Only 12% of MZO projects completed, post-Greenbelt review found

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.

Last fall, Premier Doug Ford’s chosen Greenbelt scandal fixer looked to get ahead of another potential ticking time bomb for the government.

Its unprecedented use of minister’s zoning orders (MZOs), a legal tool the provincial government can deploy to overrule municipalities’ planning rules and ease the burden of development proposals, was next up under the auditor general’s microscope. In the summer of 2023, beforehand, the auditor’s special report on the Greenbelt had reinvigorated controversy around the planned development of parts of it.

Immediately after his appointment, Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Paul Calandra launched a review of the Ford government’s MZO practices.

During its review, the Municipal Affairs and Housing Ministry staff found few MZO-granted projects had been completed and that one in three that they carefully scrutinized were worthy of the chopping block, internal documents show. The records, obtained by The Trillium in response to a freedom-of-information request, also show the ministry specifically noted which Greenbelt developers got MZOs as well. 

The premier appointed Calandra as minister of municipal affairs and housing on Sept. 4, 2023, after Steve Clark resigned from Ford’s cabinet over the Greenbelt scandal. Clark had manned that cabinet portfolio since the Progressive Conservatives were elected in 2018 and was the last from Ford’s original cabinet to leave the role he was given after their election.

No government had granted more than 10 MZOs while in power before Ford’s PCs. Clark issued 114 before Calandra took over as housing minister.

Shoring up how the government uses MZOs was one of Calandra’s first promises as housing minister. “When we issue an MZO it is expected that MZO is used to help us gain ground on building those 1.5 million homes,” Calandra said, referencing the PCs’ 2031 housing target, at a Sept. 6, 2023 press conference. “That’s what they are issued for.”

Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing staff worked on the MZOs review from September to December. One focus was identifying projects they’d been issued to that hadn’t made significant progress.

The Ford government’s MZO spree began with five in 2019. In each of the next three years, it issued around 30 each year. Ten more were granted in 2023 before the Greenbelt scandal blew up.

A Housing Ministry-produced summary of the MZOs issued over that timeframe counted 50 for developments of residential housing, or predominantly residential housing, as some of these and others were multi-use developments. The main component of 23 others were commercial buildings, while 19 were for long-term care facilities, eight were for warehouses or distribution centres, and seven apiece were for retirement or seniors’ homes and supportive housing spaces. 

By last December, they’d led to 14 finished projects. The remaining 100 hadn’t been completed.

“Minister’s Office staff confirmed that their objectives are to revisit MZOs that have made limited progress and to hold proponents accountable,” a Housing Ministry decision note dated Nov. 30, 2023 said.

Ministry staff excluded MZOs issued to projects that had finished from their review. Another 39 were left out based on their criteria, which exempted any granted in response to provincial ministries’ requests or were made since December 2022, or that the government was legally obligated to issue. So, the review’s scope focused on 61 MZOs, of which 39 demonstrated progress.

On Dec. 13, the Housing Ministry announced that 22 projects MZOs were granted for that hadn’t shown “substantial progress” would be either revoked or modified. Eight were non-housing-focused projects. In April, Calandra quietly revoked six MZOs and modified another.

Another 14 MZOs issued for housing-focused projects remain under “enhanced monitoring,” as the Housing Ministry described it, for progress by midway through next year. Seven of these were issued to projects the province’s top MZO-getter, Shakir Rehmatullah, president of Flato Developments, is involved with.

Nine MZOs issued under the Ford government went to projects Flato, or Orca, a company its close to, since 2019.

One Housing Ministry document  produced as part of the MZOs review specifically flags that MZO-issued projects included those of Flato, TACC Developments, and the Rice Group, each of which was “also linked to Greenbelt removals.”

Another finding of the Housing Ministry’s about MZOs, as shown in a document from late last year, was that their prevalence had complicated its work.

In 2023, “roughly double” the MZO requests were made to the ministry as in 2022, said the document that also noted that “staffing allocations have not increased to align with the number of requests.”

“The 100+ MZOs filed since 2019 have also led to increased downstream workload for MMAH staff,” including because some municipalities aren’t equipped to support projects that MZOs have been issued for, “minimizing the desired impacts” the orders were meant to have, said the document.

Another ministry document noted that “while some projects were anticipated to be developed longer-term, there are a number that are currently facing significant issues causing unanticipated development delays.” Nine projects MZOs were issued for are delayed due to “no servicing available;” lands that another three orders applied to were sold; and one project was abandoned completely.

Calandra’s ministry’s review also informed the government’s new MZO-granting process, which it announced in April.

“Moving forward, the Minister will only be considering requests that have been submitted in accordance with the new zoning order framework,” said Justine Teplycky, a spokesperson for Calandra, in an email.

“The ministry regularly monitors the implementation of all zoning orders, with a particular focus on ensuring that all projects are demonstrating reasonable progress towards completion,” Teplycky added. “As the Minister has previously stated, if we do not see the results we expect from a zoning order, the government will not hesitate to amend or revoke it.”

PC MPPs, also within the past year, have passed laws providing the government greater legal immunity in most situations that it revokes, or changes, MZOs.

The auditor general’s MZO report is expected to be released before the end of this year.