TORONTO, April 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) today released a major new housing policy report, “Removing Roadblocks: Tackling Municipal Barriers to Housing Supply and Affordability in Ontario,” outlining the next phase of provincial housing policy reforms needed to build more of the right types of homes and improve affordability for Ontarians. The report recognizes the Ford government for advancing a pro-homeownership and pro-housing supply agenda through a sustained series of legislative bills since 2018 designed to speed up approvals, reduce barriers, and support new housing construction.
“While historic progress has been made, we must continue the work of removing the decades of legislative and regulatory red tape, outdated local rules, and rising municipal costs that are blocking new housing in Ontario,” said TRREB President Daniel Steinfeld.
Ontario Has Made Progress but Housing Starts Remain Too Low
Ontario recorded nearly 100,000 housing starts in both 2021 and 2022, a record level of homebuilding for the province. But rising interest rates, escalating construction costs, economic uncertainty, and persistent municipal barriers have since led to a sharp decline in construction. In 2025, the province recorded just over 62,000 housing starts, less than half the level required to stay on track. Since 2022, the cumulative shortfall has already exceeded 287,000 homes.
“While we cannot control global economic conditions, we can control whether our housing system becomes the engine of opportunity that helps the next generation of Ontarians achieve the dream of homeownership,” said TRREB CEO John DiMichele. “There is still more work to do when it comes to creating a housing system that makes it easier to build the right types of homes that families and individuals need. This report is a roadmap for cutting red tape and unlocking new housing supply.”
Decades of Well-Intentioned Red Tape Still Adds Costs and Delays Construction
TRREB’s report finds Ontario’s housing affordability crisis did not emerge overnight. It is the result of decades of policy aimed at managing growth, funding infrastructure, protecting neighbourhoods, and ensuring proper consultations. Together, these rules have created a system that now makes housing slower, costlier, and harder to build.
“Over time, municipalities were given broad authority over planning and approvals, while new restrictions, mandated consultations, studies, and technical requirements continued to grow,” said Steinfeld. “Individually, many measures were well-intentioned. Collectively, they created a policy environment in which it is often easier to delay housing than to deliver it. The hardest hit projects are the entry-level, family-sized, rental, and missing middle multiplex homes Ontario needs most.”
TRREB’s Roadmap to Removing Roadblocks
TRREB’s new report identifies 13 key policy barriers embedded across three areas of municipal responsibility. Across these barriers, the report advances 42 targeted policy recommendations aimed at realigning municipal planning frameworks, fiscal tools, and regulatory systems with Ontario’s housing supply objectives, including:
- Permitting four units as-of-right on urban residential lots
- Introducing a provincial cap or standardizing development charges
- Reforming Toronto’s Municipal Land Transfer Tax
- Standardizing planning application requirements provincewide
- Introducing stronger accountability for missed municipal approval timelines
- Modernizing the Building Code to allow more missing middle housing, such as mid-rise apartments and multiplexes
“Ontario has taken important steps toward reducing costs for new housing, but we have to continue the work on reducing red tape, removing roadblocks, and keep building the homes families, individuals, first-time buyers, and renters need,” said DiMichele.
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About TRREB:
The Toronto Regional Real Estate Board is Canada’s largest real estate board, with almost 70,000 residential and commercial professionals connecting people, property, and communities.
