New housing minister 'reviewing' regional facilitators in Ontario
The Doug Ford government will be “reviewing” its intention to assign facilitators to assess certain regional governments in southern Ontario.
The news was announced in a statement posted to X (formerly known as Twitter) by new Housing Minister Paul Calandra Monday morning.
The former housing minister, Steve Clark, had previously committed to naming these facilitators this week.
“Our government is working hard to ensure municipalities are properly equipped to meet their housing targets and get shovels in the ground,” Calandra said on social media.
“As such, I will be reviewing the previously-stated intention to appoint facilitators to assess regional governments in Durham, Halton, Niagara, Simcoe County, Waterloo and York to ensure the province’s approach supports our goal of getting more homes built in these fast-growing regions.”
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The review will not impact the Region of Peel, which has already been dissolved and is transitioning to become three single-tiered cities.
The region is also separate from the facilitators working on land development.
Little information is available as to what this review will entail or what the concerns may be, but Calandra promised in his statement to release further details by the end of the month.
It was just under a year ago that the province announced it would be appointing facilitators to assess the regional governments.
The goal at the time was to determine how to best divide governance responsibilities between upper and lower tier municipalities in an effort to build housing.
A slew of changes have been made by the Ford government in the name of reaching their goal of building 1.5 million homes in 10 years, including strong mayor powers, appointing regional chairs and developing part of the Greenbelt.
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