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2023 Toronto Mayoral by-election
- Thread starter SJD_Toronto
- Start date
HousingNowTO
Senior Member
NOTE : there is some minor cropping of the Twitter TEXT, so you will need to go to Twitter to read the complete tweets.
picard102
Senior Member
I did not notice the sf previously. Currently living in a 600sf one bedroom for the last decade+, it sounds like we're building coffins for the poor.
I'd like to see a Mayor campaign on minimum unit sizes closer to 700 sf for single bedrooms.
Northern Light
Superstar
I agree. I think we need to allow for some SRO-type housing (single room occupancy) as our 'emergency' accommodation, an upgrade from shelters with 4 (or more) to a room.
But when speaking of permanent housing, for anyone, including low-income households, quality of life needs to be a consideration. Yes, that is more expensive, and its also a worthwhile if not necessary investment.
picard102
Senior Member
It's also key to convincing people that SFH are not the end all and be all IMO.
Having space to do things, or even have room for your things, is the biggest annoyance of apartment living.
If people had enough space, or dedicated spaces in these buildings for activities beyond party rooms, it would be much more appealing.
Northern Light
Superstar
And avoid the inconvenience, cost and hassle endless self-storage spaces popping up everywhere! There's a place to store your stuff, its called your home!
HousingNowTO
Senior Member
...then City Planning needs to get rid of their 750 m2 floorplate rule(s) for new Towers...
Northern Light
Superstar
The St Lawrence example you show is buildable under today's rules from a floor plate perspective, its a midrise, not a tower.
The floor plate limit doesn't kick in until 12s+
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The angluar plane, on the other hand would be a potential issue.
Though, again, the St. Lawrence site was a bit unique in that to its south is a very large, wide rail corridor, and there was no residential to the south at all.
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While I agree that guidelines really do need to be more flexible, the OLT has to be more deferential to City planning in exchange, if precedent is rigidly enforced, you can't have people willing nilly building endlessly huge slabs that block all sunlight and preclude mid-block connections and are better mistaken for penal accommodation than homes.
In the Toronto planning world of yesteryear, council was rarely over-ruled, and therefore more ready to make deals.
Cambry Ardship
Active Member
Why do deals need to be made at all? Why can't city planning and zoning just be more permissive? The yester-year status quo for housing policy has certainly resulted in failure, with sky high prices and limited supply, years-long wait times for new development, and ridiculous restrictions on new development like angular planes and arbitrary aesthetic preferences.
It's good to see a public builder be proposed this election and hopefully it will result in some real action on housing, but the planning culture at the city needs to change as well.
It's good to see a public builder be proposed this election and hopefully it will result in some real action on housing, but the planning culture at the city needs to change as well.
picard102
Senior Member
Why can't developers come up with plans that consider the public good rather than focus on profit margins?
If they were given no restrictions the quality of projects and their negative impacts on the public realm would be immediate.
Northern Light
Superstar
They should be, to a point.
This is entirely incorrect. The housing policies that gave you the St. Lawrence neighbourhood and widespread purpose-built rental in low, mid and hirise forms was the planning of yesteryear. There was no housing crisis in 1980, nor 1990.
With all due respect, I'm getting tired of having to explain that
a) There are no restrictions based on aesthetics, those are prohibited by provincial law.
b) Angular planes do add slightly to costs on midrise pro-forma, and there is absolutely room to be more flexible around achieving the objectives they seek to protect (Which aren't aesthetic but essential to the environment (living trees and plants) and human health (access to sunlight is a proven determinant of both phsyical and mental health.)
c) You could absolish zoning entirely tomorrow and have a free for all and housing costs would not drop materially and housing supply would not increase materially. The industry is physically in capable of turning out more units than it is now for immediate future due to worker shortages at all levels of the trades, engineering, project management and limitations on capital deployment.
If you increase population beyond the ability of the industry to keep up, prices will rise and housing will be scarce. No amount of zoning reform however desirable it may be will change any of that.
That I can agree with.
I too have hope, but the financing aspect of the proposal remains a serious question mark.
I agree that it does, but I don't think that will materially increase affordable housing supply in the next decade. What it may do is see some of the housing built shift from a hirise to a mid-rise typology, or a missing middle typology, but total unit output will rise slowly, and remain at prices inacessible to a large portion of the population.
HousingNowTO
Senior Member
Northern Light
Superstar
We'll have to disagree on this one.
Because an idea worked before is no reason to dismiss its currency out of hand.
Equally, Housing Now (the City project) failed to achieve lift off. For reasons we both discussed; but point being, the new model certainly isn't working as well as the old one.
What worked in 1970 can indeed be replicated, its a matter the political will to do so.
CMHC providing below market mortgages for purpose built rental housing which at least some of which is offered below market value.
More generous allowances for desirable developments, because there is almost no chance of that precedent being held over the City in the future.
Government directly building rent geared to income housing.
Government directly subsidizing co-ops
Higher wages for entry level workers.
Higher levels of social assistance and disability payments to society's least fortunate
A level of population growth that allows for creation of more net new units each year than new households created for at least a decade, until the market returns to balance.
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Electing governments that will do these things is a different matter.
However, currently governments are really only willing to chair-shuffle and kick the can down the road; and the arguably neo-liberal solutions are not working and as currently offered have no hope of doing so.
Cambry Ardship
Active Member
Planning decisions made in the 2000s are now one full generation ago. Young people born in 2005 have now reached adulthood. The St Lawrence Market project is almost as close in time to the First World War as it is to the present year.
If there are no restrictions based on aesthetics, why does the City often recommend against approval because a proposal doesn't fit the existing neighbourhood context? That's an aesthetic choice. I am also going to disagree that the angular plane is not an arbitrary aesthetic preference. Many places in the world do not have angular planes, yet their cities adequately support green spaces as well as human health and happiness. Planning concepts like neighbourhood context, transitions to low-rise neighbourhoods, adequate pedestrian scale, and massing are also aesthetic preferences and not supported by any scientific objectivity.
I am very concerned with the cumulative effect of the City negotiating down the size of proposals through all these various tactics--neighbourhood context, angular planes, transitions to neighbourhoods, etc. Over 200 potential units were lost in Mirvish Village alone before it was approved. Over the last two decades the City must have been directly responsible for thousands of units less that could have been built at the margin, enabling more affordable, deeply affordable, supportive, and family-sized housing.
As you say, there are broader structural factors at work, but I just don't see why when something is coming up for a zoning or official plan bylaw amendment, city staff aren't pushing for more height, more units, more density, rather than negotiating everything downwards. That's something I'd like to see candidates express support for, and with the new mayoral powers to appoint senior staff, it's also an organizational change that could happen as an outcome of the election.
If there are no restrictions based on aesthetics, why does the City often recommend against approval because a proposal doesn't fit the existing neighbourhood context? That's an aesthetic choice. I am also going to disagree that the angular plane is not an arbitrary aesthetic preference. Many places in the world do not have angular planes, yet their cities adequately support green spaces as well as human health and happiness. Planning concepts like neighbourhood context, transitions to low-rise neighbourhoods, adequate pedestrian scale, and massing are also aesthetic preferences and not supported by any scientific objectivity.
I am very concerned with the cumulative effect of the City negotiating down the size of proposals through all these various tactics--neighbourhood context, angular planes, transitions to neighbourhoods, etc. Over 200 potential units were lost in Mirvish Village alone before it was approved. Over the last two decades the City must have been directly responsible for thousands of units less that could have been built at the margin, enabling more affordable, deeply affordable, supportive, and family-sized housing.
As you say, there are broader structural factors at work, but I just don't see why when something is coming up for a zoning or official plan bylaw amendment, city staff aren't pushing for more height, more units, more density, rather than negotiating everything downwards. That's something I'd like to see candidates express support for, and with the new mayoral powers to appoint senior staff, it's also an organizational change that could happen as an outcome of the election.
picard102
Senior Member
Do you have a scientific study proving that?