The Toronto Region Board of Trade is calling on the Ontario government to protect commercial real estate known as employment lands.

The board released a report, called the The Race for Space: Securing the Future of Ontario’s Employment Lands, that contends proposed policy and legislative changes threaten to shrink commercial properties further and about 1.5 million jobs at risk. The province has proposed changes to the provincial planning statement and Bill 97, which gives cities more powers to create housing.

“Employment lands house 40% of all jobs in the region and a staggering 88% of manufacturing jobs,” said Giles Gherson, the board’s president and CEO, in a news release. “We cannot overstate how important employment lands are to protecting our region’s economic future.”

The report calls on the province to protect and plan the future of strategically important industrial, institutional, office and other commercial properties. Other recommendations include formalizing buffers and transition zones for industrial lands and identifying where housing can be strategically located on employment lands.