Which Central Ontario Municipalities Are Actually Fixing the Housing Crisis?
A Deep Analysis of the OnePoint Association of REALTORS® Housing Policy Scorecard (February 2026)
Download the Full Report: OnePoint Association of REALTORS® Housing Policy Scorecard (PDF)
Executive Summary
Central Ontario’s housing affordability crisis has reached a critical inflection point — and the response from local municipalities has been wildly uneven. A landmark February 2026 report from the OnePoint Association of REALTORS® evaluates ten municipalities against the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s (CMHC) ten Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) best practices, creating what amounts to a municipal housing policy scorecard.
The results are revealing. Communities like Guelph, Collingwood, and Orillia have emerged as reform leaders, achieving seven, seven, and six of ten benchmarks respectively, while Kincardine, Stratford, and Owen Sound lag significantly behind with most categories still “In Progress” or “Not Yet Initiated.”
Meanwhile, the regional data tells a sobering story: average resale prices surged 149% across the region from 2014 to 2024, housing starts collapsed from 2,848 units in 2021 to just 364 year-to-date in 2025 — a staggering decline exceeding 85% — and a puzzling decoupling between inventory normalization and price resilience has emerged.
The Affordability Math That Should Alarm Everyone
Before diving into which municipalities are leading or lagging on policy reform, it’s worth sitting with the affordability numbers that frame this entire conversation.
The report documents that across the OnePoint region, average resale prices increased 149% between 2014 and 2024. But that regional average obscures even more dramatic local surges. Collingwood saw a 186% increase, followed by Centre Wellington and Kincardine at 165% each.
In dollar terms, Centre Wellington’s average resale price hit $895,679 in 2024, Collingwood reached $842,652, and Guelph came in at $799,767.
What This Actually Means: To put this in concrete terms, the report illustrates Guelph’s affordability challenge using the CMHC’s 30% gross income benchmark. A home priced at approximately $1 million in Guelph requires roughly $5,000 per month in housing costs (mortgage, taxes, insurance). Against the city’s 2020 Census median household income of $93,000, that $5,000 monthly obligation consumes approximately 65% of gross income — more than double the 30% threshold that CMHC considers affordable.
The Housing Starts Collapse: A Supply Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight
If affordability is the symptom, the collapse in new housing supply is the underlying condition. The report documents a trajectory that should concern every stakeholder in the region:
- 2021: 2,848 housing starts across the region
- 2024: 1,394 housing starts — a 51% decline
- 2025 YTD: Just 364 housing starts — putting the region on pace for another dramatic drop
What This Actually Means: A decline of this magnitude doesn’t just mean fewer homes being built this year. It represents a compounding deficit that will constrain supply for years to come. Every unit not started in 2023 or 2024 is a unit that won’t be available for occupancy in 2025 or 2026.
The construction pipeline operates on multi-year timelines, which means the supply crunch we’re beginning to feel today is actually the consequence of decisions (or non-decisions) made two to three years ago. And the decisions being made right now — reflected in those 364 year-to-date starts — will determine whether the region faces an even deeper affordability crisis by 2028.
The Hidden Trend: Why Normalized Inventory Hasn’t Fixed Prices
Here is the most counterintuitive finding buried in the report’s data, and the one that casual readers will almost certainly miss.
During the pandemic-era market frenzy of 2020–2021, the region experienced a severe seller’s market with inventory levels below four months of supply. By 2024, inventory had normalized dramatically — most municipalities now sit at seven to ten months of supply, firmly in balanced or even buyer’s market territory.
In a textbook market, that kind of inventory recovery should produce meaningful downward pressure on prices. It hasn’t.
In seven of the ten municipalities studied, average resale prices have remained flat or continued to increase despite this significant inventory normalization. This is the inventory-price decoupling phenomenon, and it tells us something important about the structural nature of Central Ontario’s housing challenge.
What This Actually Means: This decoupling suggests that the affordability problem isn’t purely cyclical — it’s structural. Even when more listings come to market, the type of housing being listed and the cost floor for new construction remain too high for median-income buyers. The region doesn’t just need more inventory; it needs more of the right kind of inventory — specifically, the “missing middle” housing (duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, townhomes) that sits between single-detached homes and high-rise apartments.
The Municipal Scorecard: Leaders, Followers, and Laggards
The heart of the OnePoint report is its evaluation of ten municipalities against the CMHC’s ten best practices. Rather than simply reproducing the checklist, let’s examine what separates the leaders from the laggards.
The CMHC’s Ten Best Practices
- Ending exclusionary zoning — permitting four units as-of-right on residential lots
- Making municipal lands available for housing development
- Digital permitting and streamlined process efficiency
- Prioritizing affordable and rental housing in the approvals process
- Reviewing development charges to reduce barriers to construction
- Reducing or eliminating parking minimums
- Eliminating restrictive development standards that inflate construction costs
- Adopting affordable housing strategies and Community Improvement Plans (CIPs)
- Offering standardized and pre-approved designs (e.g., for accessory residential units)
- Establishing grant programs for housing innovation
The Leaders: Guelph, Collingwood, and Orillia
Guelph (7 of 10 achieved) has positioned itself as arguably the most comprehensive reformer in the region. The city adopted four-units-as-of-right zoning in December 2024, launched an Affordable Housing Community Improvement Plan in February 2025, runs the GPAS digital permitting system, and granted $10.4 million in development charge exemptions in 2024 alone.
Perhaps most notably, Guelph is implementing a Corridor Planning Permit System (CPPS) — a forward-looking approach that pre-zones entire corridors for mid-rise mixed-use development, eliminating the need for case-by-case rezoning applications.
Collingwood (7 of 10 achieved) has matched Guelph’s overall score with a particularly strong focus on practical, builder-friendly tools. The town passed four-units-as-of-right zoning through By-law 2024-053, established a Pre-Approved Accessory Residential Unit (ARU) Design Gallery that eliminates the design approval bottleneck, and created the Rapid ARU Grant program offering $10,000 per unit to incentivize construction.
What This Means for Collingwood: The Pre-Approved Design Gallery is a particularly clever tool — by offering homeowners a catalogue of pre-engineered, pre-approved ARU designs, the town eliminates one of the most common barriers to secondary suite construction. Combined with the $10,000 per-unit grant, Collingwood has created a genuine incentive structure for homeowners to add gentle density to their properties. For a community that has seen 186% price appreciation over the past decade, this kind of incremental supply addition is essential.
Orillia (6 of 10 achieved) rounds out the leadership tier with some particularly bold moves. The city adopted four-units-as-of-right zoning in May 2025, pre-zoned City-owned lands for eight-storey non-profit housing development, and established a Per-Door Grant Program offering $10,000 per unit for qualifying projects.
The Laggards: Kincardine, Stratford, and Owen Sound
At the other end of the spectrum, Kincardine, Stratford, and Owen Sound have the majority of their benchmarks still categorized as “In Progress” or “Not Yet Initiated.”
What This Actually Means: The risk for lagging municipalities isn’t just that they’ll be slower to address affordability — it’s that they’ll become relatively less attractive for development investment. Builders and developers allocate capital to jurisdictions where the approvals process is predictable, the timeline is manageable, and the policy environment is supportive.
The Underappreciated Role of Development Charges
One of the report’s most important — and most under-discussed — threads is the impact of development charges (DCs) on housing feasibility.
The report highlights Guelph’s $10.4 million in DC exemptions during 2024 as a best practice, and draws attention to the City of Barrie’s DC Equivalent Grant for Fourplexes as an innovative case study. Barrie’s program offsets the incremental development charge cost of a fourth unit in a fourplex, and — critically — it’s stackable with other incentives.
What This Actually Means: Development charges can add $50,000 to $100,000+ per unit to the cost of new construction, depending on the municipality. For a fourplex, that’s potentially $200,000 to $400,000 in fees before a single wall goes up. Barrie’s stackable incentive model demonstrates how municipalities can dramatically change the project economics for missing-middle housing without forgoing DC revenue entirely.
Key Recommendations From the Report
The report’s analysis converges on several common recommendations for municipalities:
- Adopt four-units-as-of-right city-wide — the single most impactful zoning reform for enabling missing-middle housing
- Pre-zone corridors for mid-rise mixed-use development — following Guelph’s CPPS model to create certainty for developers
- Establish fast-track approval pathways for affordable and rental housing with defined timelines
- Introduce tiered development charge rates — lower rates for missing-middle housing types
- Eliminate parking minimums in downtown cores and along transit corridors
- Expand Community Improvement Plan (CIP) programs beyond downtown cores
- Create municipal land disposition strategies with embedded affordability covenants
- Develop pre-approved design catalogues for multiplexes and ARUs — following Collingwood’s successful model
The Bottom Line
Central Ontario’s housing crisis is no longer a problem that can be solved by waiting for the market to correct itself. The data in this report — 149% price appreciation, an 85%+ collapse in housing starts, and a persistent affordability gap that puts homeownership out of reach for median-income households — demands policy intervention at the municipal level.
The good news is that municipalities like Guelph, Collingwood, and Orillia are demonstrating that meaningful reform is achievable. The four-units-as-of-right zoning changes, pre-approved design galleries, targeted grant programs, and corridor planning approaches documented in this report aren’t theoretical — they’re already being implemented.
The question for the remaining municipalities is straightforward: How much longer can they afford to wait?
Download the Full Report: OnePoint Association of REALTORS® Housing Policy Scorecard (PDF)
Have Questions About How These Policies Affect Your Property Decisions?
Whether you’re buying, selling, investing, or developing in Collingwood, Blue Mountains, or Grey County, understanding how municipal housing policies impact the market is essential. Contact the Egan Team for guidance on navigating these changes.
