September 17, 2021
Special Edition of InTouch: 2020 Building Permits

The building permits we receive from municipalities are an important trigger for us to review changes to a property — and the information in these permits provides valuable input for our assessments.

They also provide information and insight in the changes to Ontario’s property landscape and how homeowners are investing in their properties.

This special issue of InTouch highlights our findings in our look-back at the building permits we received in 2020.
Stay-at-home = spend on home
More than 106,000 Ontario homeowners obtained residential building permits in 2020 – a 9% increase from the year before, with permits for home improvements jumping by 15%.
By the numbers: Ontario’s top municipalities for home improvements
The City of Brampton topped the list for home improvements in 2020, issuing 5,716 residential home improvement permits – up 70% from 2019.
On a per capita basis, Casselman tops the list

While we saw a greater number of permits in larger municipalities, the Municipality of Casselman had the highest per capita percentage of residential building permits in the province.
Nearly 6,800 swimming pool permits issued in 2020 – up 53%
Amid a surge of renovations, swimming pools were a popular home improvement in 2020, according to analysis of Ontario building permits.
New development down 16% in 2020
Analysis of municipal building permits issued in 2020 indicates that the COVID-19 pandemic put a damper on new development across Ontario in almost every property category.
MPAC’s role in the building permit process
 
Municipalities rely on MPAC to take their building permits and plans and turn them into assessment. From there, municipalities tax property owners based on those assessments – so the sooner MPAC can deliver assessments, the sooner municipalities can realize new revenue.
 
MPAC is working collaboratively with the municipal sector to support digital permitting in Ontario. We are the only organization with a data set of all building permits in Ontario, and our understanding of this data gives us a unique perspective on ways to modernize its collection and exchange to support our municipal partners.
 
Given what we know about the e-permitting providers operating in Ontario, one of the collaborations MPAC is participating in is with AMO’s business services arm, LAS. Together, AMO and MPAC are working to identify a preferred e-permitting vendor for Ontario municipalities through a request for proposals (RFP) process.
 
The RFP is to identify one or more e-permitting solutions that are scalable to the variety of sizes of municipal governments across Ontario. MPAC believes that AMO’s approach will help streamline the adoption of e-permitting for municipalities, as they can leverage AMO’s proven ability to negotiate and procure solutions for the sector.
 
The RFP committee is comprised of representatives from AMO, LAS, MPAC, the Ontario Building Officials Association, and the Municipal Information Systems Association. MPAC looks forward to sharing the results once the process is completed and will work with AMO to pilot the solution with a number of interested municipalities.
 
Beyond the collaboration with AMO, MPAC remains technology agnostic in what e-permitting solution municipalities may select. That is why MPAC has been working with several e-permitting providers to integrate their systems in to MPAC’s systems. The goal is to work with all e-permitting providers operating in Ontario to electronically share municipal building permits and plans, making it easier for their municipal users to transfer it to that data to MPAC.
 
If your municipality is interested in engaging MPAC in your plans for e-permitting and discussing ways to submit building permits and plans electronically, reach out to your local MPAC Account Manager.