This seems to be the topic on everyone's mind these days - at least for those of us in Toronto & Vancouver - being that the current order of things is looking pretty bleak for everyone but the landed gentry, and is at the point where it's become actively detrimental to the economic & cultural life of the city. It's particularly pertinent to me at the moment as I'm looking for a new apartment, but even with a well-above average income it seems like I can no longer afford much beyond a bed bug-infested slumlord building or a basement in the far reaches of Scarborough.
The housing market needn't even be a consideration for most, while rental vacancies are at historic lows, and any half-decent, semi-reasonably priced apartment is snatched up within hours (that is, if it doesn't spark a rental bidding war first). Between that, and the near-daily reminders in the media of the
unaffordability of the market, it's hard not to feel kind of dispirited by the whole thing.
So I'm interested in hearing what ideas you people have on how we might be able to fix this. Without getting too heavily into the financial side of things, these are my suggestions from a mainly zoning/planning-related perspective - some of which are Toronto-specific, but most could be used elsewhere as well:
- Create a more extensive heritage inventory and a more rigorous approvals process for proposed redevelopments of existing building stock. Aside from protecting heritage stock, this would have the effect of suppressing existing home values as they lose their redevelopable potential. Conversely, streamline the development process for proposals on undeveloped and undeveloped land - like vacant lots, laneways, brownfield sites, parking lots, tower-in-the-park infill, etc. Encourage new construction where none exists currently to flood the market with new units without causing displacement.
- Get rid of the Single-Detached zoning designation entirely, and replace it with a broader Small Residential zone that would also allow for small apartment buildings (say, up to 4 stories/8 units), townhouses, and duplexes in traditionally SFH neighbourhoods.
- Make it easier to subdivide buildings & lots. Allow accessory buildings. Relax constraints on lot coverage, height limits, and setbacks for multi-unit buildings.
- Mandate that a certain percentage of units (with an appropriate mix of unit types/sizes) in all new developments above a certain size must be given over to and administered by Toronto Community Housing as affordable housing. I'm not sure what the magic proportion would be, but it should be high enough that the TCHC can get out of the business of building new public housing units, and low enough to ensure that development is still viably profitable.
- Put minimum requirements in place for the proportion of 2 & 3+ bedroom units that all new developments of a certain size must have, to increase the stock of family-sized units (right now, 3-bedroom condos are so uncommon that they're often even more expensive than a house). And while we're at it, amend the provincial building code to stipulate that a "bedroom" must have a window to the exterior - I'm tired of dark closets with frosted glass doors passing for bedrooms.
- Further increase taxes on foreign buyers and flippers of pre-construction units; and add a luxury tax for owners of multiple properties that are not used as rentals.
- This is something important for a whole bunch of other reasons as well, and is slowly but surely happening already - but improve regional transit, with the aim of making far-flung, lower-cost areas more accessible, so people don't have to choose between an unaffordable home in the core or a nightmarish commute.