海角社区官网

鈥淭hey鈥檙e depressed. Starting off is very difficult,鈥� he said.

The current housing crisis can鈥檛 be allowed to slide into a full-blown catastrophe, warns Lyall.

If the undersupply and lack of affordability are challenging on a personal level, they are also the chief preoccupation of this month鈥檚 mayoral election.

The city鈥檚 cornerstone program, Housing Now 鈥� a plan in which private developers are supposed to build thousands of affordable homes on leased city land 鈥� has yet to break ground on a single project four years after it was launched.

That has led some candidates to campaign on the idea of putting the city back into the property development business, something that helped build housing in the past. Their political rivals warn such a move risks creating another layer of bureaucracy that could create an even more glacial housing approval process.

It鈥檚 a choice between the accountability of a government system that is responsible for making sure people are housed but is already seen as inefficient when it comes to approving development, and the private sector that isn鈥檛 subject to the same oversight and is open about the fact that it needs to profit from what gets built.

Residents and industry experts alike understand the impulse to look at whether the solution lies in the city taking more responsibility for building on its own land.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a nice idea, creating an actual building operation,鈥� said Lyall. 鈥淏ut that鈥檚 kind of doubling down on the current problems.鈥�

He is in the camp that some candidates say has ruled city hall too long 鈥� the side that says 海角社区官网needs the private sector to get housing built.

But the public sector has built thousands of homes in 海角社区官网鈥� much of the older housing stock the city relies on. Government has done it before. It can do it again, says John Cartwright, past president of the 海角社区官网and York Region Labour Council.

Although it always was and always will be private companies that construct the homes, he says the current housing crisis is an opportunity for governments, including the city, to get back into the business of homebuilding. Precisely what role the city would play remains unclear and differs according to the candidate.

Jeff Evenson, vice-president at non-profit developer Options for Homes, has spent much of his career advocating for and working on government housing initiatives. In the past, he said, 海角社区官网had a housing department that not only managed rental properties but assembled property and carried projects through the planning, design and zoning process.

That鈥檚 what happened before what Cartwright calls 鈥渢he mantra that everything has to be done by private developers, everything鈥檚 about the market.鈥�

海角社区官网had little choice but to retreat from homebuilding when the provincial Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris downloaded the cost of maintaining affordable housing on municipalities in the mid-1990s.

The federal government鈥檚 abandonment of the tax and incentive policies for developers that built most of Toronto鈥檚 rental stock in the 1970s and 1980s has created a dearth of market rentals, filled in large part by condos that offer less security of tenure for tenants than traditional purpose-built apartments.

But Cartwright says, 鈥淚t was other periods of our history where the market had driven housing out of affordability that governments were forced to step in and create substantial social or public housing programs.

鈥淭his is a similar moment,鈥� he said.

In the postwar period, CMHC built housing for returning vets. In the 1960s, Ottawa and the province stepped up to build housing in a big way. Then in the 1970s, cities got involved and the notion of municipal housing blossomed. It was the city that proposed Regent Park 鈥� it was built in the late 1940s and the 1950s 鈥� although it was constructed with 75 per cent CMHC and 25 per cent Ontario funding, according to the University of 海角社区官网PhD thesis by Gregory Suttor in 2014.

Cartwright believes that 鈥測ou cannot solve a housing affordability crisis unless you take land and housing out of the speculative market.鈥�

He was working as an apprentice carpenter on a bank in a mall across the street from a housing construction site in Malvern in the 1970s. The homes were part of a federal program designed to ease the way to ownership. Units were sold at a lower than market price with a proviso that they couldn鈥檛 be flipped for 10 years. If the owner sold within that period they had to repay all the profit to the program, he said.

鈥淭en years and a day later, that evaporated and today the houses in Malvern cost the same as any other housing in the rest of Scarborough 鈥� completely outside of affordability for anyone.鈥�

The 1970s and 1980s were also the heyday of co-ops in the city 鈥� a viable, common sense housing option that requires government seed money. Four decades ago, the Labour Council Development Foundation was building about 3,000 co-op units a year. If you maintained 3,000 a year for the last 25 years you鈥檇 have 80,000 more affordable housing units 鈥� permanently affordable units, said Cartwright, who points out that one benefit of co-ops is the absence of stigma attached to other kinds of public housing.

If he were running the city, he said, any city or government-owned lands being eyed for residential development would be exclusively co-ops or non-profits administered through 海角社区官网Community Housing Corp. or some other municipally owned body.

David Hulchanski, a professor of housing and community development at the University of Toronto, thinks the housing crisis is being mischaracterized when it is framed as a supply or affordability issue. He says it鈥檚 an insecurity issue.

Relying on the market to house 96 per cent of households, he said, 鈥渋s producing widespread housing insecurity, regressive income and wealth redistribution, racialized intergenerational wealth inequality, and institutionalized mass homelessness.鈥�

Housing and profit simply don鈥檛 mix, he said.

鈥淭hey do not add up via some innovative mechanism to produce 鈥榓ffordable鈥� housing. We know this about our health-care system. We need to explicitly recognize this about our housing system,鈥� he said.

Developers were reluctant to speak on the record when asked by the Star whether the city should get back to building itself.

One senior executive said that, based on his experience, the city would not do a good job of managing its own development.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 think it makes sense for them to create a new construction company,鈥� he said, citing the expertise and economies of scale that large private-sector developers bring to construction projects.

He also described a municipal system of building approvals that he said should, in many cases, be achievable in six months but instead take years. A lack of leadership means there鈥檚 no one at the city quarterbacking development applications. Municipal departments that need to sign off on projects often operate in isolation of other civic areas.

鈥淭here is no accountability to get things done. It鈥檚 always, 鈥榃e鈥檙e trying.鈥� There鈥檚 nobody to crack the whip,鈥� he said.

Daniels Corp. CEO Mitchell Cohen, whose company took on the challenge of redeveloping the old Regent Park, declined a phone interview. But in a brief email to the Star, he said there are many reasons the city should not set up its own development corporation and he referred to an op-ed he wrote, published in the Star on June 6.

In it, he said, 海角社区官网has squandered opportunities to build affordable housing and needs to exploit the tools already at its disposal, including higher property taxes.

Although several candidates are touting sped-up building approvals, Cohen said, 鈥淣o matter how fast the approval, demand will outstrip supply and market values will continue trending upward.鈥�

What candidates aren鈥檛 talking about, however, is how they can strengthen regulatory tools, nor are they talking 鈥渁bout creating an inclusionary zoning regime that will deliver the desired result,鈥� he wrote.

Heather Tremain runs Options for Homes, a non-profit development company that builds affordable ownership units. If the city were to take on a larger development role, she thinks there could be a risk of further politicizing the already high-profile housing file.

鈥淵ou鈥檝e got one group that鈥檚 a developer and then you鈥檝e got the planning department on the other side that鈥檚 the regulator. That鈥檚 fraught with potential conflict.鈥�

There is a role for municipalities, and provincial and federal governments to put land into housing projects, especially to achieve deeper levels of affordability. But the cost of the projects is enormous and the economics have to work at a time when the industry is caught in a squeeze right now of higher financing and construction costs, she said.

鈥淚t鈥檚 probably better in the hands of a for-profit developer or non-profit developer who has very strong connections to the industry, understands how you design these buildings to make them affordable and has a good relationship with builders or is a builder,鈥� said Tremain.

For Lyall, the answers to building more affordable housing is about speeding up approvals, particularly in the direction of purpose-built rentals. Opening up more brownfield 鈥� commercial or industrial land that has fallen vacant 鈥� is critical, he said.

As much as construction costs have risen, they are still only 35 to 40 per cent of the cost of building homes.

鈥淭he rest of it鈥檚 all taxes and a whole bunch of cost in the time wasted 鈥� the 30 to 33 months to get things approved. That鈥檚 what affected housing,鈥� said Lyall.

When he looks at the cost of homes relative to incomes the numbers are 鈥渢errifying.鈥�

鈥淎 lot of the people that are in the decision-making capacities aren鈥檛 feeling this,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey鈥檝e got their homes. But at the ground level, working people, middle class (people) in 海角社区官网鈥� we鈥檝e got a massive, massive problem 鈥� catastrophic.鈥�

Correction 鈥� June 19, 2023: This story has been revised. A previous version incorrectly stated that Regent Park was proposed in 1974. It was built in the late 1940s and the 1950s.