4 years after Toronto's Housing Now plan, there isn't a single new affordable unit in the city

When Toronto launched its ambitious new housing strategy in 2019, it aimed to transform valuable city-owned lands into 10,000 affordable homes — but more than four years later, not a single shovel is in the ground. 

Housing Now was designed to convert surplus city-owned properties, such as parking lots, into new housing developments, with a minimum one-third of those units affordable or at no more than 80 per cent of market rent.

The first 11 properties, all near transit nodes, were identified in early on. The plan was to build and hand back the projects to city-aligned housing agencies for management within four years through a fast-tracked approval process.

So far, that hasn't happened. Now, some developers blame what they're calling the city's onerous construction approval process — including the Toronto Green Standard (TGS), which adds several levels of new regulation, on top of the provincial building code.

"We're calling it 'Housing Later,' or 'Housing Maybe'," said Richard Lyall, of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON). "It's not a surprise, in a sad kind of way."

Since 2019, the original list of 11 city-owned sites has grown to 21. But the city has only contracted six of those projects to developers so far.

Even so, CreateTO, the city agency that's overseeing Housing Now, denies there has been any problem getting developers on board.

"There is no problem at all in terms of interest level on most of our sites," said Vic Gupta, CEO of CreateTO, "because they are really strong, transit-oriented sites where the developers see an opportunity to have their small return."

He said the reason projects haven't evolved as quickly as anticipated has to do with the pandemic. The consequent increase in construction material costs and interest rates have made the projects much more difficult for the city to finance, he said.

He also blamed the province's Bill 23, which denies cities the ability to collect development fees on affordable housing projects.

Gupta predicted construction on three of the sites — at Bloor Street and Kipling Avenue, Wilson Heights Boulevard and Merton Street — will begin before the end of this year.

Paul De Berardis, director of building innovation for the Residential Construction Council of Ontario agreed financing has helped to slow down Housing Now.

But he also said the city is not doing itself any favours.

"There's no clarity on when these projects will actually move to building permit and construction," he said. "So there's a lot of uncertainty there, and also just some of the additional requirements that come with city projects, some of the higher levels of the Toronto Green Standard that need to be met."