Worst home-building rate in Ontario no longer belongs to Burlington

Burlington has climbed out of the bottom spot in the rankings that show the rate of home-building in Ontario.

The most recent provincial data indicates Burlington now sits at 16.47 per cent of reaching its target of housing starts for 2024.

So far builders in Burlington have started 398 homes this year as it tries to reach its goal of 2,417.

As the name implies, housing starts are those where construction has commenced. It is the guideline the Ontario government uses to track housing progress.

Of the 50 municipalities in Ontario that are being tracked for housing starts, Burlington now sits in the 41st position. Since housing starts were first measured in 2022, Burlington has always been at or near the bottom of the rankings each month. In June Burlington was at just 3 per cent of reaching its goal.

The new data released on Aug. 13 shows that Pickering has the best rate, surpassing its housing start goal at 141 per cent. Halidmand County now has the worst record at 4.29 per cent.

The building spurt in Burlington is being attributed to a few factors including the warmer weather which has encouraged builders to put more shovels into the ground.

Other factors are recent favourable decisions by the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) in support of developers which has allowed projects to proceed. The OLT is the agency that rules on land disputes. Also, those at Burlington City Hall believe that new programs that fast-track building projects and ones that eliminate some of the red tape in the permit approval process have led to the burst of developer activity.

Still, Burlington is far behind the 80 per mark needed for housing starts that would allow the city to collect on millions of dollars in incentive grants that are being made available by the province.

Burlington has long argued that the measuring tool used to track home building in Ontario — housing starts — is not fair because it only counts housing units that have been started and not those approved, under construction, or completed…circumstances that are beyond the control of the city.

“The approval process sits with the municipality. We don’t build houses, we don’t pour foundations (housing starts), that’s on the development industry,” Mayor Marianne Meed Ward has said in the past.

Burlington has committed to adding 29,000 new homes by 2031 but has reached only 1,110 since 2022, according to the province’s guidelines.