Bill No. 32 - Municipal Government Act and Halifax Regional Municipality Charter - 2nd Reading

CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : I will actually be brief, but I would like to say a few words about inclusionary zoning. I appreciate the sentiment of the remarks from the member for Halifax Atlantic, but I do want to say that we unequivocally support inclusionary zoning.

I'm a little bit puzzled at some of the cautions I heard. Gentrification is real. Housing insecurity is real. All of this is true. I think I can speak with some authority on that, because despite many assertions over the last few days in this House that this is a new or unforeseen issue, in fact, the record will show that we in the NDP caucus have been talking about this for years. I didn't rise to talk about that. It's neither here nor there at this point. We are glad that this change is happening.

I want to just take a minute, I think it's important in light of this conversation - this will go through the Law Amendments Committee and we'll have a chance at third reading - to just say that inclusionary zoning is, as the minister said, enabling. It allows the municipality to do what I hope in the first instance is define affordable housing. They can do that. They will do that. In fact, that is why the municipality, in particular HRM, has been asking for this power.

I'll tell you that I say that as context for what inclusionary zoning isn't. What we've seen at regional council for quite some time now is developers coming forward and saying, we want to build this and if you give us some special allowances, we'll include affordable housing. But in the absence of the ability to enforce or define affordable housing, quite simply, developers can lie.

Now, I wouldn't say that any developers have lied but what I will say is that many developments that have come forward as affordable housing projects don't get built that way in the final instance. Either the property gets flipped with the development agreement attached that at one point was approved because of some promise of affordable housing that then doesn't get included in the final one, and because the municipality doesn't have this enabling power, there is no recourse. There is no penalty, there is no way to enforce that.

I believe, Mr. Speaker, that is what this piece of legislation will do. I know from speaking with my own municipal councillor, from speaking with many members of regional council, how important this is, particularly as people look more and more to the municipality around housing issues. We do have this strange dichotomy, here in the HRM in particular, where we have a very large municipality with hundreds of thousands of people and many, many staff that oversee the planning process, but we sit here a few blocks away and we essentially - as we say, the whole municipality is a creature of the Province, so there are lots of ways in which the municipality's hands are tied because of the legislation that we have here.

Again, I will say that this is good legislation. This allows the HRM in particular, which I know will take the Province up on this offer, to do some of the work that it needs to do. I say all of that because I also want to say that this was a change that I believe was responsive, was made quickly. The bill already existed - don't care if it's our bill, don't care if it's your bill, let it pass, glad it's going to pass. I hope.

I would set that against this idea, which one of my colleagues brought up earlier today in Question Period, of these task forces on transportation and planning, because there again - at least in the HRM, which is the area of which I represent a part - we know that the Regional Plan exists. We know that the Integrated Mobility Plan exists.

I want to just take a little bit of issue with the minister's comments earlier today that, well, you know those plans were written but times have changed, circumstances have changed.

I would submit again that everything that is occurring today was foreseeable years ago, and it wasn't just foreseeable, it was foreseen. I believe - I mean I wouldn't say I've read the Regional Plan back to back, nor the Integrated Mobility Plan, but I have read the plans, I am familiar with them, I have talked to my local councillor, I have talked to others. They are good plans, they make a lot of sense, they are the product of a lot of work by a lot of people, a great deal of consultation.

I would say that I would just encourage the minister and the government to really think carefully as the minister treads into those conversations about these new task forces, and I know the Minister of Public Works would also be involved, but as some other folks have pointed out, we didn't see anything about active transit in the Throne Speech. We didn't see it in the mandate letters.

I am encouraged that there does seem to be a nod to it in this piece of the plan, but I would say that we have a very progressive and robust Integrated Mobility Plan. We're seeing work on complete streets happening all across the HRM. I have seen in my time here how sometimes quick, decisive action is really good and sometimes it sets us back years.

I think this is a place where that could happen and it concerns me because, again, my constituency is in the HRM. I see this work, I am impacted by this work, my constituents are, and it really is under way. I just want to voice that caution, because those are not plans that are going to come to the floor of this House. But against the backdrop of this, which I think is such a good move, I have some reservations about this.

I also want to say to the point that there seemed to be some assertion earlier in the conversation that maybe this is a giveaway to developers or there's going to be some backroom dealings, I can't speak to that. Again, this is enabling legislation. HRM will work out the details and introduce the bylaws and all that.

I will say that we have a massive, massive deficit of housing units at every part of the spectrum. We have heard that. From single-family homes to rooming houses to apartments and everything in between, we need housing. As I speak to housing advocates but also as I speak to folks at Develop Nova Scotia or folks focused on immigration or economic development, everyone points to this. This housing plan, I believe, is a really good start, most of it.

But I think even the government would acknowledge it's probably not enough, and to that point, supply: Yes, we need supply. The reality is that we have said for a long time that we need more co-operative and non-market housing. Absolutely we need more investment in that. Ideally, we need more public housing. The number of units that the minister mentioned earlier today is great except that I know that everyone who comes to my office is put on a years-long waiting list to access one, and that waiting list just gets longer and longer and longer because we know even as that supply turns over, what was affordable housing ceases to be so, often.

The reality is, and this isn't going to sound very socially democratic of me, but it is: Who can best bear the cost of that massive number of units that we need?

We need to invest in co-ops. We need to invest in non-market housing, but we need to - a nice way of saying it would be incent, a stronger way of saying it would be force developers to build affordable housing. Developers know how to develop. That's their business. They know how to build housing. We need to make sure that when they build that housing, they are including affordable units. I believe that that is a really important part of the puzzle, and the devil is in the details. It's in the definitions.

I think HRM can get this right. I hope they get it right. I'm glad to see the Province putting forward this legislation today.