Tory says city moving forward with plan to build more affordable housing amid pandemic

Mayor John Tory says the city is moving ahead with building thousands of new affordable rental units, a plan he says cannot be delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking to reporters at a news conference on Tuesday morning, Tory said the city is moving forward with building between 1,455 and 1,710 new residential units as part of Phase 2 of the city’s Housing Now initiative.

Purpose-built rentals will account for about 1,060 to 1,240 of those units and half of those will be affordable housing units for households earning between $21,000 and $56,000 annually.

The city also plans to build 470 to 495 ownership units as part of the second phase of the initiative.

“Housing and making sure we are building more affordable housing was a priority before the pandemic and we can't let our foot off the gas pedal for one minute,” the mayor told reporters on Tuesday morning.

“This is critical for the advancement of our growing and successful city. And it is a growing and successful city notwithstanding the short-term crisis we are facing.”

Tory said he is confident that Toronto will continue to be “an attractive” place for people to live in the future.

“We know that COVID-19 has had great impacts on Toronto and on its economy but we also know that the city will rebound and recover from the pandemic. And when that happens... we will be ready to push ahead on still more affordable housing.”

The recommended locations for the new residential units are 158 Borough Drive, 2444 Eglinton Ave. E., 1627 and 1675 Danforth Avenue, 1631 Queen Street East, 405 Sherbourne Street, and 150 Queens Wharf Road.

“These mixed communities will be near transit and commercial and employment opportunities. We will create communities that residents will want to live. These communities will ensure that people have equitable access to all of the things that make this city a great place to live,” Tory said Tuesday.

As part of the HousingTO plan, the city has set a target to build 40,000 affordable rental units in Toronto over the next decade, including 18,000 supportive units and a minimum of 10,000 affordable and supportive units dedicated to women and girls.

The city’s plan requires nearly $15 billion in funding from other levels of government in addition to the $8.5 billion provided by the municipality.

The Housing Now initiative, which the city has described as a “key component” to the HousingTO plan, offers developers surplus city land and other incentives, such as tax relief and development charge exemptions, in exchange for ensuring that a portion of the units they construct are affordable units.

On Tuesday, Tory called on the other levels of government to provide additional sites for the project.

“I would just like to re-issue my invitation to the provincial and especially the federal government to offer up sites for Housing Now from their considerable inventories of land they hold inside the city of Toronto,” Tory said.

“The provincial government has already given several parcels of land to this initiative but the federal government has not yet contributed a single site.”