More Than a Ballot: Why Oshawa's Election Matters for Student Housing

I keep coming back to the same question: what does it mean to call a place home while you're a student? Is it just a bed and four walls, or is it something more: the security of knowing you won't be priced out mid-semester, the freedom to focus on your degree instead of your lease? For students at Ontario Tech University in Oshawa, that question has gotten harder to answer than it should be. With the municipal elections coming up at the end of the month, this is a perfect time for students to remember the importance of civic engagement, especially on key issues like housing.

On paper, Oshawa looks like a city that's figured out student housing. Purpose-built residences have gone up across town in recent years, several within walking distance of campus. But being close to class isn't the same as being affordable. As of early 2024, average rents across Durham Region hit $1,803 a month for a one-bedroom unit and $2,114 for a two-bedroom, figures that would have surprised students who came to Oshawa partly because it had a reputation as one of the more affordable places to study in the GTA. Splitting a unit with roommates helps. It doesn't erase the math. Rent is now one of the highest and least predictable costs of being a student in this city.

That unpredictability isn't just a quirk of the local market. It's written into provincial legislation that Ontario municipalities, Oshawa included, have no power to change. Under section 6.1 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, any new building, addition, or basement apartment first occupied after November 15, 2018, is exempt from Ontario's rent control guideline. That covers much of the newly constructed student housing near campus. Landlords of those units can raise rent by any amount, year over year, with proper notice. Oshawa's council has no say in that. It's decided at Queen's Park.

The same limits apply to inclusionary zoning, one of the few tools cities have to require that new developments include some genuinely affordable units. Provincial rules already cap what municipalities can require: no more than 5% of units in transit station areas, for a maximum of 25 years. Then, in early 2026, the province paused inclusionary zoning requirements entirely in Toronto, Mississauga, and Kitchener, saying the rules were slowing down construction. Whatever you make of that trade-off, it's a useful reminder: Oshawa's council is working inside a box the province draws. If students want bigger change, like real rent stability or stronger affordability requirements, that fight has to happen provincially too, which is worth keeping in mind at the provincial ballot box.

Still, City Hall isn't powerless here. Oshawa, like most Ontario cities, now allows up to three residential units as-of-right on most urban lots, meaning basement apartments, garden suites, and laneway units can go in without a rezoning fight. That said, permission isn’t progress. The city decides whether it encourages homeowners to build these units, how fast permits move, and whether it enforces safety standards. It also decides how quickly new purpose-built student housing gets approved, how closely it works with the Region on subsidized housing near campus, whether its rental licensing and property-standards bylaws catch bad landlords before students sign a lease, and whether students actually get consulted before any of this is decided. These show up on a council agenda, not a provincial one. They add up.

This is part of why this fall's election is worth paying attention to. Oshawa's municipal and school board elections land in a couple of weeks, on October 26, 2026, and it isn't a foregone conclusion. Longtime mayor Dan Carter isn't running again, so Oshawa will have a wide-open, multi-candidate race for mayor, plus every council seat up for grabs. Whoever wins spends the next four years deciding how fast housing gets approved, how seriously the city takes tenant protection, and how hard Oshawa pushes the province on students' behalf.

Students tend to get overlooked in local elections. Not because our concerns don't matter, but because we typically don't vote at the same rate as everyone else. You don't need to own property in Oshawa to have a stake in this. If you live here eight months of the year, search for housing in this market, and pay rent to a landlord in this city, you have as much reason to vote as anyone else on the ballot. Ontario lets you vote where you live as a tenant, so a student lease is enough to qualify. It's worth checking the City of Oshawa's voter tools ahead of time to confirm you're on the list and know your ward.

You don't need to pick a side or memorize every name on the ballot. You just need to pay attention, ask candidates where they stand on housing supply, tenant protections, and affordability, and then show up to vote. A council that hears from students during an election is a council more likely to think about students once it's in office.