Yes, we can create affordable housing

Unless you were binging on Netflix and chips and never coming up for air, there’s no way you would have missed that housing prices have soared to the “forget it” level for the majority of people living in the Golden Horseshoe.

Some commentators claim that a lack of land is throttling the ability to build new houses, thereby driving up prices and that massive expansion of cities onto farmland, forests and wetlands are needed to put new homes within financial reach of many.

They are wrong and people need to understand why.

There is, in fact, no shortage of land already designated for development. Municipal plans show that there are approximately 88,000 acres of land within urban boundaries across the region already approved for housing — enough to meet Ontario’s provincial growth projections for decades to come.

Developers own almost all this land and our communities are subject to their whims as to when new housing is built and the price it is sold at. Developers typically sell homes at the price the market will bear, so municipalities have little control over, or ability to affect, housing prices.

We are part of a group who have come together to add our voice to call for sustainable and collaborative solutions from our municipal, provincial and federal governments on solving our housing affordability challenge. Optimizing use of land already approved for development and building in our existing communities, rather than through continued outward expansion, is clearly the most effective long-term economic strategy and the only way to provide the types of housing people need and can afford.

So what could actually make housing more affordable?

A larger proportion of people moving to the region want to live inside existing cities. Opinion polling tells us this is because of their urban amenities and services. Building the “missing-middle” (smaller scale apartment buildings) in these cities requires changes to zoning rules that exclude multiunit buildings in low-density neighbourhoods. This would allow the creation of pre-Second World Warstyle communities like Toronto’s Little Italy with its mix of detached, semis and small multi-unit apartments.

Rules that discourage five- or sixstorey mainstreet developments should be fixed in tandem with implementation of requirements for new multi-unit buildings to contain many more two- and three-bedroom family-focused units. We should also reform tax rules to encourage rental building investors to get back into the business of building like they did in the 1960s and ’70s.

Finally, if we want truly affordable housing, governments will need to get back into the business of providing financing and loan guarantees that helped spur the highly successful co-op buildings of the ’70s and ’80s.

Building within our existing cities will save us all money, while also revitalizing the local economy and community design. Sewers, water pipes, roads and schools are all cheaper to build and maintain when more people live in a neighbourhood. Public transit that is frequent and close-by becomes possible and people can choose to walk to a store, restaurant or work instead of being forced to use a car.

This approach will help combat climate change and conserve more of Canada’s best farmland, ensuring people have natural areas to enjoy, wildlife have places to live, while our streams and rivers (and the drinking water they produce) are protected from the pollution and flooding that accompanies urbanization.

Finally, creation of attractive, livable, affordable cities in the Golden Horseshoe will give Ontario a competitive edge in attracting skilled and talented people who will make our future bright.

It’s important that the premier, our mayors and our federal government develop a housing strategy that focuses on these key issues. If the proposed solutions focus on enabling more sprawl, expect more of the same on housing prices and lack of affordability.