Canadian City Amends Zoning to Accelerate Housing
Mississauga, a city in the Toronto metropolitan area, has updated its angular plane rules, a form of zoning regulation that governs building height and setbacks. The change is intended to streamline the approvals process and accelerate the construction of new housing. This policy shift provides a relevant international example for Dutch planners exploring regulatory reforms to address housing supply shortages.
- The specific zoning change in Mississauga replaces "angular plane" requirements, which mandate that a building's upper floors step back to minimize shadowing, with simpler setback rules. This was a key recommendation from the Mayor's Housing Task Force, a body of over 30 industry and non-profit experts, which identified the requirement as a barrier that reduces potential housing space and increases construction costs. - This amendment is part of a broader Urban Design Program Review and applies to two new "urban apartment zones" created in late 2024 to fast-track approvals in designated growth areas. The city is also reducing the minimum required distance between towers from 30 to 25 metres, a standard more typical in urban areas like Toronto, to allow for more flexible and efficient site layouts. - The policy shift in Mississauga is driven by a task force report titled "Partners in Homebuilding," which aims to reform zoning, cut development costs, and streamline building standards to unlock more housing. The goal is to provide more certainty for developers and avoid lengthy and costly rezoning applications. - In the Netherlands, a parallel effort to accelerate housing involves simplifying national building regulations (Besluit bouwwerken leefomgeving). In June 2025, Minister of Housing and Spatial Planning Mona Keijzer proposed relaxing rules for ceiling heights (from 2.6 to 2.5 metres), door heights (from 2.3 to 2.1 metres), and stair steepness. - The Dutch proposals were informed by recommendations from the STOER committee, an advisory group tasked with identifying and removing conflicting or redundant housing rules to help meet the national target of building 100,000 homes annually. - This move toward deregulation in the Netherlands is also supported by the new Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet), which took effect in 2024. The Act aims to consolidate dozens of previous laws and hundreds of regulations into a single, simplified framework, giving municipalities more integrated environmental plans to expedite projects like housing construction. - While the Mississauga case focuses on external building form regulations, the current Dutch national debate centers more on internal and technical building standards. However, both approaches share the common goal of reducing regulatory complexity and construction costs to address their respective housing shortages. - The Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG) is actively engaged in these discussions, advocating for the harmonization of building rules and clearer state aid regulations to better support the construction of affordable housing, while respecting the principle of local decision-making in spatial planning.
