The Ontario government is introducing new legislation that will ban fees for locating underground hydro lines, water mains and gas lines, in an effort to build homes more efficiently.
The province introduced the Building Infrastructure Safely Act, 2023 on Wednesday, which, if passed, will prohibit underground infrastructure owners and operators from charging underground locate fees.
“We need to build critical infrastructure faster and smarter to support our growing communities,” said Todd McCarthy, Minister of Public and Business Service Delivery, in a news release. “Banning locate fees would stem the possibility of spiralling costs that delay construction projects and increase costs. Our bill, if passed, would help streamline the process to ensure projects like improving transit, connecting more people to high-speed internet and getting homes built move ahead more efficiently.”
The new legislation is also aimed at protecting the public from damages to critical infrastructure and keeping costs down for construction projects.
As well, the government says it plans to bring forward regulations to help streamline the locate delivery processes, which would cut down on the number of times a locate needs to be repeated.
Around 1.2 million requests for locate services were issued to Ontario One Call in 2022.