Canada’s housing affordability crisis, which has turned homeownership into an impossible dream for many, is fundamentally driven by a lack of housing supply. There are too many people bidding on too few homes, which drives up prices. Unfortunately, new supply is often obstructed by municipal politicians and bureaucrats who, subjugated by “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) activism, reflexively oppose new developments.Article content
In 2019, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives moved to overcome this obstacle by putting out a new plan, titled “ A Place to Grow ” (APTG), which was supported by existing legislation, that forces municipalities to densify areas around transit infrastructure, whether they like it or not. However, Toronto’s city planners appear to be undermining the APTG, preferring to protect rich homeowners at the expense of new buyers.
The APTG mandates that municipalities densify “major transit station areas” (MTSAs), which is defined as areas within a 10-minute walk of a transit station. Not only is there strong market demand there, it’s more economical and better for the environment when cities maximize the use of transit infrastructure by building up around transit hubs. Encircling subway stations with low-density housing (especially single-family detached homes) is wasteful — but that’s an outcome zoning laws often artificially impose.
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APTG sets relatively high minimum density targets for MTSAs — a minimum of 200 people per hectare around subway stations, 160 people/hectare around light rail and 150 people/hectare around regional commuter rail stations.
That is about the same minimum-density target the province has set for downtown Hamilton (and similar mid-sized cities) and about half the target for downtown Toronto. The Progressive Conservatives essentially want the areas immediately surrounding transit stations to be quasi-downtown zones.
Municipalities can request lower density targets for MTSAs if: 1) a significant portion of the MTSA is protected green space; or 2) the surrounding area does not support higher density, but local transit ridership nonetheless remains high. Both conditions address the fact that sometimes you just don’t have space to fit new developments and have to adjust expectations accordingly.
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Last month, Toronto’s city planners released a report, “ Our Plan Toronto ” (OPT), which makes several inexplicable requests for lower density, often to the benefit of neighbourhoods where NIMBY activism is strong. Worse yet, it directly contradicts the province’s authority.
It would appear, in other words, as though city planners are deliberately trying to undermine the provincial government’s densification mandate, preventing new housing from being built and contributing to Toronto’s affordability crisis (and, by extension, to higher housing prices in nearby regions).
As an example, the OPT argues that York Mills, a neighbourhood that is approximately 35 per cent green space, should have a whopping 57.5 per cent reduction in target density. That would prohibit the development of thousands of new homes.
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In an email exchange with staff at the City of Toronto, I asked: i) why the planners recommended such a disproportionate reduction in density; and ii) why reduce targets at all, given that the MTSA allows cities to build more densely elsewhere to make up for land used by green space (this would require York Mill’s usable land to have a minimum density of around 266 people/hectare, which falls far below the density in downtown Toronto).
The city did not provide credible answers to either concern, and gave responses that seemed almost deliberately obtuse.
The planners also asked for significant density reductions in several MTSAs because their “built forms” do not support higher density. But many of those MTSAs can clearly support higher density, as they are dominated by single-family detached houses — the least dense and most inefficient housing possible.
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It takes audacity to publish a report filled with satellite screenshots of ultra low-density housing and argue that it is simply impossible to build there.
Tragically, that is what happens under Toronto’s ridiculous zoning laws, which privilege well-off, low-density neighbourhoods (hotbeds of NIMBY-ism) by restricting new developments within them.
As noted in a series of tweets by Alex Bozikovic, the Globe and Mail’s architecture critic, Toronto’s city planners are arguing that it is impossible to meet the province’s minimum density targets because they are incompatible with the maximum development allowed under the city’s current zoning bylaws.
But why should Toronto’s zoning bylaws be obeyed here? If said bylaws are incompatible with provincially mandated density targets, they should be adjusted to conform to provincial law. That is the entire point of these provincial targets — to force change within municipal regulations to unlock more housing supply.
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Someone should remind Toronto city planners that provincial policy trumps municipal policy, not the other way around.
Bozikovic also notes that Toronto’s city planners appear to have deliberately drawn the borders of some MTSAs to exclude affluent, low-density neighbourhoods from further development.
The issues with the OPT are so egregious that even Toronto Coun. Krystin Wong-Tam, a well-known NIMBY, said that the lower density requested by city planners is “ shocking .”
Housing affordability is an issue that affects most Canadians, who, unfortunately, are often unaware that high prices are largely an artificial product of bureaucratic obstacles. Since coming into power, the Ontario PCs have focused on circumventing municipal bureaucrats by either disempowering or strong-arming them. It seems that the bureaucrats are now fighting back.
National Post
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