Toronto’s mayoral candidates agreed that housing affordability is probably the biggest issue facing the city.
“They’re choosing between living and eating, and that’s not right,” said Mitzie Hunter, one of six mayoral candidates at a debate put on by the University of Toronto’s School of Cities. “Housing is a human right,” said Hunter, a former provincial cabinet minister.
“Every month folks are holding their breath to see if the check is going to clear the rent,” added Brad Bradford, an urban planner and city councillor. “They’re making decisions at the grocery store—what products can they afford? They’re making trips to the food bank,” he said.
But how to make housing affordable is where the candidates part company. While some favour much more government involvement, others believe that is not the best approach.
Long-time city councillor and former NDP MP Olivia Chow argued the city needs to jump back into housing in a much bigger way.
“The city needs to come back to build housing. Because we’ve been away for too long, over a decade,” said Chow. “We could do creative things with the communities … whether it’s land trusts or churches or union halls or nonprofit organizations,” she said. Later in the debate, she added, “One of the fatal flaws in the past 10 years is complete dependence on the private sector.”
To help pay for it, she pointed to things like land transfer taxes on the wealthy.
“You know, the $20 million homes that have a private squash court in it. If you can afford to buy it, you can pay a bit more,” she said.
But several other candidates argued a much broader approach is needed.
“How many $20 million houses with squash courts exist in Toronto?” asked Bradford. “There’s a handful, but I don’t think it’s going to fill a billion-dollar budget gap.” He argued there are a number of different strategies needed.
“It’s not about building more bureaucracy to build more housing … We need to remove barriers,” he said. “I worked in the chief planner’s office … I saw what wasn’t working … I saw a culture of endless debate, deferral, delay.”
Former Toronto police chief Mark Saunders said government’s role should be mostly shaping the environment to encourage more construction.
“I want to make sure that I cut that red tape and make sure that we have the navigating system put in place so that these [construction] approvals can be done within a year and not the average of three to five years it is taking right now,” he said. “I fundamentally disagree with city, or government, building. They continuously get in their own way,” said Saunders. He added the biggest problem is a lack of supply of affordable housing, and that the city needs to prepare for some 500,000 more people in the years to come.
“A lot of this has been because of flawed leadership, people who didn’t take the initiative to build and continue to build. There should always be a continuous plan of development in the city of Toronto,” said Saunders.
Mitzie Hunter said the solutions of the past are not going to be good enough.
“We are not in the 1990s. We need 2023 solutions to deal with the challenges that we have today,” said Hunter. “Our city is at a point where it could be a breaking point,” she warned, because housing has become unaffordable for many.
Hunter said her plan includes a new Toronto Affordable Housing Corporation, along with measures like ending a ban on multi-plex apartments and speeding up building approvals and construction.
“It is time for a generational change in Toronto, and we can do this. There is a clear choice,” she said.
City councillor Josh Matlow argued a variety of strategies are needed. He is proposing a new agency called “Public Build Toronto” to build affordable housing at cost on city land. At the same time, he said the city needs to offer incentives for more private sector investment in affordable housing, and a new deal with the provincial government for more housing.
He also wants to see other ideas like “home share” emphasized—where people with existing homes who need more cash would rent out part of their home.
“We need to be more creative about how we’re living together in our city because frankly, the more that we’re able to live together, work together … the better off we'll be. So, there’s no one model. We’re going to need a number of models to be able to be successful,” he said.
Ana Bailao, a former city councillor, said partnerships between different sectors of the economy are a big part of the answer.
“Affordable housing is essential to the well-being of our residents and our communities,” she said. “We have really interesting partnerships happening now between many of our nonprofit organizations and builders, we need to incentivize that in order to strengthen our nonprofit sector. Our key is to strengthen our nonprofit sector.”
She also argued pushing out the private sector is not realistic.
“You will not solve housing in the city without builders at the table. Let’s make this clear. We need to build 285,000 units in the city, the city is growing. We need all the partners we can get,” she said.
