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What happens when you put an economist, a municipal housing expert, and an architect/planner in a (virtual) room to discuss the Housing Affordability Crisis? Last week, the Toronto Society of Architects orchestrated such a gathering as part of a two-part DesignTO Festival 2022 series exploring Toronto’s housing crisis.
Frank Clayton, an urban and real estate economist and senior research fellow at the Center of Urban Research and Land Development at Ryerson University, opened up the discussion distinguishing between middle-income renters with a housing (or perhaps we can say a mortgage) affordability problem. While that unaffordability is providing existing homeowners with significant passive gains from just owning their home, lower income households have a rental problem and are being squeezed out by those middle-income prospective homeowners who are priced out and chose to rent.
In Clayton’s opinion, “The biggest problem we've had in the GTA in the last 15 years, is that the inventory of serviced sites to accommodate the very rapid demographic growth we've had has just been insufficient. Supply has not kept up with demand.” The lengthy process (official plans, zoning, secondary plans, site plan review, community review, urban containment, infrastructure, etc) is compounding the problem, in Clayton’s view, adding more friction to potential development that could open up supply.
Through Clayton’s supply-side economist lens: “Municipalities should focus on easing land-use regulatory burdens and facilitating infrastructure expansions to allow the market to operate more efficiently in delivering housing to middle-income households, while redirecting the scarce subsidy funds to increase aid solely for low-income households living in core housing need.”
Salima Rawji, Vice President Development for CreateTO, reiterated Clayton’s emphasis on the renter-squeeze, stating that 1 in 4 renter households in the GTA spend over 50% of their income on housing. And with renters making up 47% of households (53% being owners according to data Rawji presented from the Toronto Board of Trade) the problem, Rawji reminded listeners, is also tied to the city’s incredible population growth. By 2030, the GTA will have over half a million people in low-income situations, which was a staggering statistic when one considers this is near 10% of the GTA’s current population.
Rawji introduced Housing Now, a 2018 City of Toronto initiative that invests in City-owned lands to build affordable housing and mixed-use developments near transit, creating accessible, livable communities. The plan’s target is for 10,000 affordable rental homes in 10 years. “It's inclusive, it's accessible, it's climate positive, and it focuses on complete communities. Our housing approach is rooted in the Housing TO 2022-2030 Action Plan.”
“It is thinking about not just affordable homes, but also mixed income communities, so creating both market rentals, condos, and most importantly affordable rentals, inside neighbourhoods where people can thrive.”
Rawji introduced Housing Now’s portfolio of 21 sites across the city that are geographically diverse, different scale and size, and transit oriented. “It's a great mixed bag,” according to Rawji, where each is in a different stage of completion, from concept testing, design, site plan control, and further along. Four projects were highlighted, each under contract with developers and well on their way to being constructed.
The challenge is complex one, requiring the City to balance financing with multiple policy objectives and mandates, including environmental sustainability, heritage preservation, accessibility, and expanding community facilities such as daycare, parkland, and public realm improvements while ensuring that equity deserving groups also benefit. Rawji says the local community is engaged along with the City’s Design Review Panel: “We're thinking carefully about the communities that we're going to leave behind.”
To make the economics work, Rawji emphasized multi-sector collaboration, involving government and non-profit partners as well as highlighting in particular, investment considerations from a developer’s perspective: from loan programs and incentives, locations, de-risked land, to 99-year lease periods, rent controls, and high project costs: “It's a serious commitment across the board, and it's all about cooperation and collaboration.” According to Rawji the City is applying a range of tools to meet its real estate challenge and create an affordable rental supply.
Rawji noted that “Time is the enemy. This rapidly changing environment can kill projects,” and emphasized the need to start technical due diligence early, given how tight design margins are. This brought to mind Clayton’s earlier claim of excessive bureaucracy and regulations.
Lastly, Drew Sinclair, a Principal of SvN Architects + Planners, introduced five case studies in affordable housing from his firm that encompassed mid-rise, high-rise, and petite housing clusters of 104 ft² modular units built on piers. Their small footprints allow both rapid deployment and a drop in the amount of sub-structural work required, with further savings in materials and costs.
Asked about true and lasting affordability, Drew offered: “I think the solution delivering affordability in perpetuity and continuity going forward is to really explode or blow apart the restrictive covenants that limit the types of projects that are required to deliver housing affordability. Are we only going to build projects along avenues? Are we only going to build projects on the limited, very restricted land base we have, that we deem is suitable for higher middle density projects? We have to find more land. Our cities are rich with opportunities for selective soft density and infill, and a class of housing project that would diversify the pool of developer partners to deliver affordable housing. The need and necessity to build more diverse forms of housing in neighbourhoods and communities that are inaccessible under the current planning framework: we have to blow those apart and create opportunities for a new class of project.”
Sinclair seemed to catch the mood of the audience with his appeal to thinking more creatively and seizing on a rich vein of potential in the typologies and locations for affordable housing. Whether this will resonate within a cash-strapped, post-pandemic, higher interest-rate world, we’ll find out in due course.
You can view the Jan 24 presentation here. (Once the page opens, you will need to click on the Watch on Vimeo link.)
Part Two, ‘Ideas Forum: Confronting the Housing Crisis’, discussed homelessness and emergency housing and featured five fast-paced presentations (20 slides shown for 20 seconds each) exploring housing equity, modular housing initiatives, rent-then-own models, and community support and consultation.
Architect Daniel Ling shared Montgomery Sisam Architects’ experience leveraging the prefabrication process to rapidly deliver quality supportive housing, while maintaining design integrity. The Modular Supportive Housing Phase 1 project, developed as part of the City’s response to the pandemic and housing crisis, created 100 homes across two sites in a very short time: eight months from design to occupancy.
Working with Dixon Hall in its dedication to those at risk within Toronto’s downtown east community, Eric Philip is overseeing the multi-phased restoration of 22 historic rooming houses in Cabbagetown, while Detroit-based Reverend Faith Fowler presented the Tiny Homes project, an initiative that has built 25 250-450 ft² homes in five years, in a seven-year rent-then-own model for low-income people.
Diana Chan McNally oversees advocacy initiatives and learning opportunities for 56 organizations across the City of Toronto supporting unhoused people. Her work focuses on human rights and equity issues for people who are experiencing homelessness, and she is particularly involved in rights protections for residents of encampments.
As we’ve witnessed through the pandemic, there's been an incredible amount of emergent need throughout urban centers, and a woefully insufficient shelter infrastructure. Kellie Chin, an architect at WORKSHOP, cited the Rapid Housing Initiative, the 1,000 Shelter Beds Project, and showed examples of her firm's retrofitted existing shelters.
You can hear what all of them had to offer here:
If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation by leaving a comment in the space provided on this page.
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