THUNDER BAY – The provincial government has assigned Thunder Bay an ambitious target for new housing builds, while moving one step closer to granting Mayor Ken Boshcoff and other heads of mid-sized cities “strong mayor powers.”
Premier Doug Ford announced the moves, along with a new housing fund for municipalities that make progress on their housing targets, on Monday while addressing the annual Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) conference.
The announcement set housing targets for 21 municipalities in the province that are expected to have populations of over 50,000 by 2031, including Thunder Bay.
Thunder Bay's target ambitious
Thunder Bay’s target is identified as 2,200 new housing starts by 2031.
That would require the pace of new builds to pick up significantly.
The municipal government reported Thunder Bay is on track for 521 new builds from 2024 to 2026 in an ambitious application to a federal housing accelerator fund, while suggesting there is room for more growth.
Work on a housing needs study the city is currently conducting suggests Thunder Bay is around 900 units short of its housing needs, city staff have said.
On Monday, Ford announced a $1.2-billion ‘Building Faster Fund’ that will be distributed over three years to municipalities that demonstrate progress in meeting the provincial housing targets.
Only municipalities that achieve 80 per cent or more of their annual targets will be eligible to receive the funding, proportional to the number of housing starts realized.
“Think of it like this: If you get an ‘A’, you become eligible for funding,” Ford told municipal leaders Monday. “If you do worse than an ‘A’, you don’t.”
Dollars from the Building Faster Fund can be put toward “housing-enabling infrastructure” like site servicing, roads, and public utilities.
City manager Norm Gale, who was present at the AMO conference along with other municipal leaders, declined to comment on the newly-released target Monday via a brief statement provided to TBnewswatch.
“We continue to do work in good faith and will work with city council to respond to this changing landscape,” he said.
Ramped-up 'strong mayor' powers
Mayors in the 21 new municipalities will be eligible to receive the “strong mayor powers” the province has already bestowed upon nearly 30 of its largest cities.
In a release, the provincial government said mayors of the newly-added communities simply need to pledge, in writing, to meet its housing targets by Oct. 15 to receive the expanded powers.
That means the approval of Thunder Bay’s city council won’t be needed for what amounts to a fundamental shift in municipal governance.
Boshcoff has already signaled his desire to receive strong mayor powers, while suggesting they would be rarely used.
The regulations allow “strong mayors” to hire and fire the city manager and some department heads, reorganize city departments, propose the city budget subject to council amendments, create committees, and appoint committee chairs.
The powers also allow mayors to pass bylaws with minority support at council in some cases, and to veto certain bylaws, where they believe those issues involve provincial priorities like housing.
