230 affordable units proposed in Lawrence Heights renewal
New plan aligns with 10-year goal of creating 40,000 affordable homes The multi-decade Lawrence Heights renewal is Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s largest renewal so far.
A new proposal for the multidecade revitalization of Lawrence Heights could see 230 new affordable rental units added over the next 17 years at an estimated cost of more than $90 million, with some city officials pushing for even more units to be added.
The initial development proposal for phases two and three of the four-phase Lawrence Heights project was released this week, calling for 130 affordable units to be built in those phases and another 100 in the fourth phase.
A confidential cost estimate that says those 230 affordable units could bring the project’s shortfall — their costs less anticipated market proceeds — to $130 million from about $38 million without them.
Under a 2011 plan for the site, which called for a mix of social housing and market-priced units, Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) isn’t obligated to construct any new affordable housing beyond replacing what was already there. That decision was made so it could focus on rebuilding the aging social housing units, according to Vincent Tong, chief development officer with TCHC. Lawrence Heights, constructed in the 1950s, is TCHC’s largest renewal so far — nearly twice the size of the Regent Park revitalization.
Abi Bond, executive director of Toronto’s housing secretariat, said the new proposal aligns with the city’s 10-year goal of creating 40,000 new affordable homes. “Big picture, it’s the city looking at the ways we can use our land most effectively to get as close to those goals as possible,” said Bond.
The plan for the next two phases may change considerably between now and final approval after a developer is selected, Bond cautioned. She’d like to see more affordable units than 230, and noted that they’d be asking for funding from both Ottawa and Queen’s Park.
The idea was to allow a diverse mix of incomes in the neighbourhood — “not just maybe people who can afford a condominium, or people who have a low income and need (rentgeared-to-income) units.”
The new proposal estimates that the second and third phases will cost the city approximately $221.6 million over a 13year period beginning in 2023, plus average annual funding of roughly $17.8 million.
If Lawrence Heights were not overhauled, it would cost TCHC an estimated $51 million over 10 years to maintain the existing buildings. An estimate provided confidentially to the city’s housing committee members for the meeting pegged the cost of affordable housing at roughly $400,000 per unit.
That adds up to a $130-million shortfall for Lawrence Heights by the end of phase four if all 230 affordable units are built, when also factoring in infrastructure costs and the replacement rent-geared-to-income units. Without the affordable units, the project’s shortfall would be roughly $38 million by the fourth phase.
Tong said that delivering affordable housing in Toronto through assets the city already owned is still cheaper than purchasing land elsewhere.
Mike Colle, the councillor for the Lawrence Heights area, believes that the 230 proposed affordable units are a “good start,” and is hoping for more in the final plan — especially units designed for seniors.
Victoria Gibson is a Toronto-based reporter for the Star covering affordable housing. Her reporting is funded by the Canadian government through its Local Journalism Initiative.