After years of delays and legal challenges, the budget for a Willowdale development intended to deliver quick and low-cost housing for vulnerable Torontonians has more than doubled, the Star has learned.
A report about the city-led supportive housing project at 175 Cummer Ave. that will be debated at the city’s planning committee on Thursday recommends councillors approve the new cost and proceed with the 59-unit project.Â
The document doesn’t list the final budget. But a confidential attachment, details of which were confirmed by the Star, show that the price tag is expected to shoot up from an earlier estimate of $14.6 million to $36.3 million, an increase of almost $22 million.Â
The confidential report attributes most of the higher costs to a combination of escalating charges for already planned work as a result of the delays, as well as additional work required because of holdups to zoning approvals. The city hasn’t publicly stated what the extra work is. The project is expected to be finished in 2025.Â
The public document notes that industry-wide, º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøconstruction costs have increased by more than 80 per cent since 2020. The Cummer development has “been exposed to this magnitude of cost escalation since being paused in 2021,” states the report, which also cites “unanticipated costs associated with transportation and long-term indoor storage” of the modular units.Â
Former Willowdale councillor John Filion, who championed the project while in office, called the problems it has faced “disheartening.”
“It’s a very sad and unfortunate story that we’ve had 59 people who could have had housing the past three winters and have been out in the cold,” said Filion, who left office in 2022.Â
“It’s just a real tragedy. This was completely unnecessary that it would cost this much money that it would take this long.”
The city announced the Cummer Ave. project in 2021, as part of a modular housing program launched the year before to create more affordable homes to vulnerable residents amid the twin crises of COVID-19 and Toronto’s chronic housing shortage.
The developments were supposed to be built quickly and at low cost; in modular construction, units are built elsewhere and assembled on-site. Developments under the program would also provide on-site support services to help residents struggling with complex challenges such as mental illness or addiction.
But while four of the program’s five projects have since welcomed tenants, Cummer has been beset by opposition from some local politicians and residents.Â
In 2021, council requested a ministerial zoning order (MZO) from the Ontario government to fast-track the needed rezoning in Willowdale, and while the province granted the orders for other modular housing sites, it didn’t for the Cummer development.Â
As previously reported by the Star, then-housing minister Steve Clark was unhappy with the consultation process, and area MPP Stan Cho opposed its proposed location — beside a public housing site for seniors.
Without an MZO the city went through a normal, slower rezoning process, which was approved at city hall but challenged at the Ontario Land Tribunal by a handful of local organizations, who raised issues from lost green space to strain on parking availability.
The tribunal sided with the city, though that decision was again challenged by some local residents and builders. An Ontario court recently refused to hear that subsequent appeal.
All the while, the components of the proposed development have sat idle.
At first, the modular units — which were finished and ready for assembly in late 2021 — were stored at the TTC’s Finch commuter parking, according to an information summary compiled by Willowdale councillor Lily Cheng and released last year.
The following summer the modules were moved to an “indoor, climate controlled storage facility in Owen Sound,” Cheng wrote, with the idea of protecting their integrity and preventing weather damage.
As of Feb. 1 last year, Cheng said the city had incurred roughly $875,000 in costs for the transport and storage of the building pieces, including $325,000 in transport and an initial cost of $71,000 per month, later rising to $77,000.
In a report last July, Toronto’s auditor general flagged increasing costs to the wider modular housing program, and recommended the city strengthen controls around the construction, planning, budgeting and contract management of the developments.
Reached for comment Wednesday evening, a lawyer for the appellants in the recent court case blamed the province for not acting on the city’s zoning request, and said the city was free to move ahead with the project.Â
The Star requested comment from Cheng and the province on Wednesday evening, but didn’t immediately hear back.
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