Toronto mayoral candidate John Tory has released a five-point plan to create more housing and address affordability challenges in the city.
Tory, who is seeking a third term, announced her first campaign policy on housing on Tuesday morning, ahead of the October municipal election.
“I think we need to build more housing, we need to build more affordable and supportive housing and we need to have housing that is affordable for middle-class Torontonians,” Tory told reporters while at a housing construction site in the district. of Toronto distillery.
Tory’s plan consists of five pillars:
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Expand housing options by allowing “missing in the middle” housing
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Reduce red tape and speed up approval times by creating a Growth and Development Division
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Request the province to allow the city to enact a “use it or lose it” policy for developers located on approved, but undeveloped, land.
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Allocate a portion of city-owned land to be developed by nonprofit organizations
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Incentivize the construction of specially designed rental housing by reducing fees and charges
Tory says the “missing in the middle” housing expansion will include legalizing alleyway suites and garden suites, and waiving developments of four units or less from development fees.
“We also need to include the option to create duplexes, triplexes, as well as the type of walk-up apartment buildings found in many pre-war neighborhoods,” Tory said.
To speed up construction approval times, Tory’s proposed Growth and Development Division would act as a “one stop shop” to handle all aspects of development review and streamline the approval process.
Tory said the division would also prioritize and expedite the approval of specially designed rentals.
“This will be a reshuffling of existing staff in the housing applications spin cycle and therefore bouncing between different divisions of city government. The Growth and Development Division will allow us to be more agile in approving projects,” said Tory.
To prevent developers from setting up on approved land, Tory said he wants to enact a “use it or lose it” policy that forces developers to start building on unused land within a certain period of time or face tax consequences. higher and expired zoning approvals.
In an effort to create more cooperative, supportive and affordable housing, Tory said she wants to allocate a portion of city-owned land to be developed by nonprofits.
“The housing cooperative works and for some reason we go backwards. We, that is, all governments, moved away from its use in previous years,” said Tory.
“If we can allocate the vacant land that we own as a city and encourage other governments to do the same along with some of the other incentives that we’ve been offering through programs like Open Doors and Housing Now…then I think we’ll be able to build more supportive and affordable housing,” he added.
Mayoral candidate Sarah Climenhaga, who was running in the 2018 municipal election, commented on Tory’s housing plan on Twitter, saying “the willingness to remove housing barriers is what I don’t see enough of.”
“Hearing about housing is fine. What matters to me much more than ads is seeing housing being created. It’s important to understand where it is, where and why not,” Climenhaga tweeted Tuesday.
There are 31 candidates running for mayor of Toronto.
Voters will head to the polls on October 24.