A lack of affordable housing has been at a crisis point for the last half decade, and I have been actively working with your City, developers, residents, and stakeholders to deliver real solutions. At planning consultations I have heard time and time again from residents like you that developers keep catering to rich investors, not those who want to actually live and work in the downtown. A lack of affordable housing options recently led to a heartbreaking story of a 91-year old who was kicked out of their unit into homelessness. So on the surface, the Province’s announcement may sound like good news, but its details tell a disappointing story.
The new PMTSAs limit the amount of affordable housing that the City can create under its Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) Policy to as little as ¼ of what we need. When the City approved IZs in 2021 our intention was to ensure that 5-10% of units in new developments were affordable housing, and expand that into a requirement of 9-22% by 2030. Affordability was to be secured for a 99 year period. That would have made real strides forward.
What the province approved falls well short. Earlier this year, the province quietly passed O. Reg. 54/25: “Inclusionary Zoning” which caps the number of affordable units at either 5% of the total number of units or 5% of the gross floor area, well below the numbers in the City’s IZ policy. In addition, affordability is capped at only 25 years, not 99 years the City approved.
Some may say that 5% of new units being affordable for 25 years is better than the current standard of 0% of units for zero years. We need to be building as much affordable housing as we can, and unfortunately I believe a 25 year affordable period is going to ultimately just punt this issue down the road, and create a lot more tragic stories like that one.
Finally on the subject of IZ, while staff will brief us, it is my understanding that any applications currently in the queue will not be subject to this new policy. It is standard that applications are subject to the policy framework they submit into, not the one that may develop while they undergo the planning process. While not a direct result of the province’s new policy direction, that the Minister took almost four years to approve most of the PMTSAs in Toronto has allowed for a lot of applications to slip through while providing very few new affordable units.
On a brighter note, a printed householder should be arriving to your mailbox this week that details several of the real, tangible improvements that my team and I have been delivering for our Ward. My team works hard on providing all of these updates to you, so please give it a read and reach out if you have any questions.
