We’ve got to hand one thing to the Ford government: it sure knows how to slap an impressive-sounding label on something.

“For the People” graces every podium that isn’t already taken up with “Open for Business.” Ontario’s April budget, which has left crisis and chaos in its wake, is titled “Protecting What Matters Most.”

And now the government’s omnibus housing bill, the “More Homes, More Choice Act,” is making its way through the provincial legislature.

More — that sounds good. Who doesn’t want more?

A more diverse range of housing is certainly a good thing, especially if it comes at a “more affordable” price, as the government is promising.

Too bad there’s no evidence that this legislation will result in any such thing.

What it does show, unfortunately, is how little the Ford government understands about how to build a city and provide for its residents, or even what constitutes the building blocks of a city people will actually want to live in.

Right now, Toronto — and every other growing city across Ontario — relies on development charges to help pay for roads, transit and sewers. They also help to pay for libraries, community centres, parks and other soft infrastructure that creates the vibrant neighbourhoods people cherish.

But no more. This legislation strips municipalities of their ability to collect development charges for those services.

In its place the bill creates a new “community benefits charge” that lumps together all the tools Toronto currently has, including its section 37 and 42 charges. Those are often used to give developers extra floors on a condo tower, for example, in exchange for cash toward public amenities such as parks, affordable housing or child-care facilities.

And this new amalgamated charge comes with a still-to-be announced cap that will be determined by the provincial government.

The only reason for the province to give itself that power is because it wants to limit what cities can charge.

Why do that?

Certainly not to help cities pay for the infrastructure and public services that population growth requires. This move all but ensures that even more costs will land on the backs of property taxpayers.

That’s the last thing Toronto needs, given it’s already contemplating the need for an additional Doug Ford tax bill to pay for the $178 million in provincial costs his government downloaded after the city’s budget was set.

And despite Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark’s repeated claims that this legislation will make housing more affordable, thereby helping new homeowners and tenants, there’s no reason to believe that.

The province is being prescriptive in what the city can do and, at some point when it decides to spring the news, will be prescriptive in what the city can charge developers. But it has not chosen to do the same thing for developers.

The bill does not include any mechanism to ensure developers pass on their savings in the form of cheaper homes or lower rents, warns Toronto’s chief planner Gregg Lintern.

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Councillor Josh Matlow, whose ward is full of development pressures, puts it more bluntly: “Developers won the lottery.”

It’s not the first time.

The Ford government has already revived the developer-friendly OMB rules, gutted endangered species habitat protections and lowered housing density targets. That allows for more of the urban sprawl that developers love to build but saddles communities with expensive-to-service neighbourhoods that have such low density they can’t even support a regular bus service. The Ford government even raised the prospect of development on the Greenbelt until a public outcry forced it to backtrack.

The head of the Ontario Real Estate Association recently applauded the government’s housing legislation for including eight of its 10 recommendations.

Just eight? It’s a wonder they didn’t get all 10.

The executive director of the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations, on the other hand, called its participation “a compete waste of time,” given how little attention the government paid to its recommendations.

As usual with the Ford government, there are still plenty of questions about what this legislation will actually do.

But, at a minimum, it is yet another colossal overreach by Ford’s provincial government into the inner workings of municipal government.

And that’s a particular problem when Toronto council has a vision for a vibrant, welcoming city that supports and encourages residents, while Ford wants to strip the city to its barest bones.

A city needs homes, roads and sewer connections but it’s all the other things that keep it liveable and thriving over the long haul. This legislation is the latest evidence that Ford doesn’t seem to understand that.

So developers in Toronto, where there are already more building cranes than any other city in North America, stand to make even higher profits. The people who live here now and in the future will get less in community benefits.

More for developers, less for residents. Welcome to Doug Ford’s Ontario.

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