Will new LRT create corridor for the rich?
Mississauga’s Crombie and Parrish plan to lead push for affordable housing along transit route
Mississauga councillors want to make sure a new $1.3-billion LRT along the city’s spine won’t create an exclusive, high-rent corridor that’s out of reach for residents who need affordable housing options and accessible transit.
“LRTs displace all the poor people,” Councillor Carolyn Parrish said at Wednesday’s general committee meeting. She told staff she wants a plan to guarantee that the LRT corridor, with developers lining up to build where property values are sure to skyrocket, won’t squeeze out those who rely on public transit the most. “I want a fulsome report on how we look at the concentration of affordable housing in this strip.”
The future development of the LRT’s urban growth corridor along Hurontario St. was on Wednesday’s agenda, sparking debate about the affordable housing crisis the city is already facing. When transit arrives in a neighbourhood, property values usually go up and Mississauga councillors fear this could worsen the affordable housing crisis.
Parrish said that more than 18 per cent of the city’s residents are living below the poverty line, in a region where wait times for affordable housing are among the longest in Ontario, often between five and 11years. Last year, there were 5,000 new applications for housing assistance in Peel.
With almost 60,000 new residents expected to move in along the city’s downtown segment of the LRT line, which is to start running by 2022, Mayor Bonnie Crombie, like Parrish, would like to see a minimum percentage of affordable housing units applied to all new buildings.
Parrish “floated the number of 20 per cent. That would have to be discussed and debated,” Crombie said after the meeting. Asked if she believes high-order transit projects (subways, trains and light rail systems) should be tied to affordable housing requirements along the main transit corridors, she replied emphatically: “Absolutely.”
She said the province “should be” tying in affordable housing with its $50-billion Big Move transit master plan for southern Ontario. Requiring builders to set aside a percentage of new housing built along the busiest parts of Hurontario for affordable housing makes sense, she said. “Absolutely, that’s where people need it the most.”
Parrish said after the meeting that subway and LRT lines are becoming corridors for the wealthy, for residents “who don’t even need publicly subsidized transit. The people who need the best transit the most are being pushed farther and farther away, into transit dark zones with either no service within walking distance or very infrequent service.”
She would like other cities to get on board with the initiative she and Crombie intend to push.
David Hulchanski, a University of Toronto sociology professor who specializes in housing and community development, described Toronto’s wealthiest areas in a 2007 study on income disparity, noting: “These neighbourhoods are generally found in the central city and close to the city’s subway lines.”
Mississauga Councillor Nando Iannicca, who represents much of the area where the downtown segment of the LRT will run, welcomes the idea of incorporating affordable housing into the plan, but would like to see some help from senior governments.
“We’re not having an affordable housing problem because we’re building an LRT. We’re having a problem because the provincial and federal governments have abandoned assisted housing. That’s the problem.”
“People gravitate to public transit because they need it,” Iannicca said, adding that the LRT corridor should not be exclusive. “We want a walkable, livable community for everyone.”