Despite the City of Toronto taking an increased role in the delivery of new affordable homes in recent years, Toronto’s housing and homelessness crisis has worsened and now demands an even more robust range of actions across the housing continuum to adequately address the needs of current and future residents. Increasing the supply of new homes across the full continuum is necessary to reduce pressures throughout the entire housing system, improve housing affordability and access particularly for lower- and middle-income households, and to support growth. In recognition of the urgent need to expedite efforts to transform Toronto’s housing system, at its meeting of September 6, 2023, City Council adopted Item EX7.2 and directed the City Manager, in consultation with the Deputy City Manager, Development and Growth Services, to work with agencies, boards, corporations and divisions to assess preliminary cost estimates and create a plan, including an implementation framework with timelines, to achieve 25,000 new rent-controlled homes, including new affordable rental, rent-geared-to-income (RGI), and market rental homes. City Council also requested staff to identify current, suitable parcels of land owned by the City, co-operative (co-op) and non-profit housing providers, government organizations and other partners, that can be immediately activated for housing development. Further, Council requested an update on the financial contributions required from both the federal and provincial governments to enable successful delivery of the new homes. The new targets identified in Item EX7.2 amend and increase the City’s previous HousingTO 2020-2030 Action Plan (HousingTO Plan) target of approving 40,000 affordable rental homes by 2030 (now 65,000 rent-controlled homes, comprising 6,500 RGI, 41,000 affordable rental and 17,500 rent-controlled market units). The new targets also support delivery of the Housing Action Plan 2022-2026 (Housing Action Plan) , which is focused on enabling both market, non-market and mixed income housing production in order to achieve or exceed the provincial housing target of 285,000 new homes over the next 10 years (see Figure 1 on page 20). This report responds to Council’s requests and outlines several recommended actions, as well as highlights initiatives underway, which will make a generational change to transform and strengthen Toronto’s housing system and expedite delivery of the HousingTO and Housing Action Plan targets, including: 1. Dedicating more City-owned land to create new affordable homes - advancing due diligence on 40 additional City-owned sites (including sites owned by agencies, boards and corporations) that have been identified as potential future housing sites (Confidential Attachment 1) — 2. Accelerating the delivery of ‘housing ready’ projects on City and non-profit owned land – this includes almost 19,000 net new affordable rental, RGI and rent-controlled market homes on land owned by the City and the non-profit sector (Attachment 2) — 3. Streamlining and Optimizing People, Processes, and Technology to Expedite Approvals and Housing Delivery , including: a. organizational and resource re-alignment — b. process improvement (including a new Toronto Building Citywide Priorities Team to streamline the building permit process) — and c. utilizing new and enhanced technology solutions to improve efficiencies and expedite the planning and building application review and approval processes. 4. Developing New and Sustainable Funding Models – exploring new and sustainable funding models to expand the delivery of affordable and RGI homes within mixed-income and sustainable communities — and 5. Supporting the Non-profit and Co-operative Housing Sectors - additional measures, including City development support, to support the non-profit sector. The actions outlined in this report will build upon and align the City’s recent and ongoing initiatives to increase housing supply, remove regulatory barriers and support a housing system shift. These include: implementation of the Open Door, Housing Now, Modular Housing, and Rapid Housing Initiative programs — zoning by-law amendments to eliminate most minimum parking standards — as-of-right zoning permissions for multi-tenant housing, secondary suites, garden and laneway suites — multiplexes and establishing minimum densities in Protected Major Transit Station Areas (PMTSAs), along with accompanying affordable housing requirements through Inclusionary Zoning, subject to approval of the PMTSAs by the Government of Ontario. Staff will continue to report to Council periodically on implementation progress, as well as to highlight key risks associated with delivery of the City’s housing objectives. Additionally, all actions and investments will centre around: - People – ensuring that there are a range of new homes for a range of incomes, with a focus on low-and-middle income households, including people experiencing homelessness and renters — promoting housing stability for renters long-term — and increasing access to support services. - Equity and Reconciliation – supporting Indigenous residents and those from equity-deserving groups, including racialized people, seniors, youth, 2SLGBTQ+ persons, people with disabilities, and women and gender diverse people to access and maintain safe, adequate, affordable homes. - Strengthening and shifting the housing system to deliver more non-market housing – a renewed focus on the public delivery of sites — increasing public and non-profit owned housing stock (including new co-operative homes) through new development as well as acquisitions — increasing the supply of net new rent-geared-to-income (RGI) homes — increasing the supply new affordable and rent-controlled market rental homes — and increasing access to affordable and attainable homeownership opportunities. - Sustainability and Predictability – creating sustainable, mixed-income buildings within complete communities — and mechanisms for more predictable funding. - Climate action – creating new energy efficient homes and improving the condition of existing homes. - Urgency - expedited delivery of new homes, particularly RGI and affordable homes. The City of Toronto, with its partners, stands ready to quickly build more affordable homes. The City will continue to leverage its limited resources and tools to support the delivery of new affordable and RGI homes, within mixed-income, complete communities. As outlined in Attachment 2, with the support of the federal and provincial governments, between 17,000 and 18,000 homes on City lands can be expedited, with a over half of these delivered within the next three to four years. Pending further due diligence, a number of additional City-owned sites in Confidential Attachment 1 can also be added to this pipeline. Of the overall 65,000 new rent-controlled homes target, funding has already been secured to deliver 4,455 homes. The estimated cost to deliver the remaining 60,545 homes is between $28.6 billion and $31.5 billion. However, the estimated contribution/funding required from each order of government over the next 7 years is between $500 million to $800 million per year, net of repayable loans/financing (see Financial Impact section). With access to low-cost financing, the contribution/grants required from each order of government can be further reduced. The City will also work with developers on a site-by-site basis to identify additional opportunities to reduce cost. These required financial investments, although significant, are necessary to restore some level of affordability after decades of insufficient public investments in housing. As all orders of government focus on building new affordable homes, efforts must equally concentrate on protecting the existing supply of homes to ensure net growth of the affordable housing stock. To highlight this need, for every 1 new affordable unit built in Toronto, it is estimated that 15 existing private affordable units are lost. City Council has ramped up efforts in this regard, and at its meeting on October 11, 2023, through Item 2023.EX8.7 , voted to increase investments in the City’s Multi-Unit Residential Acquisition (MURA) program which is focused on acquisition of existing private rental stock to convert to permanently affordable non-profit homes. These investments will help curb housing speculation and tackle its downstream social and economic impacts including housing market price escalations, weakened protections for renters, and increased rates of evictions and homelessness. Addressing the current housing crisis is critical to supporting the social, cultural and economic growth and prosperity of Toronto, the region and rest of the province, and the country. While the City is committed to taking every possible action within its jurisdictional and financial capacity to tackle the housing crisis, strengthened partnerships with the federal and provincial governments are needed to complement Toronto’s efforts. Specifically, new and enhanced policy, program and financial tools are urgently needed to meet Toronto, Ontario and Canada’s respective housing supply targets. This includes a new fiscal deal to support the structural changes that will put Toronto on a path to long-term financial sustainability plus a commitment from the federal and provincial governments to invest in the HousingTO Plan. Collaboration across governments and sectors will also be essential to increase the labour market capacity in the skilled trades needed to significantly scale up the production of new homes.
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