Montreal’s housing policy has entered a new chapter. What began as a bold inclusionary zoning framework put into force in 2021 under former mayor Valérie Plante—widely known as the 20-20-20 bylaw—is now being replaced by a simpler, scaled-down approach under the leadership of Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada.
This shift challenges how advocates, developers, and city officials think about inclusionary zoning (IZ) as a tool for housing affordability and social mix, and it invites reflection on the continuing debate about how and whether local governments should mandate affordable housing through zoning.
A Quick Snapshot: From 20-20-20 to a New 20% Rule
Under the 2021 Règlement pour une métropole mixte (RMM), or “Bylaw for a Mixed Metropolis”, Montreal mandated:
- 20% social and community housing
- 20% affordable (below-market) housing
- 20% family-oriented units with three bedrooms or more, which could be counted in the other two categories
Together, this meant that 40% of units in new building projects had to be offered at below-market prices when all categories were counted. It was one of the most ambitious inclusionary zoning policies in North America, and it was a binding requirement (not just a recommendation).
Now, less than five years later, the city’s new administration has scrapped this multi-tiered mandate. Instead:
- All new building projects with a gross floor area of 18,000 m² or more will be required to include 20% off-market housing units (simplifying and narrowing the requirement).
- The financial contribution developers may pay instead of building off-market units will be frozen at 2025 levels.
- The city has pledged to offer 80 city-owned parcels (40 of them ready for immediate use) to non-profits to build mixed and off-market housing along with funding and loans to support construction.
This change reflects a different policy orientation—one that trades some complexity and rigidity for simplicity and an emphasis on facilitating development.
Revisiting the 2019 Inclusionary Zoning Debate
The original RMM did not emerge overnight. It dates back two decades to when Montreal introduced a strong inclusionary policy for new housing construction. In 2019, Montreal’s Office de consultation publique (OCPM) hosted in-depth public hearings on the draft version of the bylaw, collecting 147 written depositions from a range of stakeholders. A research team led by Dr. Nik Luka and Dr. Richard Shearmur (both at McGill University) and Dr. Leila Ghaffari (at Concordia University) analyzed these submissions in their newly-published journal article, Inside Montreal’s inclusionary zoning debate: Who participates and what do they say? to understand who participated in the hearings and how they supported the draft bylaw (or not).
Read the ArticleKey takeaways from those consultations included:
- Strong support for IZ overall:
Around 79% of submissions backed the draft bylaw, while 10% opposed it and 11% were neutral. - Divergence by sector:
- Most non-profit and civil-society organizations pushed for stronger requirements—for example, calling for a 40% social housing target, income-based definitions of “affordable,” and application of the policy to all development projects, not just large ones. Many asked that the bylaw be implemented immediately.
- By contrast, two-thirds of private real estate actors were either opposed or ambivalent, arguing that stringent requirements could jeopardize developers’ ability to build and might lead to higher costs passed on to buyers. The bylaw only applies to the territory of the city, not the whole island of Montreal, so developers could opt to build outside the city boundaries.
- Five clustered themes in submissions:
- How “affordability” is defined
- Whether IZ should be regulated regionally rather than municipally
- The importance of adequate developer incentives
- How social housing units get allocated
- Where affordable units are located within the city
Even then, the researchers found that many participants perceived inclusionary zoning primarily as a tool to increase affordable housing supply, rather than as a mechanism for increasing social mix.
Why the Policy Shift Matters
Montreal’s revised approach under Mayor Martinez Ferrada is not just technical; it signals a shift in how the city balances housing affordability with development goals:
- Narrower scope: By focusing the requirement on buildings 18,000 m² or larger, the new policy applies to bigger, often corporate development projects. Smaller projects are exempted, in hopes that this will spur production without overburdening smaller developers, especially for the many infill projects that get built every year.
- Simplicity over granularity: Plante’s 20-20-20 framework had multiple targets for different housing types. The new model’s single 20% off-market requirement simplifies regulation but also reduces the specificity that many advocates saw as necessary to meet diverse housing needs.
- Incentives remain central: Freezing financial contributions and offering city land and financing to non-profits reflects a continued belief that a mix of policy tools, not just mandates, is necessary to grow non-market housing supply.
- Politics and participation: The original public hearings showed how different actors engage with zoning debates, from organized civil-society groups pressing for robust affordability standards to private developers who often see mandates as cost-drivers. The new policy underscores the political nature of housing regulation: city leadership steers strategy based on its electoral mandate, advocacy pressures, and economic context.
Where Montreal’s Housing Policy Goes Next
Mayor Martinez Ferrada’s January announcement is a prelude to fresh discussions for revamping Montreal’s inclusionary strategy. In practical terms, shifting from a multi-tiered IZ requirement to a simpler 20% off-market rule reflects a recalibration of priorities. If the RMM sought to shape not just the volume but the mix and quality of housing, the new bylaw places more emphasis on large-scale development projects, production thresholds, and development incentives. Whether this will lead to more affordable units built on the ground, or whether it will satisfy developers while leaving unmet needs, remains to be seen as new projects roll out under the updated rules.
What is clear is that inclusionary zoning, whether ambitious or modest, is only one piece of a much larger puzzle in addressing housing supply and affordability in Montreal. Debates over definitions, incentives, thresholds, and implementation mechanisms will continue, especially as housing pressures evolve across the urban region.
This analysis is connected to our Moving Forward on the ‘Missing Middle’ research project led by Dr. Nik Luka.
For more, visit our research project page.
The Balanced Supply of Housing is a SSHRC-CMHC funded, community-based research project at UBC that focuses on land use and housing financialization across Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal.
