Creating more affordable housing must be a priority
Keeping this booming city affordable is one of the greatest challenges we face as a city council.
Making sure there is a steady supply of housing that people can actually afford to live in is the best way we can meet that challenge.
Back in 2009, Toronto city council voted to set a goal of creating 1,000 affordable rental units every year. Before this administration, council has never once met that target.
There were no discussions with other levels of governments to provide surplus public lands to the city. Government officials would take months to find ways to say “no” to private and non-profit developers. The city did not take the time to review our own surplus public lands. Developers, the non-profit sector and other levels of governments were not seen as partners with city council.
Through a lack of leadership and a lack of will, we fell further and further behind.
Over the past three years, we have been working to knock down each of these barriers and finally create housing for those in our city who need it most. We made creating affordable housing a priority, looked for new and innovative ways to do it and called on everyone — from the other governments, non-profits and the private sector — to join us at the table.
And this week, we’ve seen that change pay off and the City of Toronto’s affordable housing portfolio is now in better shape than it has ever been before.
For the first time since setting that affordable housing goal almost a decade ago, this city council will actually meet — and exceed — that target this year and we are already working to repeat that hard work again next year. How did we do it? Two years ago we put an action plan together called Open Door designed to encourage private and non-profit developers and other levels of government to build affordable rental and ownership housing quicker. We are finally seeing the fruits of that plan.
We are finding ways to say “yes” to developers who want to work with the city. We fast-tracked the planning-approval process and expanded city financial incentives to reduce construction costs. Internally, we spoke to our city divisions like the TTC and Build Toronto to see what lands they had that they could give to the program. We sat down with the provincial government to have a serious conversation about them giving us their surplus public lands. This week alone, we’ve secured $90 million from the provincial government for supportive housing to get 2,000 chronically homeless people into homes, we secured three pieces of surplus public land from the province to build 600 affordable rental units, and broke ground on 100 new affordable housing units in Scarborough by working with the Daniels Corporation and Diamond Corp. on a piece of city surplus public land that has been vacant since 1996.
We are proving that by working together with our partners — developers, nonprofit and other levels of government — we can build more affordable housing for the residents of Toronto.
By the end of the year, the city is tracking that 1,200 affordable rental units will be approved.
There are some who will say1,000 a year is not enough. We agree there is much more to be done.
We’re willing to do more and we’re hopeful our partners are as well.
That’s why we’re calling on the federal government to find surplus land that it owns in the city and to put it toward affordable housing.
That’s why we’re still pushing the province to fund more of its share for the Toronto Community Housing repair backlog.
And that’s why we will keep encouraging private companies to help build buildings that include affordable housing.
Actually hitting the city’s affordable housing goal is a good start.
Having all three levels of government demonstrating their understanding that co-operation builds affordable housing and a good affordable housing supply builds up cities is a good sign.
We pledge to not give up on keeping this city affordable and making sure Toronto City Hall is committed to this vision for affordable housing.