The Housing & Growth File

What cities try for this. Evidence for, evidence against, real costs, and who actually decides — for every option, identically. We don’t pick one. That’s the candidates’ job.

Upzone further, as of right

Extend what can be built without a rezoning application past today's four-unit rule: six-plexes, mid-block rowhouses, more mid-rise near transit. This is where every "missing middle" platform points. Check what is already legal first: four units per lot citywide since 2023, and 45-storey approvals near transit since 2024. A candidate promising to "legalize fourplexes" is promising 2023.

■ CITY DECIDES

THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾

EVIDENCE FOR

The case is about certainty and land price, not just permission counts. London's paper pipeline is huge, 51,434 approvals since 2022 against a best year of 3,723 starts, which says case-by-case approval is not the only bottleneck. As-of-right rules aim at the cost and risk of the process itself, letting small projects skip the hearing-by-hearing route entirely. city release (Feb. 2026) ↗
Auckland is the strongest measured case. After the 2016 Unitary Plan upzoned roughly three-quarters of residential land, a peer-reviewed study counted 21,808 additional dwellings permitted over the following five years, about 4.11% of the region's housing stock. Greenaway-McGrevy & Phillips, Journal of Urban Economics (2023, peer-reviewed) ↗
On Auckland rents, a follow-up study — a working paper, not yet peer-reviewed, carried here with that label — estimates three-bedroom rents six years in were 26 to 33% below where a synthetic comparison says they would otherwise have sat. Greenaway-McGrevy, U. of Auckland Economic Policy Centre working paper 016 ↗
Minneapolis, 2017 to 2022: the housing stock grew 12% while rents rose 1%; the rest of Minnesota grew its stock 4% while rents rose 14%. The honest caveat, which the same source concedes: the gains came mostly from apartment and parking reforms, not the famous triplex legalization — that change itself had produced only 72 duplexes and 37 triplexes by late 2023. Pew Charitable Trusts (Jan. 2024, pro-supply lean) ↗
Edmonton's citywide rezoning is the nearest Canadian test: 16,519 units approved in year one, up 30%, with row housing jumping from an average of about 146 units a year to 1,216. Taproot Edmonton ↗

EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS

Uptake is slow everywhere it is measured, and London has published no count of fourplexes actually built since the 2023 change. Zoned capacity is not built units: London missed its own intensification target by half in 2022, 20.8% achieved against a 45% target. CTV News (Feb. 2023) ↗
Edmonton's own numbers carry the limits: for all the approvals, only 0.2% of eligible residential properties actually redeveloped in the first two years of the reform. independent two-year review of Edmonton's rezoning (pro-housing lean) ↗
The politics stay live after passage: a mid-2025 Edmonton push to cut mid-block infill from eight units to six failed by one vote, 6 to 5, with design restrictions added instead. The neighbourhood-side critique, parking, character, infrastructure load, is the same one London's own station-area process drew repeatedly, and every approval stage removed is also a public objection stage removed. CBC Edmonton ↗
New supply rents at the top of the market first, and the evidence on how fast relief reaches cheaper units cuts both ways. The classic peer-reviewed estimate says rental housing filters down-income at about 2.5% a year — decades, not a council term. That is why "upzoning" and "affordable housing" are different promises. Rosenthal, American Economic Review (2014, peer-reviewed) ↗
The counter-estimate, also peer-reviewed, says the chain of moves runs faster: every 100 new market-rate units lead 45 to 70 people to move out of below-median-income neighbourhoods, with almost all of the effect inside five years. Mast, Journal of Urban Economics (2023, peer-reviewed) ↗
Scale matters to the whole case: a Chicago study of small, parcel-by-parcel upzonings near transit found property values rose and no additional homes were permitted within five years. It is usually cited as why broad reform can work where parcel tweaks don't — and it is a warning about half-measures either way. Freemark, Urban Affairs Review (2020, peer-reviewed) ↗
Auckland itself is contested: a supply-skeptic economist argues the study's comparison assumes consent growth would otherwise have stalled, and that "stockpiling pieces of paper with approval to build (consents) does not grow the stock." Permits are not homes, in Auckland or in London. Cameron Murray, Fresh Economic Thinking (supply-skeptic lean) ↗

WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE

London itself is the nearest test: four units per lot legal since August 2023, uptake unpublished three years later. The absence of a count is the current state of the evidence. london.ca — More Homes ↗

AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

Not derivable, and the absence is the finding: council changed the rules in 2023 and does not publish what the change built, so no honest projection of the next increment exists. The checkable ask is the count itself: permits and completions under the four-unit rule, published.

■ CITY DECIDESCouncil writes the zoning by-law. Official-plan-level changes need provincial approval, and the province sets a units-per-lot floor it can move again.

Put city land into housing

Contribute city-owned land, sold cheap, leased long, or bundled with incentives, so the land line of a housing project's budget drops toward zero.

■ CITY DECIDES

THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾

EVIDENCE FOR

London has a working precedent. The Vision SoHo Alliance on the old Victoria Hospital lands: council approved the Phase II land sale in February 2021 to six non-profit builders, for "over 600 units of housing, including 300 units of affordable housing." city release (Feb. 2021) ↗
The built-out record: the city bought two hospital buildings in 2020 and put in $14 million; the project stands at about 690 units, roughly half affordable, with the first 60 affordable seniors' units renting in spring 2025. CBC (2025) ↗
The model has a standing pipeline: the city runs a disposal process for city land with affordable-housing potential, and has bought land specifically for housing, the former St. Robert school site on Duluth Crescent in 2020, which drew interest from 49 developers and community groups. CBC (2024) ↗

EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS

Slow even when the land is free: the SoHo sale closed in 2021 and the first affordable units rented in 2025. Four years, on a project that went right. CBC (2022) ↗
Toronto's Housing Now is the scale warning, now verified to primary documents: a 10,000-home target set in 2019, not a single shovel in the ground more than four years later, and, on the agency's own board report, about 3,400 homes (about 1,140 of them affordable) under construction as of September 30, 2025 — roughly six and a half years in. The same report says projects are "facing additional financial viability challenges and may require additional City benefits to enable the projects to get shovels in the ground"; council had to vote to "unstick" two of them in June 2025. CreateTO board report (Sept. 30, 2025) — primary ↗
Free land was not the binding constraint there. The city agency's CEO, on why the shovels stalled: construction material costs and interest rates "have made the projects much more difficult for the city to finance." Free land does not fix interest rates or operating math, and that is the strongest single caution for any London version of this promise. CBC Toronto (May 2023) ↗
A one-time asset, and the foregone money is real money: every parcel sold or contributed below market is revenue the budget never sees again, and the inventory is finite. Toronto's own accounting counted about $245 million in land-value contributions and foregone revenue on public land, plus about $625 million in waived fees, development charges and property-tax exemptions — roughly $900 million all in. Storeys (May 2026), reporting Toronto's Build Canada Homes submission ↗

WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE

The verified cost picture is London's own: $14 million of city cash for about 690 units at SoHo, roughly $20,000 a unit, plus the land, with the rest of the capital stack federal and provincial in every verified example. CBC (2025) ↗

AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

SoHo's arithmetic: $14M for ~690 units is about $20,000 of city cash per unit, against the city Roadmap's own all-in cost of $350,000 to $400,000 per unit. City land closes maybe a tenth of the gap per unit; the rest is federal and provincial capital and somebody's operating subsidy. A candidate promising to "build on city land" owes voters the parcel list and the other 90% of the capital stack. Roadmap to 3,000 Affordable Units (2021 staff report) ↗

■ CITY DECIDESThe land is council's to sell or contribute. The capital stack on top of it has been federal and provincial in every verified example.

Speed up approvals further

More as-of-right, more delegated staff approvals, e-permitting, fewer discretionary stages. "Cut red tape" is the standing promise. The question for London is which tape, since the city already leads the country.

■ CITY DECIDES

THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾

EVIDENCE FOR

Delay is a real carrying cost on every project, and process speed is one of the few housing levers with no direct cost to the tax levy. The industry's benchmarking — commissioned by the home builders' association, a label every number from it carries here — prices delay at $2,178 to $10,700 per unit for every month a low-rise project waits, depending on the city. CHBA Municipal Benchmarking Study, 3rd ed. 2025 (industry-commissioned) ↗
The gain is provable because London already banked it: the same study measures London's average approval timeline falling from 10.1 months in 2022 to 4.6 months in 2024 — seventh-fastest of the roughly 23 municipalities studied, and among the largest improvements in the country. CHBA Municipal Benchmarking Study, 3rd ed. 2025 (industry-commissioned) ↗

EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS

London is already the national front-runner, third overall with the fastest site-plan timelines in Canada, and starts still fell: 1,260 in the province's partial-2023 count, and 2025 development-charge revenue about $40 million short "as groundbreaking on new builds plummets." When approvals lead the country and shovels lag anyway, the binding constraint is financing, labour and demand, none of which a faster counter fixes. CTV News (May 30, 2026) ↗
Approvals are not starts anywhere: in the Toronto-Hamilton area, 28 active condo projects totalling 7,243 units were cancelled in 2025 alone, and every one of them had its approvals. Urbanation (Jan. 2026) ↗
The national version of the same gap: 138,842 units sat with approved building permits but no construction start as of May 2026, on CMHC's own count. CMHC starts data release (June 2026) — primary ↗
Every discretionary stage removed is public input removed. London's own station-area and neighbourhood fights show residents use those stages, and they are the only formal ones residents get.

WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE

London is the test case. The measured improvement, 10.1 months down to 4.6, has already happened, and the benchmarking study crediting it is industry-funded, a label its ranking carries on this page too. city summary of CHBA benchmarking ↗

AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

Halving today's 4.6 months saves about ten weeks, on builds like Legacy Village's first tower, which its developer says will take four or five years. Real but marginal. A candidate promising to cut red tape should name the specific stage they would remove, because the benchmark says London already cut the famous ones. CBC (Nov. 2025) ↗

■ CITY DECIDESThe process is council's own, inside provincial Planning Act timelines.

Inclusionary zoning, the Ontario version

Inclusionary zoning (IZ) requires a share of below-market units inside new private developments. In Ontario it is legal only within provincially approved major transit station areas, and the province caps how much cities can require and for how long.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE

THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾

EVIDENCE FOR

Mixed-income units with no direct capital outlay from the city, delivered by the same projects the market builds anyway. And London now has provincially approved station-area heights as of July 2025, so the geography IZ needs exists on paper. city release (July 2025) ↗
The longest-running program shows the mixed-income payoff: in Montgomery County, Maryland, children from subsidized IZ units assigned to low-poverty schools narrowed the achievement gap by half in math and a third in reading over five to seven years. Carried here through an advocacy group's summary of the underlying RAND study, with that label. NLIHC summary of the Schwartz/RAND study (advocacy source) ↗
Advocates say the tool fails only where it is not allowed to bind: Ontario's Human Rights Commission opposed the provincial pause as risking "worsening systemic discrimination," and had previously recommended a 10% requirement to align with most other North American IZ policies. OHRC submission — primary ↗

EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS

It may not even be available in London yet. The station-area boundaries were adopted in December 2020 and sent to the ministry, and no verified confirmation exists that the minister has approved them for IZ purposes. Until that is resolved, "London could adopt inclusionary zoning" is not a claim this page will make.
The provincial caps make the yield small by design, and they are now primary-sourced: O. Reg. 54/25, finalized May 12, 2025, caps what a city can require at 5% of units (or of floor area) for a maximum 25-year affordability period, only in approved station areas. The province has since gone further, pausing IZ in Toronto, Mississauga and Kitchener entirely — O. Reg. 15/26 exempts applications made before July 1, 2027. The economics critique is standard: a set-aside works like a tax on the marginal project, and set too high, the project does not happen and the yield is zero. Environmental Registry of Ontario, decision notice 019-6173 — primary ↗
The one Ontario city that adopted IZ has zero units to show for it: Toronto adopted its policy in November 2021, and it sat inert waiting on provincial station-area approvals, was then capped, and is now paused to mid-2027. The delay was provincial regulation and approval-withholding, not a tribunal appeal. A pro-IZ critic's arithmetic makes the cap complaint concrete: "When a development has 200 units and only 10 of them are affordable, we are not solving an affordability problem." Spacing (Apr. 2026, pro-IZ lean); status per City of Toronto's IZ page ↗
The peer-reviewed record cuts against hot-market mandates: a study across Boston and San Francisco suburbs found IZ "contributed to increased housing prices and lower rates of production" in hot markets, and no significant effect on development in the Bay Area sample. Schuetz, Meltzer & Been, Urban Studies (2011, peer-reviewed) ↗
A Baltimore-Washington study from the Mercatus Center — libertarian lean, labelled as such — associated mandatory IZ with house prices rising about 1% a year where it was in place, though not with a measurable drop in construction there. The balanced read: effects are conditional on market heat and stringency, and a 5% cap makes both the burden and the yield small — the province's rationale and the critics' complaint at once. Mercatus Center working paper (libertarian lean) ↗

WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE

Toronto is the entire Ontario delivery record: adopted November 2021, zero units produced, paused to July 1, 2027. Delivery elsewhere is real but modest, and it is measured in decades, not terms of council — Montgomery County's program dates to 1974. City of Toronto inclusionary-zoning policy page — primary ↗

AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

Not derivable. A single-digit percentage of an unpublished station-area pipeline is an unknown times an unknown. Any candidate saying "inclusionary zoning" owes voters three specifics: the geography (which station areas), the percentage, and the legal status of the tool itself in London.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCEThe province decides whether IZ is available at all and caps what it can require; council can only adopt a policy inside those caps.

Discount development charges, and say who backfills

Cut the DC, the $22,364-to-$50,564 per-unit charge on new construction, for defined classes: affordable units, non-profits, purpose-built rental, first-time buyers. The revenue hole lands on reserves or the tax levy unless someone else backfills.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE

THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾

EVIDENCE FOR

The province already exempts affordable and non-profit units by statute, and, decisive for London's books, confirmed in 2025 that it will cover municipalities' losses from those statutory exemptions, erasing a roughly $10-million hole in London's 2026 budget. CBC (2025) ↗
That Bill 23 exemption has been in force since June 1, 2024. AMCTO, the municipal administrators' association ↗
The fine print matters: the province defines an "affordable" unit as the lesser of an income-based threshold and a market-based one — for ownership, no more than 90% of the local average purchase price for the unit type; for rental, no more than the local average market rent. The definitional bulletin is primary. Ontario's Affordable Residential Units bulletin — primary ↗
Demand for the tool is proven at scale: Toronto's purpose-built rental incentives stream — indefinite deferral of development charges plus a property-tax break — approved 7,156 net new rental homes in its first phase and drew 75 applications proposing more than 32,600 homes. Oversubscribed, on the city's own release. City of Toronto release — primary ↗
London already stacks its own incentives. The Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan's "Dollars to Doors" program pays up to $45,000 per affordable rental unit, with rents capped at 80% of average market rent for 25 years. london.ca — affordable housing development programs ↗
The newest layer: the Home Ownership Incentive Program (Mayoral Direction 2026-001, February 2026) rebates buyers 60% of the DCs paid on new homes priced up to $630,646, with the builder funding the other 40%. Budget: $5 million, about 260 units. city staff report (Feb. 2026) ↗

EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS

Who actually pockets a DC cut is unresolved. The economist's caution: DC cuts reach buyers "through supply… not because builders are benevolent." In tight markets charges largely pass to buyers; in soft markets they sink into land values; no source settles it for London. The buyer-rebate design of London's own new program, 60% paid straight to the buyer, is itself an admission that pass-through is not automatic. BNN Bloomberg ↗
The revenue side is already bleeding: DC revenue came in about $40 million short in 2025, before any new discount. CTV News (May 30, 2026) ↗
Every non-backfilled dollar moves to exactly the payers the Taxes File maps: the tax levy or the growth-capital plan. The municipalities' own province-wide estimate of the Bill 23 hole: $5.1 billion over nine years, meaning "significant increases to property taxes or cuts to existing services." That number comes from AMO, the municipal lobby — an interested party, labelled as one. Global News, reporting AMO's estimate (AMO is an interested party) ↗

WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE

The costed record of a DC cut imposed from above: when the province cut DCs by statute in 2022, London's estimate of the hole ran as high as $97 million over five years, before the province ultimately agreed to cover the statutory exemptions. CBC (2025) ↗

AT LONDON'S SCALE — ARITHMETIC SHOWN

London's own program prices one notch: $5 million for about 260 units is roughly $19,200 a unit, about 60% of a mid-rise apartment's DC, by design. Scaling up: every 1,000 single-detached-equivalents at a 50% discount is about $25 million of forgone revenue, nearly three points on the tax levy if the levy backfills (the Taxes File's ruler: one point is about $9 million a year). city staff report (Feb. 2026) ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCETilted provincial: the statutory exemptions and their reimbursement are Queen's Park's, and the province has rewritten the DC rules repeatedly. The incentive programs are council's own money.

Expand the growth boundary, or hold it

The build-out-versus-build-up decision, now crystallized in Official Plan Amendment 166, roughly 1,670 hectares of expansion sitting on the minister's desk. Council adopted it in December 2025; the province decides it; the next council inherits the servicing bill either way.

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCE

THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾

EVIDENCE FOR

For expanding: demand for land inside the line is documented. 96 property owners made submissions asking in, and the London Home Builders' Association's position is on the record: "We want to ensure that as the growth continues to come to our community that we're ready for it." An interested party, labelled as one. CBC (June 23, 2025) ↗
The case against holding is infill's own record: if demand returns and infill keeps running at half its target, 20.8% achieved against 45%, a hard boundary meets the housing shortage at the land market. The city's land-needs study puts hectare numbers on 25 to 30 years of growth, but those figures verified only by search this session and sit in the appendix. CTV News (Feb. 2023) ↗
Where a boundary truly binds, the price evidence is dramatic: New Zealand's Productivity Commission found land just inside Auckland's urban limit priced at nine to ten times land just outside it — "a binding constraint on land supply." NZ Productivity Commission research paper ↗
Ontario's Housing Affordability Task Force is quoted by both camps, so read it whole: "But a shortage of land isn't the cause of the problem. Land is available, both inside the existing built-up areas and on undeveloped land outside greenbelts. We need to make better use of land." It denies raw land scarcity, counts greenfield beyond the built boundary as available, and pivots to zoning as the main fix — each side waves the half it likes. Ontario Housing Affordability Task Force report (2022), p. 10 — primary ↗

EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS

For holding: the servicing arithmetic is the city's own. The growth-management plan assigns $245 million to growth infrastructure to 2033, and wastewater servicing was the stated reason lands south of the 401 were left out of the expansion, with a sitting councillor's cost objection on the record. 2026 GMIS Update (June 23, 2025) ↗
The strongest Canadian cost number: Ottawa's city-commissioned analysis found new low-density greenfield homes cost that city a net $465 per person per year beyond the taxes and fees they generate, while high-density infill produces a net surplus of $606 per person per year. Single-city, methodology contested by the development industry; treat as indicative. No London-specific equivalent has been published. CBC Ottawa ↗
The other Canadian fiscal numbers point the same way. Halifax's consultants put the sprawl bill at up to $3 billion over 18 years unless the region hit 50% infill. Stantec via CBC Nova Scotia ↗
Calgary's own staff priced 11 proposed edge communities at $23 million in added annual costs. A much larger "$33-billion" Calgary figure circulates; it could not be traced to a source and is not used here. CBC Calgary ↗
And the boundary-premium evidence has its own rebuttal: Auckland Council's economists put the premium at "at most 5.2%" once infrastructure costs are counted — "Ten times a small number is immaterial" — though they are the boundary's administrators, an institutional interest noted here. Martin & Norman, Auckland Council economists (institutional interest noted) ↗
Portland research found no relationship between its growth boundary and housing prices in the years when surplus land inside meant the line did not bind. The synthesis both sides should accept: boundaries raise prices when, and only when, they bind — for London the critique bites only if infill is genuinely too slow relative to demand. Alkadi, Portland State University dissertation ↗

WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE

London is the live experiment: expansion adopted December 2025, ministerial decision pending, servicing sequenced through the growth-management plan. Whatever the minister decides, the next council owns the consequences. Environmental Registry of Ontario, OPA 166 notice ↗

AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

Partially derivable at best, so this page marks it not derivable. The DC schedule already prices the growth pattern (roads are $25,150 of the $50,564 greenfield single-detached charge) and the growth plan caps near-term spending at $245 million. What no city document provides is an Ottawa-style net cost or benefit per hectare for the OPA 166 lands. That missing number is exactly what candidates should be asked for. 2026 DC brochure (PDF) ↗

□ SHARED — CITY + PROVINCECity adopts; province decides. OPA 166's fate is literally the minister's, and the next council inherits whichever answer, plus the servicing bill.

Make the tenant bylaw mean something

London already has a renoviction licence on the books. This option is enforcement: staff it, prosecute under it, and extend it to cover the demolition-and-conversion cases it currently misses.

■ CITY DECIDES

THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾

EVIDENCE FOR

The loophole is documented in a named live case: a Nelson Street landlord filed a demolition-based notice after an N-13, and a council motion directing staff to report on closing the gap has been moving since November 2025. CBC (Nov. 29, 2025) ↗
London's bylaw lacks the temporary-accommodation teeth Hamilton's and Toronto's have, because the referral to add them failed in 2024. And the enforcement-capacity question was built in from the start: the 2024 motion itself directed a budget update "reflecting staffing needs." council minutes, Sept. 24, 2024 ↗
The scale of the underlying pressure has an advocacy-sourced measure, carried with that label: ACORN's count of Landlord and Tenant Board filings puts London fourth in Ontario for own-use (N12) filings, 858 from 2017 to 2021, and fifth for renoviction (N13) filings, 153 — with ACORN's own caveat that filings are "a small fraction of the number of eviction notices being served." CBC London, reporting ACORN's figures (advocacy-sourced) ↗

EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS

Nobody knows if London's bylaw works yet: no application, licence or charge counts are published for London, and the 12-month evaluation council ordered is the evidence — it lands mid-campaign. Hamilton, the first mover, now has a published year one: N13 notices dropped from 119 in 2024 to 23 in 2025, against just seven licence applications and one licence issued. The councillor who championed it calls that "working exactly as intended"; critics answer that complaint-driven enforcement puts too much responsibility on tenants. And the honest caution: an N13 collapse could mean deterred bad-faith renovictions or chilled legitimate renovations, and the data cannot yet tell those apart. CBC Hamilton (Mar. 2026) ↗
The landlord association's counter-case is on the record: the bylaw is "a balanced approach" and "further tightening may create unnecessary barriers for responsible landlords." An interested party, labelled as one. And the ceiling is provincial: eviction law, compensation rules and the Landlord and Tenant Board all live in the Residential Tenancies Act. A city licence can add friction and fines; it cannot rewrite tenancy law. CBC (Nov. 29, 2025) ↗
How high that provincial ceiling sits is measurable: the Landlord and Tenant Board's backlog was cut from 53,057 to 41,465 applications over its last reported year — progress, and still a queue no city bylaw can clear. Tribunal Watch Ontario (watchdog) ↗

WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE

Hamilton's first year is the published Ontario track record: N13s down from 119 to 23, seven applications, one licence issued. No court challenge against Hamilton's bylaw had been filed as of mid-2026. CBC Hamilton (Mar. 2026) ↗
A caution against false credit: the $100,000 fine a Hamilton landlord drew in May 2025 was a provincial prosecution under the Residential Tenancies Act, not a charge under the city's bylaw. CBC Hamilton (May 2025) ↗
Toronto's version came into force July 31, 2025 — licence within seven days of an N13, temporary housing or rent-gap compensation, a public registry. Its early results are not yet published. City of Toronto release — primary ↗

AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

Not derivable. The staffing cost of the licence program was ordered into a budget update whose figure has not been located, and no enforcement counts exist to project from. The checkable ask: commit to a position after the 12-month evaluation publishes its numbers, and name the enforcement staffing you would fund, in dollars.

■ CITY DECIDESBylaw scope, staffing and prosecution are council's. Everything underneath, eviction law, the LTB, compensation, belongs to the province.

Rent control: what the city cannot do

Not an option. A boundary. Rent regulation in Ontario is provincial law under the Residential Tenancies Act: the province sets the annual guideline, units first occupied after November 15, 2018 are exempt from the guideline entirely, and rents reset without limit between tenancies — vacancy decontrol. No Ontario council can impose rent control, cap rent increases, or regulate rents between tenancies.

□ PROVINCE DECIDES

THE EVIDENCE, THE COSTS, WHO DECIDES▾

EVIDENCE FOR

The demand behind the promise is real, on this page's own verified split: the average occupied two-bedroom is $1,645, the advertised two-bedroom is $2,180 (Zumper, a listings platform), and the distance between those numbers is what a move now costs. Rising vacancy softens asking rents at the top of the market before it reaches anyone's existing lease. CMHC Rental Market Survey data tables (2025) — primary ↗
There is an honest municipal version: an advocacy resolution asking the province to act. Legitimate, and this site treats it as what it is: a posture, not a power.

EVIDENCE AGAINST / LIMITS

The boundary is now citable to the province's own page: the 2026 rent-increase guideline is 2.1%, the law caps any year's guideline at 2.5%, and the guideline "does not apply to" units first occupied after November 15, 2018 — with rents resetting freely between tenancies. All of it provincial, none of it municipal. Ontario.ca, residential rent increases — primary ↗
Every election produces "I'll fight for rent control" promises. A candidate offering one is describing a lobbying position, not a municipal power, and any candidate who says council can cap rents has failed the jurisdiction test this site exists to apply.
The evidence debate on rent control itself is real, and one landmark peer-reviewed study carries both sides at once: San Francisco rent control made covered tenants nearly 20% more likely to stay in their homes, with "large benefits to covered tenants" — and landlords cut their supply of rental housing by 15%, which the authors say "likely drove up market rents in the long run," a 5.1% citywide increase. Protection for sitting tenants and pressure on everyone else, from the same policy. It is also not on London's ballot. What is: the tenant-enforcement levers above and the supply levers across the rest of this page. Diamond, McQuade & Qian, American Economic Review (2019, peer-reviewed) ↗

WHAT IT COST ELSEWHERE

Not applicable. There is no municipal version of this policy to cost, anywhere in Ontario.

AT LONDON'S SCALE — NOT DERIVABLE FROM PUBLIC DATA

Nothing to derive, because there is no city lever. The useful test is the last question below: name something inside council's actual powers, with a budget line.

□ PROVINCE DECIDESFull stop. Council's only moves are advocacy resolutions and the municipal levers listed elsewhere on this page.

The honest numbers

Rents and vacancy: two different rent numbers

Building: the 47,000 pledge and what actually got built

What is already legal

Where growth goes: infill, the boundary, and the land bill

The tenant file: renovictions and enforcement

Who decides what

The option space

Upzone further, as of right

Put city land into housing

Speed up approvals further

Inclusionary zoning, the Ontario version

Discount development charges, and say who backfills

Expand the growth boundary, or hold it

Make the tenant bylaw mean something

Rent control: what the city cannot do

Figures that will move before October 26

What a costed answer looks like

What your ward is wrestling with