Transcript: Brampton Housing Review Highlights Gaps - Planning and Development Committee - February 23, 2026 | Summary 452

Brampton Housing Review Highlights Gaps - Planning and Development Committee - February 23, 2026

Check one, two. Testing audio. Check one, two. Hi, Cer Petiti. Can we test your audio, please? Yes. Good afternoon. Perfect. Thank you. Hi, Caster Presente. Can we test your audio please? Sound check. Perfect. Thank you. No, we could be flexible today. All right, call to order. Good afternoon and welcome to Bmpton's Planning and Development Committee meeting. We will begin the meeting with calling the role for attendance at this afternoon's meeting. To Madame Clerk, you chair. We have the following counselors online. Councelor Basante, councelor Santos, and councelor Portini. And in person, we have councelor Tour, councelor Power, Councelor Keenan, and councelor Brow. Thank you. Councelor Fleshy has sent his regrets. Yeah. Um, moving on to approval of the agenda. Does any member wish to add a business item to today's meeting? Okay, we have a motion by councelor Power to approve the agenda. All in favor? Motion carries. Do any members have a declaration of pecunary interest under the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act for any matter to be considered on today's agenda? Seeing and hearing none, that will be so noted. Moving on to consent motion, our next item is a consent motion. I'll read the relevant agenda items and members can identify any items to be held for debate. 7.1 Application to amend the zoning bylaw for a draft plan of subdivision. Okay, that's in consent. 7.2 2 file OZS20250024 application to amend the zoning bylaw that's in consent 8.1 will be held for delegation 8.2 2 staff report by Merilla Polarmmo Polarmo advisor special projects that is in consent 8.3 staff report by Merilla advisor special projects integrated city planning that in consent I have a motion moved by councelor Keenan to approve the consent motion all in favor motion carries moving on to our delegations questions. I believe we'll just go in the order for 8.1. Okay. Yeah. Six, we have uh no uh statutory public meetings in section seven. Everything was in consent. Moving on to 8.1 staff presentation. I will ask um Mahasa Koski uh to come up and present and correct me if I said your name incorrectly. Thank you. Good [clears throat] afternoon, chair, members of committee, and everyone in attendance at today's meeting. My name is Melinda. I'm here with my colleague Masa Kushki from Integrated City Planning to present a walkthrough of the city's journey 5 years in to implementation of housing Bmpton. We are also going to review our recently completed 2025 housing needs assessment and what it tells us about the current state of housing in the city as well as what we plan to do to continue to address our residents evolving housing needs as we look to the next five years ahead. Next slide, please. So council approved housing BMPON in 2021 and this is the city's first comprehensive housing strategy and action plan. Development of Housing Bmpton began in 2018 with the completion of the city's first housing needs assessment and then that was followed by the development of a policy options report in 2019 and extensive consultation with key stakeholders in the community. Since council approval, staff have advanced a range of the action items and the deliverables in housing Bmpton through policies and zoning and incentives and partnerships. And staff also recently completed a new updated housing needs assessment. This is now the five-year milestone for housing Bmpton, so it's the right time for us to check our progress and understand the current pressures and how they've changed from 2021. We also want to confirm what has been working and what gaps remain and how we should update the strategy moving forward, giving consideration to all of those things. So with that, I'm going to pass it to Masa to start with the housing needs assessment story and then move into what has been delivered in housing BMPON and then end with how we'll refine the strategy to guide our work in the coming years. And good afternoon, chair, mayor, and member of committee. And next this is yeah uh this slide provides an overview of housing need assessment and the key data sources it draws on. Completion of the housing need assessment was also required to maintain eligibility for federal housing funding opportunities including the housing accelerator fund. We pulled from statistic Canada housing and rental data region of appeal forecast and the housing affordability and rental tool. The housing need assessment looks at housing supply and demand, affordability in both rental and ownership markets and how household characteristic are changing over time and it helps us make more informed choices about where the city should focus its effort. It also allows us to better understand how housing condition have changed since the original strategy was approved including a stronger population growth, rising affordability pressures and shifting household needs. Next slide, please. I'll now walk through three key patterns we're seeing in Bmpton's housing market. The first is rental market pressures. Looking at the charts, you can see the relatively few new rental units have been added compared to ownership housing. At the same time, renter incomes are generally lower than owner incomes, and vacancy rates have often remained below the healthy 3% level. Together, This tells a simple story. Demand is outpacing rental supply. This is why supporting purpose-built rental and apartments continues to be a key focus of this strategy. One key action taken by council is the purpose-built rental development charge incentive program which directly targets rental supply by supporting new purpose-built rental housing. Continuing to focus on action that address rental market needs will remain critical as we move forward. The housing need assessment also confirmed that demand for rental housing especially apartments and familysiz unit is expected to continue growing. Next slide please. The second team is changing household composition. Bramton's average household size has increased over time compared to near municipalities and the number of larger households with five or more people continues to grow. This reflects both cultural preferences and affordability pressures with more multigenerational and shared living arrangements. We are also seeing more households sharing space or living in crowded conditions linked to affordability pressures and changing in household needs. This trend highlights the need for a broader range of housing options including larger apartments, family size units and more flexible multi-unit housing forms particularly in area closer to transit and services. Next slide please. The third team focuses on who is most affected. One parent families have grown significantly and most are led by women with lower average incomes. The data also shows higher levels of core housing need among single mother households, seniors, including those age 85 and over, and recent immigrant households. Many housing programs and supports for low-income households, including lowest earning 30% of households in Bmpton are delivered by the region of Peele. The city's role is to enable more affordable, supportive, and rental housing options and to work closely with the region and community partners to support delivery. This collaboration will remain important as housing needs continue to evolve. Next slide, please. Looking ahead to 2031, households in Bmpton are projected to grow significantly from approximately 182,490 to over 229,170 which translate to about 46,700 additional homes needed. Demand is expected to remain strong for apartments and higher density housing as well as family size unit to support larger households. Today 12.9% of households are about 22,925 households are in core housing need and nearly 8700 households are on the region centralized weight list. This growth will continue to put pressure on both housing supply and affordability which reinforces the importance of coordinated and sustained action across all levels of government. Next slide please. Let's let's shift from the housing need assessment story to implementation and what has been delivered so far since 2021. housing BMPON including four big moves, 15 action items and 52 deliverables. To date, 40 deliverables have been completed, 11 are ongoing and one has not yet started. This reflects strong progress across multiple departments and partnership and it also gives us a clear picture of where to focus next as housing conditions continue to evolve. Next slide, please. This slide highlights some of the key accomplishments. First, council launched the purpose bit rental development charge incentive program. This program directly respond to the rental supply gaps identified in the housing need assessment. Through the housing catalyst capital project, council has completed $3.65 $65 million to support four parent led projects which are expected to deliver approximately 285 new affordable housing units. The community benefit charge bylaw has also be implemented with approximately $1 million collected today to support growth related infrastructure. You can also see examples of partnership projects on this slide, including Habitat, ARMA, and NEAS, which together are expected to deliver 131 new affordable units, as well as the upcoming Sunfield projects, which will add another 78 affordable units. These partnerships are a key part of how the city support affordable housing delivery. Additionally, the city has been able to leverage funding from senior levels of government, notably the housing accelerator fund. The turn installment from the federal housing accelerator fund funding has been secured and this funding is helping remove barriers and accelerate housing approvals directly leading to more affordable housing in our city. On the policy side, Bmpton plan and comprehensive zoning bylaw now enable more missing middle housing and gentle density to expand housing choice. Next slide, please. This slide provides a quick overview of progress across each of the four big moves. Under big move one, most policy and regulatory work related to purpose-built rental has been completed, including targets in Bmpton plan and zoning updates. Under big move 2, the city has advanced policies for the use of public land mapping and pilot initiatives with some partnership and collocation work ongoing. Under big move three, significant progress has been made on missing middle housing through zoning changes and design guidance. These initiatives will continue to be reviewed and prioritized as part of the strategy refresh. Under big move four, monitoring and reporting tools have been established to track progress and inform future decision making. Overall, this shows strong progress in building the policy and regulatory foundation with the next phase focused on implementation, partnership, and delivery. Next slide, please. This slide highlights the key tools the city is using to support housing delivery. For example, as mentioned earlier, the housing accelerator fund has secured approximately $140 million over four years to support remove barriers and support housing supply. Inclusionary zoning is progressing and the recommendation report is coming forward to committee today. These tools work together to create a coordinated and predictable environment for housing delivery. It's also important to highlight the different roles across levels of government. The re the region of Peele leads non-market and supportive housing programs for lowincome households while the city's role is more focused on enabling housing supply and supporting affordability for middle inome households through planning land use incentives and partnerships. The city also supports the region's work by helping create the conditions needed for affordable and supportive housing to be delivered locally. Next slide, please. Looking ahead, staff will refine and prioritize the remaining actions based on the housing need assessment and lessons learned from implementation. This work will build on what has already been achieved while responding to emerging housing pressures. This will include public consultation with residents, community partners, and stakeholders along with the development of policy options. The update will also identify new opportunities and prioritize based on evolving housing needs. staff will continue working closely with the region, nonprofits, and the private sector. We will return to council with a refresh implementation plan, updated timelines, and priority actions with the goal of reporting back in early 2027. Next slide, please. Thank you. We are happy to take any questions. Thank you uh so much for the informative um presentation. I appreciate it uh to the both of you. Uh do any uh members have any questions? Okay, I have a motion moved by councelor T uh receive uh the presentation uh and the report. All in favor? Motion carries. Moving on to we have no committee minutes. We have no Oh, there is one more. Sorry, Sylvia. I didn't see that. Apologies. Please come forward. Yeah. Hi. Hello. My name is Sylvia Roberts. Um, I have been following this for a number of years. Uh, I checked my emails. I have an email going back to 2019 on this the housing needs. There have been many incremental small moves taken. There is one very big move which staff has actually previously brought forward to report on and the city has chosen to do nothing and that is single room occupancy and lodging houses. So a bit of historical context in the early 20th century most major cities in North America ended up with residential hotels and also lodging houses. In some cases, it was run by organizations such as the Young Men's Christian Association or the Young Women's Christian Association to help support all of these young people moving into the cities. Today, we have a somewhat similar situation. We have a very large number of people in their 20s and 30s who are unmarried and they need a place to live. I have checked the market rental and it is we are talking $1600 a month for a one-bedroom if you make a minimum wage in Bmpton working 40 hours a week. So, we're not talking about people on welfare who actually make less than half of what someone full-time is making. Your after tax income is about $2,500 a month for a monthly basis. 30% of that is $750. You can see there's a bit of a gap between $750 and $1600 a month. This is a gigantic shortfall. Even if they're spending 60% of their income on rent, they literally still cannot afford a wet one in Pmpton. This is absurd and the problem is we are going to throw a $20,000 development charge incentive or something on it helps but it doesn't fix this gigantic gap. The only thing that is actually able to bring things housing anywhere near that is by permitting single room occupancy and lodging houses. I also have emails on this going back more than half a decade and there it's staff has brought reports on this and council has chosen nothing. So what happens is is we have rooming houses in Fton but they're not legal because there's basically no way to make it legal. For example, in our new zoning code, it has to be in a detached house, but [snorts] also the zoning category does not permit detached housing. So if someone actually wanted this, you'd have to go through a full zoning amendment to reszone into a category. We have no building attached there. There's no plan to build anything. This doesn't make any sense at all. The reason if if staff goes and looks around at a whole bunch of other cities, they will find cities put in place donian policies. In the mid 20th century, do you want to know why they did that? In the mid 20th century, it was decided that there is an issue of too many women refusing to get married and what was necessary was to get rid of every single housing option that they could possibly live independently so that they would get married. And in New York City, they got rid of over half of these sorry over 100,000 of these types of well places to live in 20 years. In many other major cities, over 50% What happens is if you are a young woman who's leaving an abusive situation, if your boyfriend or husband beats you and you call the cough and he goes to jail, you will probably end up homeless. There is no place for them to move. Your failure to act on this is choosing to support wife biders. Is that the kind of city you want? I'm sorry I have to resort to this kind of language, but this is the actual reality in Bmpton. We have shelters. Okay, great. We have we have shelters for women who are being abused. Great. We have stage two shelters. Except those are full. We're going to build another one appeal. Great. But that doesn't deal with the fundamental gigantic mismatch in demand. There is no place to go. and si the city council's failure to act because staff has brought forward reports recommending changes on this is council's decision that continues to support the abuse of women because you are afraid of looking residents in the eye and saying there are reasons why we consider this and in spite of resident opposition this was a necessary decision for the city you have to actually make decisions this is why residents elect you and they pay you to read the staff reports and make decisions and sometimes those are decisions that residents do not want to hear but you have to make them because they are the only moral choice. Thank you. That's my delegation. Thank you. Uh Sylvia Councelor Keenan I think wants to respond. Thank you uh deputy mayor. Um, so just to just going to touch on something. I don't think it's appropriate to say that this council is going forward in allowing women to be beaten. I think this council has done more um to show that we uh are actually out in front of domestic violence and and doing everything we can. I know this is a planning meeting and probably not the appropriate time to discuss this, but when you come up and kind of say something like that, Sylvia, kind of hits home uh for a lot of us here that actually stand up against domestic violence. Where do they live? Tell me that. Where do they live? Okay. Point. So that's so that's that that is two completely different things. You may tie it to that. Um but we if if Peele Regional Police came to us and tied it to that and this is going to stop women being uh abused and assaulted, of of course you can make those decisions. But one uh person delegating to us to tell us that this is the answer, I'm not sure that's it. And and you do a lot of great things here. You come in and you give us a lot of good knowledge and you a lot of a lot of amazing things on transit and so on and so forth. This will be the first time I'll tell you that I'm I'm not going to agree with the comments that you made here today, but thank you so much for your delegation. Councelor Santos. Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Councelor Keenan, for pointing that out. I do believe that some of the comments are um inappropriate. However, um obviously intimate partner violence and gender-based violence is something that our council here at the city and the region of Peele have actually been trailblazers on trying to increase awareness but find solutions. And so, Sylvia, I would invite you to attend. Uh, a couple of weeks ago, we passed a motion at the region appeal together with the women's organizations who are on this file to host a housing summit with other orders of government at TMU hosted by at the medical school. And I invite you to participate in the conversation. I don't think that lodging homes is going to be the solution to this, but it could be part of what that solution is, but it needs to happen in the appropriate context. So, I agree with councelor Kenan and I do have to say that we have done a tremendous amount of work on the file to end gender-based violence and intimate partner violence and you can ask the various organizations who will be attending that summit on June the 19th. Thank you. All right. Thank you. And I have a motion moved by councelor Bard to receive the delegation. All in favor? Motion carries. Moving on to committee minutes. I don't see any. 10. No other business. 11. No referred matters. 12. No general correspondence. 13. Councelor question period. Do any members of council have any questions? Seeing none, public question period. Do any members of the public have any questions? Seeing and hearing none, uh, we have no close session. So, I have a motion moved by councelor Power to adjourn today's meeting. All in favor? Motion carries. We'll see everybody Monday, March 23rd at 7 p.m.

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