ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½

Housing Minister Rob Flack said the plan will achieve his and Mayor Olivia Chow’s “shared vision” of building more housing “where it makes most sense” and “where people want to live.” Growth in the designated areas would encourage an uptick in transit use, he said, thus reducing traffic congestion.ÌýAs well, 53,000 of the new units will be rent-geared-to-income housing.Ìý

“We’ve seen historic population growth in this province,” said Flack. Last year, , with more than half in ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½. “Housing starts, we all know, have not kept pace. As a result, costs have risen to the point where families, first-time homebuyers and seniors are being priced out of the market.” 

Earlier this year, l to have 1.5 million new houses built by 2031. It should have built 125,000 homes last year to stay on target.ÌýBut only 94,753 were constructed. In the first quarter of this year, housing starts were the lowest since 2009.

In May, the minister tabled Bill 17, aimed, he said, at accelerating home development. It stripped municipalities of the power to make requirements of developers beyond those in the provincial building code and reduced the number of studies they can ask for. Critics, including some members of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ city council, worried this would do little to improve housing starts and could prevent the city from imposing environmental standards on new builds.Ìý

Flack announced the 1.5 million homes plan at a press conference Friday at Downsview Park station, where he and other speakers, including the mayor, had to occasionally yield their time to TTC announcements blaring over the station’s speaker system.Ìý  

Downsview Park is in one of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½’s 120  that are within a radius of 500 to 800 metres around terminals and stops that have provincially mandated minimum density targets. This new plan would triple the city’s previous proposed homebuilding goal in these areas, which was “not at all ambitious,” Chow said Friday.Ìý

“This proposal was submitted five years ago,” she said. “By the time I looked at it, three years had passed. I said, ‘Wait a second, 500,000 is not good enough.’ There is a housing crisis. We need to build. We need to build a lot more.” 

This plan will require council approval, which next meets in October. In June, council voted against allowing sixplexes citywide — over concerns greater density could make traffic worse — a decision that prompted the federal housing minister to issue a warning to the mayor that the city could lose funding it was given to increase housing supply if it didn’t reconsider.Ìý

“The mayor and I will be in constant communication,” said Flack. “We’re going to do everything we can to get it passed. I know she’s confident.”

Karen Chapple, director of University of ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½’s School of Cities, said housing and transit are only two components of a community. The city needs to ensure it has money to pay for infrastructure around them, including necessities like schools and public spaces.Ìý

“That’s what makes me nervous about announcements like these,” she said. “We don’t have the macroeconomics in place to do this. How are you going to do this without some major financing strategy?” 

Former ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ chief planner Jennifer Keesmaat, now CEO of a development company, said she is “anxious” to see the details of the plan. The last few years have been marked by missed housing targets and declining starts, she said, and “that’s why there’s skepticism around any policy announcements until you see the fine print.” 

“We’ve heard a series of big announcements over the past four years,” she said. “Each time there’s something that has mitigated the actual delivery of housing. This is a good announcement. It’s an important announcement. But it doesn’t mean much until we see what is actually being proposed.”