Ontario Liberals push for fourplexes in housing bill proposal

The Ontario Liberals will be the latest party to propose legislation that would allow developers and homeowners to build fourplexes.

On Tuesday, MPP Adil Shamji will introduce a private members’ bill that would amend official plans and zoning bylaws to allow the building of up to four residential units, up to four stories, to be built on any parcel or land zoned as “residential.”

The legislation specifies that floor-to-area ratios may not be imposed and that parking spaces will not be required.

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Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Leader Bonnie Crombie called the policy “gentle density.”

“The solution can't be tall or sprawl or allowing your friends to build on land that should be protected for all of us,” she said.

“We need to provide different formats and housing, whether they're semis or duplexes or sixplexes for that matter.”

In 2022, the Progressive Conservative government introduced housing legislation that allowed up to three units will be allowed on a single residential lot without any bylaw amendments or municipal permissions.

Duplexes and triplexes could also be built on single residential lots, regardless of municipal zoning laws.

The province is expected to introduce its newest housing legislation later this month.

Shamji told reporters that he wouldn’t mind if the province included fourplexes in their new legislation, noting it was one of the recommendations made by Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force.

“They've had many opportunities to introduce it already and I suspect that they won't,” he said.

“This is a critical and ambitious first step.”

The Liberals were unable to provide a rough estimate as to how many housing units could be opened up if developers were allowed to build fourplexes, saying only that “it’s certainly more than a drop in the bucket.”

The Liberals are not the first political party to make this suggestion. In 2023, the Ontario Green Party put forward legislation that would allow “the use of up to four residential units in a detached house, semi-detached house or rowhouse as well as multi-unit residential buildings of up to four stories.”

The bill has been referred to the standing committee.

Neither bill will likely pass due to the Progressive Conservative majority.