Every community across Ontario is feeling the effects of the housing crisis; for municipal chief planners, it’s a reality of their day-to-day work. Chief planners are expected to accelerate housing, manage growth, protect livability, and translate decisions made by several levels of government into development that can work on the ground. Too often, planners are cast as barriers to solving the housing crisis. 

StrategyCorp sought to gather and centre their professional perspectives on addressing the crisis with its inaugural Ontario Municipal Chief Planner Survey, drawing on confidential interviews with 19 senior municipal planning officials to understand the pressures, priorities, and practical realities shaping their work.

The clearest message from chief planners is that Ontario’s challenge is increasingly about converting approvals into construction. Municipalities are approving a large number of homes, often within or ahead of statutory timelines, but many projects still do not break ground. Chief planners pointed to borrowing and construction costs, labour shortages, legislative uncertainty, and land speculation. 

Frequent legislative changes add another layer of uncertainty. Each new reform requires municipalities to reinterpret rules, revise plans and processes, and retrain staff. Developers, lenders, and councils may also hesitate because the framework could change again. Planners support reforms that reduce the number of studies, duplications, and weak appeals, but they want enough stability to implement changes properly and preserve safeguards related to design, servicing, and livability.

Infrastructure is often the harder limit on growth. Water, wastewater, stormwater, transportation, and electricity systems determine whether approved housing can proceed. In some communities, major upgrades are beyond local fiscal capacity, while competitive, short-term funding programs make long-range capital planning difficult. Chief planners called for predictable multi-year funding, better coordination of utility and transportation approvals, and earlier consideration of electricity capacity.

Development charges sit at the centre of the infrastructure debate. Planners described them as imperfect but indispensable: they help pay for the watermains, wastewater plants, roads, and community infrastructure required by growth. They did not dismiss the cost of development charges, but argued that land, construction, and borrowing costs are usually more decisive for project viability. Reducing charges without a dependable replacement can leave municipalities with less ability to service new housing, ultimately worsening the crisis.

The survey also captures a profession reconsidering its role. Planners feel increasingly portrayed as obstacles, even as they work under pressure from governments, communities, and applicants. Some acknowledged that municipal planning can become overly procedural and risk-averse. At the same time, they argued that professional judgment remains essential. Their role is not simply to process applications, but to integrate policy, design, economics, infrastructure, and public interests into communities that function well. The better planners can merge these elements, the more effectively they can address the housing crisis.

That work is made harder by strained intergovernmental relationships. Municipalities are expected to deliver provincial and federal housing ambitions, often without aligned timelines, funding, authority, or data. Responsibilities are frequently downloaded to municipalities without the capacity or resources needed to carry them out. Chief planners called for clearer roles, one-window coordination, formula-based funding, and predictable multi-year plans that connect housing targets to infrastructure and fiscal commitments.

Municipal planning departments are also changing their own practices. The survey documents delegated approvals, Community Planning Permit Systems, pre-approved designs, zoning for gentle density, reduced parking requirements, e-permitting, public dashboards, pipeline tracking, and targeted uses of artificial intelligence. Some municipalities are acquiring and servicing land themselves, then tying its sale to construction deadlines. While these efforts are making processes faster and clearer, planners stressed that streamlining alone cannot overcome weak financing or missing infrastructure.

Strong mayor powers have had a much smaller effect than what may have been intended when they were implemented. Chief planners said they have generally been used sparingly and rarely for housing, with most mayors favouring collaboration with councils and staff. The powers may help advance an urgent project in limited circumstances, but planners warned that decisions made without integrated review can create problems with servicing, sequencing, and long-term costs.

StrategyCorp’s first Chief Planner Survey communicates professional planners’ desired role as partners in housing delivery, not simply administrators of approvals. They are asking for stable rules, secure infrastructure funding, stronger coordination, and room to exercise professional judgment. With these elements in place, planning practice becomes an effective vehicle for addressing the housing crisis and implementing strategies to avoid future crises.

Read the full Ontario Municipal Chief Planner Survey on our website.