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The Ontario government is proposing significant changes to the province’s land use planning and transportation frameworks to get more people in Ontario housed and moving. On March 30, 2026, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Rob Flack, presented Bill 98, Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, 2026 (the Act).
In a news release, the Minister stated that the Act, if passed, would “protect Ontario’s economy and keep workers on the job by improving the way people and goods move across the province and speeding up the construction of new homes.”
The Province has released a Technical Briefing which outlines the proposed legislative changes and policy initiatives.
This alert builds on our previous insights linked below and provides further detail on the proposed legislative and policy changes that we anticipate will have a significant impact on land use planning and development in Ontario. Notably, this alert does not intend to address every change introduced by the Act.
For more information on our previous updates, see: Ontario announces the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025 to cut red tape, accelerate growth and increase the housing supply and Ontario’s proposed Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025 (Bill 60) and what it means for the development process.
1. Changes to the Planning Act and City of Toronto Act
Simplifying and standardizing official plans
The Act would introduce a standardized template for municipal official plans, to be set out in a new schedule to the Planning Act. The template prescribes an 11-chapter structure addressing matters such as the municipality's strategic planning framework, growth management plan and local landscape and resource management approach. It would also prescribe a standard list of land-use designations, including "neighborhoods," "mixed-use areas," and "major facilities."
Municipalities would be required to adopt these requirements upon their next official plan adoption or revision after January 1, 2028 or 2029, depending on whether the municipality is listed in Section 3 of the Act. Finally, although the government originally proposed introducing page or word limits to limit the length of the official plans, the Act does not contain such a requirement.
According to the government, these changes “will reduce uncertainty for home builders and municipalities, shorten official plan approval times, and make planning for Ontario’s continued growth simpler and more effective.”1
While the currently proposed changes address only official plans, there is consultation currently open for standardization of official plans for upper-tier municipalities as well as a proposal for secondary plans and site- and area-specific policies.
Clarifying site plan rules
The Act would “prohibit municipalities from imposing enhanced development standards — such as landscaping, soil composition and ornamental design requirements — beyond what is required for health and safety.”2 It would also prevent municipalities from requiring electric vehicle supply equipment in connection with parking facilities, whether as a condition of site plan approval or through zoning by-laws.
The City of Toronto Act would be amended to impose similar site plan-related restrictions on the City of Toronto.
The Act would also make a parallel change to the Building Code Act which clarifies that municipalities cannot enact by-laws that “prescribe construction standards for the protection or conservation of the environment.”3 In combination, these proposed amendments are aimed at eliminating the Green Development Standards required by the City of Toronto and other municipalities.
The Technical Briefing states that the site plan-related changes in the Act “would prevent inconsistent, costly local rules that delay construction and make it harder to build homes at reasonable prices, while maintaining important safeguards like stormwater management.”4
Modernizing minimum lot sizes
The Act would repeal section 34(3.1) of the Planning Act and grant the government authority to prescribe minimum lot sizes by regulation. As a result, the City of Toronto will be subject to minimum lot sizes prescribed by regulation. Concurrently, the Province is consulting on a regulation that would set a minimum lot size of approximately 175 square metres (1,884 square feet), intended to enable more efficient land use and a wider range of lower-cost housing options.
Miscellaneous other changes to the Planning Act
The Act provides for a number of other proposed updates to the Planning Act, including relating to Ministerial Zoning Orders, the transfer of planning authority from Simcoe County and parkland dedication. These include, but are not limited to:
- Amending the consultation requirements applicable to amendments and revocations of Minister's Zoning Orders.
- Addressing the transfer of planning powers from Simcoe County to its lower-tier municipalities, which had been delayed to allow additional time for those municipalities to address fiscal and operational constraints.
- Enabling encumbered lands, including land above underground parking or utilities and publicly accessible spaces such as courtyards to count towards parkland dedication requirements.
2. Changes to the Development Charges Act
The Act would exempt non-profit retirement home developments from development charges under the Development Charges Act. A "non-profit retirement home development" is defined as the development of a building or structure intended for use as a retirement home (as defined in the Retirement Homes Act, 2010) by a corporation in good standing under the Not-for-Profit Corporations Act, 2010 or the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act. The exemption would apply to development charges payable after the Act comes into force, but would not retroactively apply to future instalments already owing under section 26.1.
The government states that “lowering the cost of building non-profit retirement housing helps increase supply and provides more choice for older Ontarians who are looking to downsize, freeing up further housing supply in the market.”5
The Act would also mandate the disclosure of development charges in purchase and sale agreements.
3. Changes to the Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act, 2025
The Act would amend the Water and Wastewater Public Corporations Act, which is not yet in force, to prescribe how a water and wastewater public corporation may conduct its affairs, including how its shares can be issued and how its assets are used to provide water and sewage services can be transferred. As part of these changes, the Act proposes to create the Water and Wastewater Public Corporation in the Region of Peel. The Act also sets out the rules related to the continuity of employment for employees who are transferred to such a corporation.
4. Changes to the Municipal Act, 2001
The Act would replace and significantly expand section 93 of the Municipal Act, 2001, to clarify the process that individuals must follow to receive approval for private water or wastewater servicing systems. The Minister would have the ability to pass regulations that set out the conditions and criteria that municipalities must use to evaluate applications for private systems. Where these criteria are met, a municipality could be forced to approve the application and enter into any agreements necessary to allow development of the system to proceed. For developers operating on unserviced or under-serviced lands, these amendments could remove what has been a significant barrier to residential development in rural and semi-rural Ontario. The Minister could also establish application requirements, development conditions, performance standards and the form of agreement and financial security required by municipalities in order to approve an application.
As municipalities across Ontario continue to face servicing constraints, these amendments are aimed at providing more certainty for developers of rural or under-serviced lots.
5. Streamlining the Building Code
Separately from the Act itself, the Province announced that it is establishing an expert third-party advisory body to conduct a section-by-section review of the Ontario Building Code. The objective is to identify where rules can be modernized and streamlined to reduce delays and costs associated with residential construction.
Conclusion and next steps
The Province continues to take significant steps to update Ontario’s land use planning regime with the intent to streamline the construction of new homes and infrastructure and tackle barriers to building.
As of the date of this bulletin, the Act has undergone its first reading and is now at the second reading stage. The government is also concurrently engaging in a public consultation on various aspects of the Act.
Dentons will continue to review the proposed legislation and related policy initiatives and provide updates on any related developments. If you have any questions about the Act or any related legislative and regulatory proposals, please contact Katarzyna Sliwa, Isaiah Banach, Roberto Aburto, Colin Poulin, Alice Mihailescu or any member of the Dentons Municipal Planning, Land Use and Development Law group.
Footnotes
1 Media Briefing, Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Ministry of Transportation, March 30, 2026.
2 Ibid.
3 Building Homes and Improving Transportation Infrastructure Act, 2026, Schedule 1, section 2.
4 Supra note 1.
5 Ibid.
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