Mayor Olivia Chow's Toronto

[Admiral Beez]

From CNN report: https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/14/business/house-prices-impossibly-unaffordable-intl-hnk/index.html

Top 10 “impossibly unaffordable” cities​

1. Hong Kong
2. Sydney
3. Vancouver
4. San Jose
5. Los Angeles
6. Honolulu
7. Melbourne
8. San Francisco/Adelaide
9. San Diego
10. Toronto

I'm encouraging my one kid to pursue their career outside of the GTA. I'll miss them, but it's a big country and housing, by which I mean SFH and land-ownership rather than a condo is still affordable.

Here's a quick MLS search for detached houses between $250k and $500k with 3+ bedrooms and 2+bathrooms with a garage. There are 438 listings today in this area below. There's still 123 listings if I drop the max price to $400k.

Some of the houses shown are really pretty, IMO. And there are careers to be had in those smaller cities and towns.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I'm encouraging my one kid to pursue their career outside of the GTA. I'll miss them, but it's a big country and housing, by which I mean SFH and land-ownership rather than a condo is still affordable.

There are "easy" ways to alleviate the housing issue - start extending the commutershed with higher-speed/high frequency rail. There is no reason why communities along the entire Lake Ontario shoreline, along the 401 to London and 400/404 to Barrie/Orillia can't be part of the commutershed of the city.

AoD

 

[evandyk]

Especially with people only working 2-3 days a week these days.

 

[Northern Light]

Especially with people only working 2-3 days a week these days.

This is a minority of the workforce.

Retail workers cannot work from home; factory and warehouse workers can't work from home, trades workers can't typically work from home, and neither can the doctors/nurses etc at your local hospital, or the people who pick up your trash.

We really need to get over this idea that remote work is a widespread phenomenon. It applies to a comparatively small portion of public and private workforce.

Something like 20% of Canadians are currently engaged in hybrid or F/T remote work.

But that number is probably something like 13% hybrid, 7% F/T

Of the Hybrid, most commute 3 days per week.

So that means you've got 12% less commuting vs pre-pandemic.

That's 88% of the commuting still happening.

 

[Northern Light]

There are "easy" ways to alleviate the housing issue - start extending the commutershed with higher-speed/high frequency rail. There is no reason why communities along the entire Lake Ontario shoreline, along the 401 to London and 400/404 to Barrie/Orillia can't be part of the commutershed of the city.

AoD

I'm going to differ here.

First off, HSR to London is not 'easy' or cheap. If we decide to pursue it tomorrow, we might deliver it, maybe, in 7 years, at cost of ~12B

HSR to Barrie is not feasible on much of the current alignment, its way too curvy and you need complete grade separation.

We can certainly improve frequency, and on some routes, drive down travel times by ~25%, and that's exactly what we are doing with GO Expansion.

But hitting targets to make commutes comfortable, which I would argue is 45M or less, out to places as far reaching at Belleville, Orillia, and London really would require HSR.

To send it all those directions, building 500km+ of HSR grade infra........ is a mighty project, you're in for 30B at the low end, double that is entirely realistic. You'd also be hardpressed to get those outer areas to 1-hour commutes (or more, in the case of London), never mind 45M

****

The second thing I would add, we could debate what 'affordable' means.......but in the context of @Admiral Beez post, we're looking at a freehold, single family houses, in all of London, ON
there are a whopping 500 listings at or below $750,000

If we were to discussing renting instead there are a total of 5, 2 bedroom apartments in all of London, listed at or below $1,600 per month.

I don't think many households would find London, ON affordable today, only slightly less egregious than Toronto!

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I'm going to differ here.

First off, HSR to London is not 'easy' or cheap. If we decide to pursue it tomorrow, we might deliver it, maybe, in 7 years, at cost of ~12B

HSR to Barrie is not feasible on much of the current alignment, its way too curvy and you need complete grade separation.

We can certainly improve frequency, and on some routes, drive down travel times by ~25%, and that's exactly what we are doing with GO Expansion.

But hitting targets make commutes comfortable, which I would argue is 45M or less, out to places as far reaching at Belleville, Orillia, and London really would require HSR.

To send it all those directions, building 500km+ of HSR grade infra........ is a mighty project, you're in for 30B at the low end, double that is entirely realistic. You'd also be hardpressed to get those outer areas to 1-hour commutes (or more, in the case of London), never mind 45M

****

The second thing I would add, we could debate what 'affordable' means.......but in the context of @Admiral Beez post, we're looking at a freehold, single family houses, in all of London, ON
there are a whopping 500 listings at or below $750,000

If we were to discussing renting instead there are a total of 5, 2 bedroom apartments in all of London, listed at or below $1,600 per month.

I don't think many households would find London, ON affordable today, only slightly less egregious than Toronto!

12B (or even 40B) might sound like a lot - but it really isn't that much vis-a-vis the value of housing that will be required to accommodate population growth. As to commuting time - 45 minutes is rather conservative considering Union to Hamilton is a 1-hour+ trip.

AoD

 

[Northern Light]

12B (or even 40B) might sound like a lot - but not much vis-a-vis the value of housing that will be required to accommodate population growth.

AoD

True.

But the housing (vacant) doesn't exist today in London or Barrie or Belleville either.

So you still have to build it, construction costs are that much lower outside Toronto, and if these areas grew to the size needed to alleviate Toronto's issues, I doubt there would be any difference at all.

Your sole savings is somewhat cheaper land.

But none of these communities have the local sewer/water, electricity distribution or public transport infrastructure to support growth on the scale we're talking about. Fixing that would be a huge cost.

The City of Toronto proper, never mind the burbs is set to add 1.2M people over the next 10 years. Assuming we decided we wanted to cut that by 80% so that could begin to catch up our own infrastructure to support the existing (and future) need......

We're talking about handing off growth of ~95,000 per year above and beyond current levels in those communities. Throw in some of the extraordinary growth straining Peel Region and other burbs......and you're shifting an extra 140,000 people per year or 1.4M over the next decade to those outlying areas.

*****

I'm not suggesting by the way that we shouldn't build out more HSR and better commuter rail or spread the growth around........

Rather, that doing so isn't 'easy' and that it won't do much to improve current affordability in Toronto, only alleviate the rate at which affordability is getting worse.

We have to slash overall population growth in southern Ontario, at least for a few years to catch-up on things like housing......transit, healthcare etc.

We also have to raise incomes for middle, lower-middle and low income earners, because we aren't going to get market housing down far enough price to meet the need to many workers at existing wages.

 

[Admiral Beez]

There are "easy" ways to alleviate the housing issue - start extending the commutershed with higher-speed/high frequency rail. There is no reason why communities along the entire Lake Ontario shoreline, along the 401 to London and 400/404 to Barrie/Orillia can't be part of the commutershed of the city.

Indeed. My cousin lives in Colchester in the UK and takes the train to Paddington Station three times a week. It's reliable (when they're not on strike) and the whole town commutes this way. Peterborough would be an ideal place to start.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

True.

But the housing (vacant) doesn't exist today in London or Barrie or Belleville either.

So you still have to build it, construction costs are that much lower outside Toronto, and if these areas grew to the size needed to alleviate Toronto's issues, I doubt there would be any difference at all.

Your sole savings is somewhat cheaper land.

But none of these communities have the local sewer/water, electricity distribution or public transport infrastructure to support growth on the scale we're talking about. Fixing that would be a huge cost.

The City of Toronto proper, never mind the burbs is set to add 1.2M people over the next 10 years. Assuming we decided we wanted to cut that by 80% so that could begin to catch up our own infrastructure to support the existing (and future) need......

We're talking about handing off growth of ~95,000 per year above and beyond current levels in those communities. Throw in some of the extraordinary growth straining Peel Region and other burbs......and you're shifting an extra 140,000 people per year or 1.4M over the next decade to those outlying areas.

*****

I'm not suggesting by the way that we shouldn't build out more HSR and better commuter rail or spread the growth around........

Rather, that doing so isn't 'easy' and that it won't do much to improve current affordability in Toronto, only alleviate the rate at which affordability is getting worse.

We have to slash overall population growth in southern Ontario, at least for a few years to catch-up on things like housing......transit, healthcare etc.

We also have to raise incomes for middle, lower-middle and low income earners, because we aren't going to get market housing down far enough price to meet the need to many workers at existing wages.

re: infrastructure - no different from doing so in Toronto - you will have a cost either way by population growth - and I argue it is better (demographically healthier) to distribute it across the greater city region than to simply jack up the central city to stratospheric levels while living in an artificial scarcity. If there is a good place to use foreign workers - it would be in housing/infrastructure construction.

As to slashing population growth - a slowdown might be needed, but the trajectory is invariably upward - you'd have to deal with these issues one way or another. There is an opportunity to use rail to shape growth patterns.

AoD

 

[afransen]

I think higher speed rail to knit together southern Ontario into a polycentric urban area without relying quite so much on sprawl and highways could be a very good thing. London is a bit far afield, but Guelph, KW, Hamilton, Oshawa, Barrie are all options.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I think higher speed rail to knit together southern Ontario into a polycentric urban area without relying quite so much on sprawl and highways could be a very good thing. London is a bit far afield, but Guelph, KW, Hamilton, Oshawa, Barrie are all options.

London is a bit far but it is central to the Windsor-Quebec City corridor - which is useful to piggy-back on; it is also an existing urban nucleus with great potential.

AoD

 

[evandyk]

This is a minority of the workforce.

Retail workers cannot work from home; factory and warehouse workers can't work from home, trades workers can't typically work from home, and neither can the doctors/nurses etc at your local hospital, or the people who pick up your trash.

We really need to get over this idea that remote work is a widespread phenomenon. It applies to a comparatively small portion of public and private workforce.

I was mostly joking about how the CEOs (and much of the public, when it comes to federal government workers) think that people working remotely aren't actually working if they're not in the office.

Big transit infrastructure is really good for filling the office towers around union station and along Line 1 with commuters, but even though there are a lot of jobs there, that's also a relatively small share of the total jobs in the GTA. You're never going to get a commute from London down to an hour for anything other than a few percent of jobs in Toronto unless Elon delivers the hyperloop.

 

[Northern Light]

I don't disagree with the posts above.

I simply think its important to say this will not, unto itself, deliver 'affordable' housing, nor will it do so in real time, that is to say, this a project of 7-20 years in length, if we're ambitious about it, and people need places to live, tonight.

We can and should pursue better inter-city rail in Southern Ontario, and we should distribute growth away from the centre of Toronto.......those are good ideas; just not sufficient, on their own to address the crisis we face, nor will their benefits be felt in the near term.

 

[PinkLucy]

This is a minority of the workforce.

Retail workers cannot work from home; factory and warehouse workers can't work from home, trades workers can't typically work from home, and neither can the doctors/nurses etc at your local hospital, or the people who pick up your trash.

We really need to get over this idea that remote work is a widespread phenomenon. It applies to a comparatively small portion of public and private workforce.

Something like 20% of Canadians are currently engaged in hybrid or F/T remote work.

But that number is probably something like 13% hybrid, 7% F/T

Of the Hybrid, most commute 3 days per week.

So that means you've got 12% less commuting vs pre-pandemic.

That's 88% of the commuting still happening.

Anecdotally, I took the GO train into Toronto the other day, and for the first time since the pandemic started, I struggled to find a parking spot. Pre-pandemic it was always a crap shoot after 7:30 am, but since 2020 I have been enjoying not having to worry about it. I guess my parking lot is "back to normal" ... I know that family workers who have been working from home since 2020 are increasingly in the office now, so obviously they aren't alone.

 

[evandyk]

The Path hasn't quite recovered to 100% of pre-pandemic lunchtime lineups, but I would say it's up to at least 80% from Tuesday-Thursday.

I don't know if there's any data about how rents down there have changed in response to moving from a 5 day a week economy to a 3.5 day a week economy. There's still plenty of foot traffic to sustain small businesses, just not quite as much as there was before.