How We Grow Matters

There are competing visions of the future. The province is pushing for more carbon intensive growth than we can afford. Sprawl does not provide the types of housing people can afford and costs us all — in worsening health, more time in cars, higher taxes, more emissions, and continued loss of farmland, wetlands and nature. It also does not pay for itself and creates a permanent infrastructure deficit which future generations will have to pay for.

The alternative is to grow inwards - not sprawl.

Building inward means making better use of all the empty and underused space within our urban boundaries and all the existing pipes, roads and transit services. It costs less, helps to revitalize our communities and creates local jobs. And it’s climate friendly while avoiding paving over more farmland, forests and wetlands.

But the Ontario government is going the wrong way – contradicting the stated intentions of its own Growth Plan and undermining its $60 billion rapid transit plan.

The problem is that new provincial policy promotes single and semi-detached housing which the majority of people cannot afford - that solves nothing. Worse, this type of housing uses more land than other housing and requires spending billions on big pipes and highways. And that puts the Greenbelt at risk.

The answer is to build all kinds of housing — a mix — in our existing urban areas as it is inherently less costly and is served by transit. This includes gentle density throughout our cities, medium density along transit lines and higher density, around transit stations. We need purpose built rental and supportive housing people for students, seniors and people who can’t afford ownership. Housing policy should encourage, and if necessary require, developers to build “missing middle” housing which  people need and can afford, not solely” sprawl and tall” projects serve their own interests without helping the housing situation.

The housing we have 

Right now, most housing throughout the Golden Horseshoe region is ground-level housing, like single detached homes. These can be dream homes for some people, but for those who can’t afford a place to live it’s creating a housing nightmare. Much of this single housing is increasingly expensive and unaffordable for many people.  A housing study in Pickering found that 80 per cent of households could not afford a single or semi-detached house. More housing choices are needed that people can afford.

In most municipalities there is more than enough land set aside for housing to take us up to the year 2041 or beyond  — especially if we build more housing types like missing middle housing types, four to eight stories in walkable communities. As well, there will be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of single detached homes coming up for sale over the next 30 years as the Boomers will either downsize or pass on with the youngest being 85 years old in 2051.