Alberta's Housing Success: Lessons for Ontario's Approval Processes

📅 2 weeks ago

Alberta's Bill 28 streamlines housing development approvals, offering a model for Ontario to address its housing supply challenges.

Alberta is leading the nation in housing development, significantly outpacing other provinces in the number of homes being built and construction projects initiated. The year 2025 saw a remarkable increase in housing starts in Alberta, contrasting sharply with Ontario, where housing starts have declined and are projected to continue falling. This disparity is not coincidental; it stems from fundamentally different strategies employed by the two provinces regarding housing development. The clear lesson for Ontario is that it can benefit from adopting Alberta's successful strategies without the need to reinvent existing frameworks.
At the heart of Alberta's achievements is the recent enactment of Bill 28, known as the Municipal Affairs and Housing Statutes Amendment Act, 2026. This legislation is among the most significant pro-housing legislative reforms in Canada. A key feature of Bill 28 is its implementation of an “automatic yes” policy for development approvals. This straightforward yet impactful concept dictates that projects meeting established criteria and deemed low risk should be approved swiftly—potentially even automatically—avoiding the extensive bureaucratic delays that often plague such processes.
With this new legislative framework, municipalities in Alberta are now empowered to utilize automated systems for processing development applications, enabling them to expedite approvals for straightforward projects. Bill 28 also encourages the use of digital permitting tools and standardized processes, thereby reducing the uncertainty that often accompanies housing developments and eliminating excessive bureaucratic back-and-forth.
In stark contrast, Ontario's approval process has become one of the most significant hindrances to increasing housing supply. A report commissioned by the Ontario Association of Architects revealed that delays in site plan approvals alone cost the economy approximately $3.5 billion each year. On average, it takes about 23 months just to complete the site plan approval phase, leading to heightened carrying costs, increased financing expenses, and ultimately, inflated prices for homebuyers.
Alberta's proactive approach has resulted in a system where compliant projects can proceed without delay, effectively reducing costs at their source. This has led to increased predictability for builders, encouraging investment in the housing sector. Municipal performance data from Calgary illustrates this point well; development approvals and building permits there are processed significantly faster than in Ontario, with some residential approvals completed in just weeks or a few months, rather than the years commonly seen in Ontario.
However, expediting approvals is just one aspect of Alberta's overall strategy. The province prioritizes housing as a fundamental concern, aligning its policies to reflect this priority. Conversely, Ontario has maintained costs that escalate housing prices and complicate construction. Among these costs are development charges imposed by municipalities to fund infrastructure, which have surged to become one of the largest expenses associated with new housing developments. In many regions of Ontario, these charges can add tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars to the cost of new homes.
Efforts are underway in Ontario to address these issues, such as the new Development Charge Reduction Program (DCRP), which allocates up to $8.8 billion over ten years to assist municipalities that cut development charges by 30 to 50 percent. This program is directly tied to housing-enabling infrastructure, acknowledging that excessive fees constitute a structural problem rather than a temporary issue. It incentivizes municipalities to take action, but further reforms are necessary.
The current system in Ontario continues to be plagued by lengthy approval processes and overlapping agency requirements that discourage investment. To combat this, the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) is collaborating with a province-wide coalition, led by One Ontario, to promote an AI-enabled permitting platform. This initiative aims to establish a unified, standardized system to streamline approvals from start to finish, thus minimizing redundancy and enhancing transparency.
A long-term vision for Ontario's approval process includes the development of a single, province-wide permitting dashboard that would simplify the interaction for applicants. This dashboard would outline requirements, prepare submissions, coordinate reviews, and track projects through to their final decisions. The significance of modernizing the approval system cannot be overstated; Ontario must not lag further behind its counterparts. The solutions have been identified, and Ontario must take decisive action to implement them, following the successful example set by Alberta. The critical challenge remains in finding the political will to make these necessary changes.

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