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UrbanToronto’s Q1 2026 new development application data for the City of Toronto shows a year-over-year decline across all headline measures, according to UrbanToronto's UTPro tracking data. Despite some record numbers set in the same quarter of last year, proposals for new projects in Canada's largest city have decreased in size, scope, and number.
A total of 37 new projects were submitted in Q1 2026, down from 44 in Q1 2025, a decrease of 15.9%. Proposed dwelling units fell to 18,491 from 25,598, down 27.8%, while total gross floor area declined 25.1% to 15,239,125 sq. ft. Parking units also decreased, dropping 13.6% to 7,831.
The Q1 2026 applications cover 37 projects containing 69 buildings, with all projects listed as pre-construction. Of the 37 projects, 4 include condos, 19 include rentals, and 3 include offices. The applications account for 18,491 proposed homes, made up of 2,509 studios, 8,525 one-bedrooms, 5,248 two-bedrooms, and 2,209 three-bedroom-plus units.
The height profile of submissions also tracked noticeably lower. The tallest proposal in Q1 2026 reached 195m, down from 221.19m a year earlier, while average building height fell from 86.7m to 58.0m. The median height saw the sharpest change, dropping from 87.805m in Q1 2025 to 41.9m in Q1 2026, indicating that this year’s application pool skewed much more heavily toward shorter buildings overall. A similar shift is reflected in storeys: the maximum fell slightly from 67 to 63, but the median dropped much more dramatically from 23 to 5.
Total proposed GFA is 1,415,761m² (15.24 million sq. ft.), including 1,188,060m² of residential space, 124,026m² of institutional space, and 25,273m² of commercial space. Average GFA per project is 38,264m², and the combined site area is 369,318m², resulting in an average Floor Space Index of 3.83 times lot coverage.
Finally, despite the flurry of federal and provincial programs aimed at promoting new rental developments in recent years, developers seemed less interested in rental units this year. While in the last quarter 23.6% of dwelling units were proposed to be rental, this is a decline from the 27.3% of units proposed in Q1 of 2025 being rental.
Taken together, the figures suggest that Q1 2026 brought not only fewer applications and fewer proposed homes, but also a substantially less tall and less dense mix of projects than the same period in 2025. While Q1 of last year had the most dwelling units proposed in a single quarter, that momentum seems to have disappeared in 2026. That being said, the first quarter is always the quietest in terms of development activity, so we can hold out hope for more improvements in Q2.
UrbanToronto publishes a monthly update of construction and other UTPro data, as well as a quarterly crane report. You can find these and previous application reports here.
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UrbanToronto research and data service, UrbanToronto Pro, provides comprehensive data on construction projects in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area—from proposal through to completion. We also offer Instant Reports, downloadable snapshots based on location, and a daily subscription newsletter, New Development Insider, that tracks projects from initial application.
