The Politics of Infill Housing: What 15 Years of Planning Decisions Reveal
A forensic look at how (and why) some homes get built while others stall
Highlights
Today, the Smart Prosperity Institute and the Missing Middle Initiative released the report Strengthening the Core: Increasing social license for healthy infill development in London, Ontario. MMI’s Jesse Helmer authored the report, which the Public Health Agency of Canada funded; it is available for download at the bottom of this page.
The report describes and analyzes 4,059 planning committee decisions in the City of London, over almost 15 years and four distinct municipal council terms, to understand support for (and opposition to) residential infill development.
Based on this analysis, the report makes seven recommendations.
Create a collaborative, community-wide housing strategy, modelled after London's Whole of Community System Response to homelessness.
Accelerate zoning reform to permit missing middle and mid-rise housing as envisioned in the London Plan, especially on major streets.
Prioritize infill on underutilized commercial and parking lots, where opposition is often lower and proximity to jobs is higher.
Encourage office-to-residential conversions to minimize construction disruption and bring housing closer to employment hubs.
Follow up with communities after infill is built, to evaluate real impacts and build trust through data and engagement.
Celebrate success through awards and recognition, to highlight well-executed infill projects and set positive examples.
Develop a focused built heritage strategy, using incentives and funding to preserve heritage assets while enabling adaptive reuse for housing.
A forensic analysis of Forest City NIMBYism
Canada is facing a housing affordability crisis. Over the past fifteen years, home prices have doubled nationwide, putting home ownership out of reach for many Canadians, especially those who were not already in the ownership market. The cost of renting has also increased dramatically, and sheltered and unsheltered homelessness is increasing nationwide, with 40,713 enumerated in the 2022 point-in-time counts.
To achieve our housing supply goals, building new homes in the existing built area of cities, residential infill development, will be essential. But proposals for residential infill often encounter local opposition, a phenomenon described as Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) opposition. How can we strengthen public support for new housing developments? That is the question the report explores in the context of London, Ontario.
Infill housing as a social licence issue
Social licence to operate (SLO) is a concept that was introduced by Jim Cooney at a World Bank conference nearly 30 years ago, when he was director of international and public affairs for the Canadian mining company Placer Dome, to explain the “challenge that mining companies face in building relationships with communities located around their projects”. It has since been widely used to describe the more than minimum legal permission required, particularly the broad public support required, to mitigate against or reduce political risks for extractive resource projects, which often have very concentrated benefits (to shareholders of mining companies) and concentrated costs (specifically, local environmental costs).
Although there are many differences between the two kinds of projects, they share a common thread, which is localized opposition to projects. Sometimes referred to perjoratively as NIMBY-ism, opposition to residential housing projects is common. The American economist William Fischel, having observed many planning commission meetings as a member of the commission, hypothesized that it was a concern over the uninsurable risk to the value of their principal asset – their primary residence – that was motivating homeowners to attend local government meetings to oppose projects that they perceived to reduce their property values. Fischel’s homevoter hypothesis is the prevailing explanation for the gap in political participation between homeowners and tenants in urban politics; the hypothesis has received substantial empirical support.
When infill residential development moves from concept to reality, it often encounters the kind of opposition observed by Fischel. The people who participate are not only not representative of the overall population — disproportionately male, homeowners and older than 50 — but also disproportionately opposed to new housing developments. Recent Canadian research focused on Calgary, which combines property value assessments and individual survey data, has shown that perceptions and actual changes in home values are significant factors affecting homeowner (but not renter) satisfaction with incumbent municipal politicians.
This leads to our research question: How can we build more infill housing while strengthening rather than degrading social licence for infill housing?
How we approached the question
The report describes and analyzes 4,059 planning committee decisions in the City of London, over almost 15 years and four distinct municipal council terms, to understand support for (and opposition to) residential infill development. A series of case studies explores examples of both significant opposition (and lack of opposition) to residential infill projects.
Jesse’s recommendations
The land use planning system in Ontario is designed to be an adversarial system in which those who have interests in property are expected to advocate for their interests, which may be in conflict with each other. On significant land use matters, such as the location of an urban growth boundary, land developers that may otherwise agree on policy may find themselves in conflict with each other. This adversarial system is not well-suited to the kind of collaborative governance that is needed to build more homes, especially residential infill housing. The following recommendations are intended to help build social licence for residential infill housing in London, Ontario, so we can build more homes, especially for younger generations, while doing so in a way that is climate-friendly and builds, rather than degrades, trust in local government.
Recommendation #1: A collaborative effort focused on housing
The Whole of Community System Response to Health and Homelessness demonstrates many of the features of a collaborative governance regime: dozens of organizations and hundreds of people attended the summit process and the city has committed to an ongoing whole of community approach. Starting and sustaining such a collaborative effort is very challenging. Yet building more homes, especially residential infill, would benefit from a similarly collaborative approach to systems change. Including the people who are most affected by the housing affordability crisis, especially younger generations, as well as the people who are most likely to oppose infill residential housing, may lead to stronger support for residential infill over time.
Recommendation #2: More permissive zoning for missing middle and mid-rise residential
Through the combination of place types and street types, the London Plan directs greater residential intensification towards parcels located on major streets. But until the zoning by-law is updated to permit the range of missing middle and mid-rise residential buildings envisioned in the London Plan, site-specific conflict on relatively modest residential infill is likely to continue. Building on its move to permit four residential units as-of-right, the City of London should accelerate the comprehensive update of its zoning by-law.
Recommendation #3: Focusing infill on underutilized lands
Residential infill on commercial properties such as mall parking lots and underutilized municipal or private surface parking lots may generate less opposition than proposals to build on low-density residential lands do. This kind of infill brings homes closer to major employment centres, which has the potential for additional reductions in congestion and commute times, and has the benefit of substantially limiting the disruption from construction to interior renovations.
Recommendation #4: Infill through conversions
Conversion of vacant or underutilized office buildings to residential, as recommended in Helmer (2023), has the benefit of substantially limiting the disruption from construction to interior renovations. Similar to new buildings on commercial lands or surface parking lots, this kind of infill also reduces the distance between homes and major employment centres.
Recommendation #5: Following up afterwards
At the time a residential infill development is proposed, uncertainty and fear, often about property values decreasing or quality of life decreasing, are at a high point. This period is also the focal point for the municipality in terms of land use policy. Follow-up by the municipality after developments have been built and occupied, with both the residents of the new homes and the residents of the pre-existing homes, could demonstrate the benefits of residential infill and strengthen support for residential infill overall.
Recommendation #6: Recognizing and celebrating success
Not all residential infill projects are equal. As in any area of business activity, some businesses are better than others in terms of how they plan buildings, engage residents, build the actual building(s), and, in the case of landlords, maintain those buildings. A meaningful award program designed to recognize exemplary residential infill projects may provide a positive feedback effect that improves how residential infill projects are planned and executed over time. The Urban League of London’s Green Umbrella and Green Brick Awards, London Heritage Awards (awarded by ACO London), and the Urban Design Awards (awarded by the City of London) are examples of existing awards that recognize excellent in either environmental contribution or heritage conservation. A new award program focused specifically on residential infill could be a way to recognize and celebrate success in this area.
Recommendation #7: A focused, proactive strategy for built heritage
Proponents of conserving built heritage often support residential infill proposals on underutilized land or involving adaptive re-use of heritage buildings. However, they are often opposed to residential infill development that is perceived to threaten built heritage resources. A focused, proactive strategy to acquire and conserve built heritage resources, and to encourage their redevelopment as new residential homes, will help to build social licence for residential infill. This strategy could include a dedicated fund for acquiring built heritage resources and/or a program to incentivize the adaptive re-use of built heritage resources for residential purposes, building on the existing city-wide Heritage Community Improvement Plan.
Download a copy of the report here:
