sprawl our way out of the housing crisis. The truth is, it would cost us more to do this.
Paving over nature costs us more since it increases flooding and takes crucial investments to interchange what nature does without cost. It eats up farmland, which is disappearing at an alarming rate.
Sprawl also costs us more in taxes, adds to traffic congestion and increases air pollution. And that’s all along with the environmental damage sprawl creates.
We don’t must sprawl to fulfill demand. Expert data suggests that there isn’t a must expand beyond our current growth boundaries at once because we have already got enough land put aside for development.
What we want as an alternative is sensible development that encourages us to make use of land properly to be able to construct vibrant neighbourhoods with a combination of housing types – corresponding to laneway houses, single family homes, triplexes, quadruplexes, walk-ups, condos, and co-ops.
A necessary a part of any community is small business. We need to make it easier for small businesses to succeed.
Whether we live in an urban city, a rural hamlet or somewhere in between, our communities can have local shops, services and parks which might be close by and straightforward to get to.
Champion smart growth
- Freeze urban boundaries.
- Develop a “15-minute” neighbourhood framework that suits quite a lot of towns and cities across the province by working with municipalities on rezoning.
- Reverse the Ford government’s changes to the Growth Plan that encourage sprawl and revise the Growth Plan to advertise healthy density.
- Require that intensification targets are met with distributed density throughout urbanised areas.
Construct infill housing near transit
- Construct 1.5M homes in quite a lot of revolutionary forms inside urban boundaries over the subsequent 10 years.
- Update the Planning Act, Provincial Policy Statement and other applicable laws and regulations to expand zoning permissions to permit for triplexes and fourplexes as-of-right inside existing urban boundaries.
- Update planning laws to prezone for missing middle and mid-rise housing on transit corridors and fundamental streets.
- Require minimum housing densities at transit stations and along transit corridors as a part of the Growth Plan and transit funding agreements between the province and municipalities.
- Work with all levels of presidency to remodel appropriate publicly owned land for reasonably priced housing, corresponding to above transit facilities and in transit station surface parking lots.
- Reinstate the provincial brownfield remediation fund to support municipalities to securely construct reasonably priced housing on previously industrial sites.
- Develop a framework that encourages the development of housing on business properties, corresponding to abandoned plazas and warehouses, where protected and appropriate.
- End mandatory minimum parking requirements for all recent developments after they are constructed.
Ensure community consultation is inclusive
- Work collaboratively with municipalities on a province-wide “Yes, in My Backyard” initiative to lift awareness of the advantages of infill housing inside existing neighbourhoods.
- Encourage municipalities to meaningfully engage with prospective residents, not only current residents, when consulting on zoning changes and recent developments to make sure all voices are heard throughout the planning process.
- Explore revolutionary approaches to planning consultation that ensure processes are genuinely inclusive and meaningfully engage all residents. For instance, engaging people in community locations that they frequent corresponding to coffee shops or transit stops, or providing childcare to make sure broader community participation.
Strengthen community hubs
- Increase funding for local libraries and ramp up publicity across the essential community programming that they provide.
- Increase support for community centres and neighbourhood coalitions, which play a very important role in encouraging community connections and reducing isolation for elders.
- Restore funding, improve communication and outreach, and supply reduced fees for the community use of colleges to make sure their availability as essential hubs in our communities.
- Provide free and low-cost community programming in high-needs neighbourhoods, including but not limited to covering costs without cost evening, weekend, March break, and summer permits.
- Spend money on more Youth Wellness Hubs and community centres that provide access to local mental health services, spaces for social interaction, and supports for families.
Create vibrant neighbourhoods
- Support municipalities to create infill greenspaces in order that there’s one inside a ten minute walk of all homes by 2030.
- Amend zoning rules to permit for small businesses corresponding to corner stores to open inside residential neighbourhoods.
- Provide start-up funding for community-owned healthy food markets and increase support for community gardens through land gifts and organisational support to eliminate urban food deserts.
- Improve the community advantages system for major infrastructure projects to extend the social and economic advantages received by the area people.
Help small neighbourhood businesses recuperate and thrive
- Expand the Digital Most important Street program to incorporate nonprofit organisations and supply fulfilment platforms that higher enable small, local businesses to compete with large online firms.
- Develop a small business grant program for Black-owned businesses.
- Support the increased staycation tax credit and ensure it includes dining at restaurants.
- Work with insurance providers to develop a reasonable business insurance program for small businesses
- Develop a program to assist COVID-affected small businesses file for bankruptcy in a good and non-punitive way.
- Improve opportunities for small local businesses and nonprofits to win public contracts through targets and by decreasing current financial and informational barriers.
- Allow Ontario’s craft spirits, brewers, and wine producers to open independent, off-site stores; allow boutique wine, craft beer and artisan spirit shops; improve the distribution network to work for small businesses; and permit access for hospitality to buy from these suppliers at a wholesale price of as much as 20%.
Create a recent regulatory framework for small business
- Undertake a review of regulations to be able to weed out red tape and costs that disproportionately affect small businesses.
- Create standardised leases to make sure fairness and transparency and be sure that priority is given to existing tenants when leases are up for renewal.
- Create rent control guidelines for year-over-year increases that apply to all business tenants, including recent tenants, and implement a mechanism to implement rules and resolve disputes.
Support local arts and social enterprises
- Decrease land taxes payable for buildings wherein below market rent opportunities can be found to creative and social enterprises.
- Develop a made-in-Ontario social enterprise strategy with the nonprofit and cooperative sectors to drive local job creation and support rural, distant, and concrete self-reliance.
- Create a stabilisation fund for the nonprofit sector to be sure that nonprofits and charities can assist rebuild the economy and communities.
- Affirm the arms-length operations of, and increase investment in, the Ontario Arts Council and the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
- Reinstate support for the Indigenous Culture Fund.
Getting from A to B
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Transportation is the most important source of pollution in Ontario. Investing in clean transit systems is a priority for Ontario Greens. People need reasonably priced options to get around, they usually need relief at once.
Priyan De Silva, GPO candidate
To crush climate pollution, Ontario needs an actual plan to diminish using fossil fuel vehicles liable for an infinite share of climate pollution. We are able to rapidly move towards low carbon transportation options, including electric cars, buses, bikes and walking.
More highways means more congestion, period. We’re the one party fully committed to stopping urban sprawl and constructing livable, reasonably priced, and connected communities so people aren’t forced to spend hours in expensive, soul-crushing commutes.
Regional public transit is a key a part of our transportation plan, including the GO and Northlander. As a substitute of pumping billions of dollars into climate-polluting supersprawler highways like Doug Ford is proposing, we’re committed to constructing connected communities where everyone has a reasonable technique to get around.
Our goal is to make it easier for people to decide on healthier, lower carbon options for his or her commutes. This includes dedicating everlasting, long-term funding for walking and cycling infrastructure in order that our cities and towns are protected to get around.
Connect communities with clean, efficient transit options
- Stop constructing recent highways. Cancel planned unnecessary highways corresponding to Highway 413, Holland Marsh Highway, and the widening of Highway 417.
- Create dedicated truck lanes on Highway 407 to scale back congestion and the necessity for more highways.
- Prioritise public transit in all transportation planning decisions.
- Immediately cut transit fares in half for no less than three months across all Ontario transit systems, including municipal, GO and Northland services to assist people avoid the soaring costs of gas.
- Restore the 50% provincial cost-share for transit operations to be able to reduce fare increases for users.
- Electrify Ontario’s transit system as quickly as possible, including by adding 4,000 electric and fuel-cell buses by 2030.
- Triple the variety of dedicated bus lanes by 2025.
- Ensure all transportation decisions are evidence-based, without political interference, and include consultation with planning experts throughout the planning process.
Increase transit connections outside of the GTHA
- Expand all-day, 2-way GO service to depart every quarter-hour during peak periods and each half-hour off peak, including weekend service. Offer no less than one express service each way during weekday peak periods.
- Establish a clean, reasonably priced, accessible intercity electric bus service to attach all communities across the province, ensuring connections in small, rural communities and dedicated bus lanes.
- Fully fund the Northlander passenger rail service.
- Explore on-demand systems for public transit, especially in suburban and rural communities.
- Support regional fare integration and seamless travel between transit systems.
Connect neighbourhoods with people-powered transportation
- Implement Vision Zero to prioritise road safety for pedestrians and cyclists.
- Create a fund for municipalities to construct protected bike lanes while preserving safety and curb access for seniors and folks with disabilities.
- Support sharing and rental systems for bikes, e-bikes and low-emission vehicles with incentives geared to income.
- Require secure bike parking and e-bike charging to be provided in recent and existing multi-unit buildings, in surface parking lots, and in any respect government buildings.
- Redesign roads to scale back motorists’ speed in areas which might be a specific danger to pedestrians and cyclists, and eliminate hazards corresponding to slip lanes.
- Require all recent or resurfaced highways to have paved shoulders for protected cycling. Establish commuter cycling networks across Ontario.
Connect individuals with higher broadband
- Make broadband web a vital service and roll out high-speed access across the province.
- Use regulations to level the playing field for small, local web service providers.
- Support provincial funding for programs to check best practices for teleworking as a climate-friendly alternative to commuting.
Inclusive and accessible communities
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Ontario Greens support implementation of the AODA in our communities and can proceed to advocate for accessible government services for all Ontarians.
Nicki Ward, GPO candidate
Inaction by successive governments has delayed implementing the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), so unfortunately the unique goal of full accessibility by 2025 is probably going inconceivable.
Our communities must be built with everyone in mind, not only folks who’re able-bodied. As we modernise the places we live, let’s make our streets, homes, buildings accessible to individuals with mobility issues so that they are not any longer cut off from their communities. The attractive thing about accessibility is that it makes places more enjoyable for everybody.
Ontario Greens are fully committed to mandating universal design to be sure that all recent housing is accessible for all and suitable for aging in place.
Our communities should be accessible and inclusive. They should work for everybody.
Prioritise the implementation of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA)
- Implement as much of the AODA as possible by 2025, and create a transparent path for the remaining pieces to be accomplished as soon as possible thereafter.
- Strengthen Accessibility Standards under the AODA to make sure the standards meet the needs of individuals with disabilities.
- Enact comprehensive Education Accessibility and Health Care Accessibility Standards and strengthen the Employment and Transportation Accessibility Standards under the AODA.
- Revamp the Information and Communications standards to maintain up with rapidly changing technology.
- Review and revise the Design of Public Spaces standards.
- Substantially strengthen AODA enforcement.
Construct accessible homes and businesses
- Develop recent comprehensive Built Environment accessibility standards by revising the constructing code for brand spanking new construction and major renovations.
- Make sure that recent reasonably priced housing stock is accessible, and require all reasonably priced housing retrofits to fulfill the identical standards.
- Create incentives for retrofitting homes and buildings that make them accessible.
- Make sure that design professionals are provided adequate training in accessibility awareness and inclusive design.
- Substantially improve the accessibility of the Ontario Public Service’s workplaces, services and facilities.
- Provide clear, in-depth guidelines and deliver more responsive, comprehensive support for AODA implementation to organisations through free, independent technical advice.
People-powered government
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We’re greater than just taxpayers. We’re individuals, members of the family, a part of our community — we’re residents.
Bonnie North, GPO candidate
Municipalities have been under immense pressure these past few years.
Previous governments downloaded many social costs onto municipalities. With municipalities covering these costs, there’s less money for other vital services corresponding to transit, libraries, community centres, parks and municipal constructing retrofits.
We consider the Ontario government must be a partner in helping fund these essential services.
Just over half of eligible voters in Ontario actually end up to the polls– an indication of the deep cynicism that folks have about politics. Governments have given them so many reasons to be distrustful, from gas plant scandals to the influence of massive donors. Many Ontarians have lost faith in our political system and easily given up on going to the polls on election day. Many consider that under the current system, their vote doesn’t even count.
That’s why Ontario Greens prefer proportional representation voting systems which might be truly representative of the electorate.
But even under a primary past the post system, Greens do politics otherwise, with a willingness to work across the aisle to get things done and a give attention to people over party.
Ontario is simply as strong because the those who lead it. Encouraging participation in running, voting and all areas of the political system are essential pieces of our democracy.
Support and strengthen municipal governments
- Grant municipalities autonomy to implement revenue tools to fund critical infrastructure needs and services.
- Provide financial support for municipalities to bolster local infrastructure:
- Provincially fund 50% of shelter and community housing costs while allowing municipalities to take care of management control.
- Restore the 50% provincial cost-share for transit operations and support electrification plans for all municipal transit systems.
- Create a dedicated $2B per yr Climate Adaptation Fund for municipalities.
- Increase collaboration and consultation between municipalities and the province.
- Assess using City Charters as a mechanism to empower major Ontario cities, corresponding to Toronto, and stop inappropriate interference in local democracy by the provincial government.
Democratic reform
- Create a various, randomly chosen Residents Assembly on electoral reform with a mandate to offer binding recommendations on modernising Ontario’s electoral system to be sure that every vote counts and the legislature reflects the democratic will of the people.
- Allow municipalities the choice to make use of a ranked ballot voting system for elections.
- Create limits for municipal elections whereby no one may contribute greater than $1000 to all candidates, combined.
- Reduce donation limits for provincial political parties, candidates, and constituency associations to $1000 per yr.
- Restore Auditor General oversight of presidency promoting.
- Require a five yr cooling off period before MPPs and government advisors can register as lobbyists.
Make politics more inclusive and collaborative
- Make funding available for non-profit organisations that provide additional training and mentorship opportunities for girls, Black, Indigenous, racialised, and 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals who’re considering running for political office.
- Reduce the voting age to 16 years old.
- Increase the standard and quantity of local public input in provincial decision-making by creating recent channels to provide residents a voice, each through MPPs and ministries.
- Allow the introduction of electronic petitions to the Ontario Legislature.
Protect voter rights and empower residents
- Make the day of a general election an official paid holiday.
- Implement strict accessibility standards at voting stations.
- Increase the variety of mobile polls at hospitals, seniors’ residences, and for individuals with accessibility issues which prohibit them from easily leaving their homes.
