On June 10, in anticipation of the expiry of the ten-year period to proclaim the amendments to the Condominium Act, the committee drafted a paper discussing the Top 10 Amendments that we believed were most
critical to either proclaim or extend. This was followed up via a social media campaign and interaction with Jessica Ball, the NDP Housing Critic. Unfortunately, of the top ten items, only four were granted an extension. These related to mandatory shared facility agreements, a prohibition against contracting out of court remedies, changes to performance audit due dates and termination of developer agreements. This is a positive sign that the Ministry intends to make progress on these items in 2026. Subsequently, committee members met with the Ministry staff to discuss some of the other amendments that have been extended. These related to the scope of the CAT, the change from “owner-occupied units” to “non-leased voting units” and the requisition process.
Unfortunately, 6 of CAI’s top 10 items were not extended, and died on the vine on December 31, 2025. As is typical of this builder-friendly government, all financial provisions, including preventing builders from selling or leasing back common elements or assets, and all provisions related to the reserve fund were abandoned. Next steps on financial issues need to be determined.
We have been monitoring the situation related to Inclusionary-Zoning at the City of Toronto and the City of Mississauga. During the year, the province defined the transit zones where 5% of units would need to be affordable. We were scheduled to present at a Planning and Housing committee meeting at the City of Toronto, but the meeting got cancelled. Soon after, the Inclusionary Zoning process was put on hold until July 1, 2027. We reached out to Toronto and Mississauga to see if they would be developing their guidelines during the pause, but both have indicated that there will be no action during the pause.
The committee has been monitory the situation related to fire risk caused by electric vehicle, e-scooter and e-bike batteries, as there seems to be a disconnect between the Office of the Fire Marshall, the Condominium Act and the Building Code. There are really two situations here.
- The first relates to e-bikes and e-scooters. There is huge growth in the use of e-bikes and scooters, but the storage of batteries, particularly batteries which do not have a CSA or ULC rating, is proving to be a fire and serious safety hazard. We are starting to see some action with the City of Toronto and the Office of the Fire Marshal acknowledging the increased number of dangerous fires that are being caused. We are hopeful that we will have some clear guidance over the next year in this regard, because many condos are prohibiting storage of these batteries in bike rooms, but that runs the risk of having unit owners bring them into elevators and apartments, which is even more dangerous.
- The second issue relates to electric vehicles. Although the incidence of fires with these large batteries is very low, the potential for harm caused by an e-vehicle fire in a multistorey underground garage is very high. The Office of the Fire Marshall has recommended storing these cars on the first level of the garage only, near air shafts, to maximize the possibility for them to enter the building to fight the fire. Of course, these recommendations do not work in condominiums where EV chargers are installed in owners parking stalls, wherever those are located. It also runs counter to the requirements to allow e-vehicles under the Condominium Act. This situation may be even more dangerous in automated parking garages, where fire fighters may simply not have access to fight fires at all. We have been in touch with the OFM regarding this topic and will keep members posted as more information comes available.
The committee has been providing significant feedback to the CAO and Ministry about the possibility of more streamlined Status Certificates and Information Certificates to reduce administrative burden. The CAO seems to be taking the feedback seriously, but has been more focused on proxies recently. We met with representatives of CCI and ACMO to see if we could stand together on the streamlining of the forms. This is a useful exercise because even during preliminary discussions, some different ideas came up that we had not considered, so getting alignment would clearly be useful.