Leor Margulies Featured In Condo Business

• Published date: 05 April 2024
• Law Firm: Robins Appleby LLP
• Author: Mr Leor Margulies

As featured in Condo Business

The condominium and low-rise residential industries exploded after the last major recession of 1990-1995 and have not really stopped until April 20, 2022, when interest rates skyrocketed in a very short time.

The massive growth in the housing industry, in particular the low-rise industry, the need for better use of resources, as well as the desire to protect the environment, resulted in successive Liberal governments from the early 2000s until 2018 enacting more real estate-related legislation in those 15 years than probably the 50 years before, far surpassing any other industry in Ontario. For some reason, residential construction was an easy way to show that the government was doing something both for the environment and for housing, without actually spending any money.

The first of the two major pieces of legislation that started the housing crisis was the Greenbelt legislation, which removed two million acres of potential development land from the equation. It was pre-dated by the Oak Ridges Moraine legislation in 2002/2003. This restricted municipalities from growing greenfield development to preserve nature and farm land.

The second most impactful set of legislation was passed in 2005/2006. The Places to Grow Act was designed to curb urban sprawl and force municipalities to intensify in built-up areas first before they went to areas for future development.

Intensification means higher density projects, either townhouses or, more likely, condominiums. In this regard, the Liberals were successful in significantly cutting land supply for single-family dwellings and forcing development upwards in towns that never had high or mid-rises. As a result, choices were more limited for individuals and low-rise was made substantially more expensive. The real growth in condominiums was in part accelerated by this legislation.

Unfortunately, over the next 12 years, the amount of regulation from environmental...