Workers at an Ellis Don construction site in downtown Toronto on Nov. 10.Fred Lum/the Globe and Mail
Toronto Mayor John Tory easily secured council support Wednesday to kickstart the city’s most sweeping housing policy changes in decades.
The suite of proposals – everything from more mid-rises on main streets to allowing small apartments in every neighbourhood of the city – comes as Toronto grapples with a housing affordability crisis that threatens its appeal.
“We have people from all over the world who want to come here,” Mr. Tory told council before the vote.
“We absolutely, positively without doubt need to expand housing options across the city, so that people don’t just have a choice between towers and the current single-family homes that exist in large parts of the city.”
As one of the few opposing votes, Councillor Stephen Holyday panned the housing changes and warned they could ruin the city’s neighbourhoods. But the comfortable 23-3 majority in support reduces the chance that Mr. Tory will brandish his new minority-rule powers, which allow him to pass bylaws with only one-third of council backing, on the housing file.
However, council support for the part of the proposals dealing with rooming houses was secured only after new limits were put on them.
The plan would legalize rooming houses across the city, albeit not until 2024. Such dwellings are currently legal only in the parts of the city but operate illegally elsewhere. Attempts to harmonize regulations across Toronto were deferred twice in the last term of council, with Mr. Tory unable to muster a majority of votes in favour.
This change passed 18-8 Wednesday after Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie introduced an amending motion that would reduce sharply the numbers of dwelling units rooming houses could include in much of the city, while increasing the minimum amount of on-site parking they must provide.
Rooming-house owners could still go through an appeal process to bypass or reduce the parking requirement, but land-use planner Sean Galbraith called the rule a “poison pill” that would add to the time and expense required to make these residences legal. And he noted the hypocrisy of targeting their residents, who are less likely to drive, even as the city is relaxing parking requirements more broadly.
“It doesn’t make philosophical sense,” Mr. Galbraith said. “It would create this perverse situation where rooming houses would be the only ones that require parking, the only low-rise form [of housing]. Utterly ridiculous.”
The council votes Wednesday do not actually change where or how homes can be built in Toronto. But they direct city staff to report back by March with a plan for multiple changes to housing policy.
Among the proposed changes is an end to what is known as exclusionary zoning, which specifies that only single-family homes can be built in vast swaths of the city. Instead, multiplex apartments could be built in every area without special permission.
Mr. Holyday, an Etobicoke councillor, says that his constituents are alarmed by such notions.
“It’s the pace of change that disturbs people,” he said. “They are not en masse ready to embrace the multiplex housing … the more permissive zoning.”
Other changes call for allowing greater density on main streets, expanding the areas in which mid-rise buildings are allowed and taking another look at areas such as the Port Lands and Waterfront, to make sure sufficient density is being planned.
Mr. Tory unveiled his housing plan last week, saying it was needed to help the city “achieve or exceed” the province’s target of 285,000 new homes over the next decade. That’s a roughly 60-per-cent increase over the number of homes built in Toronto over the past 10 years.
Toronto has seen housing prices climb for years, putting pressure on young families and others trying to enter the real estate market. The pressure has also spread across southern Ontario, as people try to find a home they can afford.
In November, the Ontario government passed Bill 23, which it said would make it easier to build homes by cutting some development charges and streamlining the approvals process. The government has set a provincial target of 1.5 million new homes over a decade, the fastest pace of construction in two generations.