The Ontario NDP's plan takes aim at the major factors spurring home price growth
Ontario’s New Democratic Party has a plan that aims to bring housing prices down, assist first-time home buyers with down payments, and expand municipalities’ inventory of affordable housing, according to Andrea Horwath, provincial NDP and official opposition leader.
In an open forum late last week, Horwath said that the NDP’s Homes in Ontario Program would provide first-time buyers with a shared equity loan amounting to 10% of the purchase price as support for down payment.
Horwath also offered assurances that the program would provide municipalities the policy tools that they would need to boost development of affordable options like townhouses, and to fulfill the “missing middle” of their respective housing markets.
“Inclusionary zoning … actually requires the people that are building market housing to set aside a certain percentage of the units that they’re building as affordable-market housing,” Horwath said, as reported by Postmedia.
Read more: Priced out of Ontario, which market are homebuyers turning their attentions to?
“We’ve identified 69,000 units (as a goal) in our first term, as well as 30,000 units that are supportive housing because, let’s not forget, we have a lot of people in our communities that are aging, we have a lot of folks that have mobility issues and they need a place to live as well,” Horwath added.
“And of course, transitional housing too. We’ve watched some of the tragedies that have occurred with the opioid crisis, with the mental-health crisis that we have, so committing to making sure people have the supports they need to stay housed once they are housed is extremely important.”
Also in the cards for an NDP government is a non-resident speculation tax taking aim at the major factors driving up home prices across Canada’s hottest markets, Horwath said.
