On Jan. 15, 2024, the Government of Canada and the City of Burlington announced a $21 million agreement to encourage more affordable homes for Burlington, built faster. Through the Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) investment, the City will build 2,724 new residential units by the end of 2026.
These funds will support some key actions in the City’s Housing Strategy, such as more housing opportunities for Burlington residents by cutting red tape and updating our zoning.
As Burlington continues to grow, this investment will support the development of complete, low-carbon, and climate-resilient communities that are affordable, inclusive, equitable and diverse.
Council approved the City’s Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) application, in principle, on July 11, 2023 (CS-13-23). Staff shared their progress on March 19, 2024 (CS-04-24) and again on Oct. 7, 2024 (COW-23-24). Staff received approval for the implementation budget on Nov. 4, 2024 (PL-82-24).
The City’s HAF Action Plan includes seven initiatives
1 - Simplify planning and building approval process
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- Speed up the development and planning process to make it simpler and faster to get an application approved.
- A more predictable and transparent process to make it easier to work with the City and reduce the need to resubmit applications.
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2 - Implement Major Transit Station Areas and Community Planning Permit System
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- The Community Planning Permit System (CPPS) will broaden the range and mix of housing around Burlington’s three Go Transit stations (Major Transit Station Areas).
- The CCPS will use as-of-right zoning and site plan permissions to:
- enable intensification of six or more storeys,
- turn around development approvals within 45 days and
- give opportunities to delegate some approvals to City staff.
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3 - Support and enable new additional residential units and look at opportunities for more as of right permissions
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- This initiative will look at how we can remove policy and regulatory barriers and increase as-of-right permissions. This will allow you to use or develop your property, under certain permissions. The idea is you won’t have to go to a public hearing or get City Council approval.
- We have a no parking minimum pilot focused along Fairview Street, Plains Road and Appleby Line due to these being busy Burlington Transit routes.
- We will encourage and incentivize new additional residential units through the launch of helpful supports in 2025
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4 - Identify opportunities to incentivize new rental and non-market housing
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- The City’s Housing Strategy Housing Needs and Opportunities report highlighted that there are more residents looking to rent in Burlington than there are places to rent.
- A Community Improvement Plan (CIP) is a land use planning tool that allows municipalities like Burlington to provide grants, loans and other incentives to private landowners to help the City meet its housing goals.
- Community Improvement Plan incentives will help you increase the number of units on your property. It will help developers increase the number of units in their projects.
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5 - Build community and partner capacity by creating an online Housing Connections Centre
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- The new virtual Housing Connections Centre will be a resource to enable taking on housing types not usually found in Burlington, connecting people to programs, resources and partnerships to create new housing opportunities in Burlington.
- New resources will help you build additional residential units and access incentive programs.
- Communication and education materials to enable the creation of new units and welcome new families and residents to the city. This will include how you can create safe additional residential units including costs, obligations, and benefits.
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6 - Public lands and partnerships
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The City will:
- explore tactics, tools and policies to support new partnerships
- come up with innovative ways to optimize land, support economic development and enable affordable housing.
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7 - Municipal infrastructure needs
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- Assess municipal infrastructure priorities to support housing development, align with regional-level planning and the City’s vision for growth.
- Review development trends to identify infrastructure gaps and opportunities. This review identify phasing, funding and prioritization strategies for short- and long-term infrastructure needs in our work with Halton Region.
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