Committees review progress on speeding up home construction in Ottawa

In a joint meeting today, the Finance and Corporate Services Committee and the Planning and Housing Committee reviewed the progress of the Housing Acceleration Plan.

Council approved the Housing Acceleration Plan in October 2025, with 58 actions to fundamentally overhaul the City’s approach to housing, using every tool available to the City to drive transformational change and clear the way to get new homes built in Ottawa. It also aligned the City with federal and provincial housing priorities, supporting the City’s eligibility for housing funding programs.

The plan reduces barriers to development by simplifying regulations and speeding up approvals, helping homes get built more quickly and affordably. The actions directly support the community housing sector to deliver more affordable homes and increase flexibility around the collection of municipal fees and charges. By making the planning process more predictable and temporarily lowering some costs or deferring collection to improve cash flow, builders can start projects sooner and get more homes built faster.

Over the past six months, the City has made significant progress, completing 53 per cent of the actions in the plan. By the end of 2026, the City expects to complete 78 per cent of the actions, with the rest to be completed in 2027. Progress to date includes:

• Simpler regulations: The City has adopted a new, overhauled Zoning By-law, creating a modern, housing-friendly zoning system that greatly expands housing permissions, introduces a simpler framework and removes barriers to modular and prefabricated homes.
• Expedited approvals processes: The City reduced and simplified the number of studies required for new development applications and increased capacity in its Legal Services department to speed up development review and approvals for housing.
• Greater flexibility in fees and charges: The City temporarily reduced Community Benefits Charges and deferred the collection of residential development charges and cash-in-lieu of parkland to support housing affordability and feasibility.
• Support for the community housing sector: The City simplified regulations for not-for-profit housing providers to accelerate the delivery of affordable homes.
• Support for growth near transit and downtown: The City removed zoning barriers for development near transit stations, implemented a pre-approved building design program, and introduced a strategy and action plan to support downtown revitalization.

To track results, the City is introducing a measurement framework to assess how effectively its actions are in making it easier to build housing. Using 2025 data as a baseline, the framework focuses on three outcomes:

• Shorter housing approval timelines, measured by faster application reviews, fewer incomplete submissions, and legal agreements completed quickly
• More housing construction, with emphasis on urban and transit-oriented areas, measured by an increase in number of building permits issued
• More affordable housing available, measured by an increase in building permits for affordable and supportive housing

The next progress update to Council on the Housing Acceleration Plan will be in Q2 2027 and will include results using the measurement framework.

Council will consider the recommendations from today’s meeting on Wednesday, May 13.