Tackling Toronto s Affordable Housing Challenges through Leveraging Public Land Partnerships

Transcription

1 Tackling Toronto s Affordable Housing Challenges through Leveraging Public Land Partnerships Sean Gadon City of Toronto, Affordable Housing Office, 55 John Street, Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3C6 sean.gadon@toronto.ca Abstract Toronto s housing situation is a mixed blessing between a booming housing market and many residents left behind unable to find, compete for, and maintain affordable housing. In recent years the affordable housing crisis has grown with warning signs for the future. This paper explores public land as an important catalyst for affordable housing and provides best practices where the City of Toronto has leveraged the use of public and surplus land to support affordable rental housing highlighting a range of public/private/non-profit housing partnerships in the new West Don Lands community. The paper also contains a number of suggestions for governments and housing stakeholders to consider in building a strong and more effective public land strategy for affordable housing. Keywords: Toronto, Affordable Housing, Public Surplus Land, Partnerships Introduction - Toronto s Housing Situation Toronto is Canada's largest city, the fourth largest city in North America and home to a diverse population of about 2.9 million people. Over the past decade, Toronto has witnessed an unprecedented residential building boom and a hot housing market for consumers. Toronto leads North American cities in residential construction projects building on average some 16,000 new residential units annually. The booming construction industry has produced record number of jobs and other economic benefits, including significant revenues for all three orders of government. Figure 1- Commercial and Residential Buildings under Construction Source: Canadian Urban Institute and Canadian Center for Economic Analysis, May 2018

2 Factors often cited as contributing to the hot housing market and rising prices in Toronto include the City s ongoing population growth, the rise of single households, the availability of low-interest financing, shortage of land supply, the emergence of the condominium investor, and the presence of foreign buyers. Overall, the result has been what some commentators have called the commodification of housing a phenomenon where housing is built for the investor rather than the consumer and where the price of housing has become separated from the ability of local residents to afford their housing, with costs rising faster than incomes. What is happening in Toronto is troubling news. But it is not unique to Toronto. Globally, as the McKinsey Global Institute reports, If current trends in urbanization and income growth persist, the affordable housing gap would grow from 330 million urban households to 440 million by 2025, leaving at least 1.6 billion people living in substandard housing or financially stretched by housing costs (Woetzel et al. 2014). A review of how low-and-moderate-income residents are coping in Toronto s housing market paints a bleak picture. And the future market outlook for low-and-moderate-income residents has the potential to be even bleaker. In considering the full continuum of housing in the city, the facts and predictions are: Homeless shelters are at capacity less than 8% of shelter users stay in shelters for very long periods (466 days per episode and 761 days in total on average) filling 43% of shelter capacity. The city is also coping with a strong increase in refugees Currently about 40% of shelter users are identified as refugee claimants and this trend is forecast to continue. Street homelessness persisted over the years and this trend is forecast to continue. Social housing waiting list and times have grown, with some 100,000 households waiting to access some 94,000 social housing homes. This trend will continue adding some 3,500 households annually. Vacancy rates in market rental housing have declined to 0.7% - the lowest rate in 16 years. The vacancy rate is expected to decline further in future years. Close to half of renters (47%) spend more than 30% of their income on housing this trend is expected to worsen with the number of households in core housing need growing by 44,000 by 2030, equivalent to twice the rate over past 12 years. Average home prices have skyrocketed leaving tenants locked into rental housing and reducing mobility from rental housing. From 2006 to 2018, median household income grew only 30% while average homeownership costs grew 131%. The overheated housing market in Toronto has left many low and moderate-income residents essentially "stuck and stressed" in a housing system that offers little choice and much risk. While researchers such as David Hulchanski have documented the increasing segregation of residents in Toronto by socio-economic status and dwindling middle-class, little is known about the impacts of the housing market and its social and economic impact on resident mobility and housing satisfaction. What is known however, is the general dissatisfaction of residents in not being able to find and keep an affordable roof over their heads. This includes the high profile of affordable housing in the media and as a priority issue for mayoral and

3 council candidates in Toronto s 2018 municipal election. Meanwhile, Toronto s housing and homeless supports system is bursting at the seams having fallen behind and being unable to keep up with current and anticipated future demands. Toronto s Open Door Affordable Housing Program and the Role of Partnerships In 2009 Toronto City Council adopted a 10-year Housing Opportunities Toronto Action Plan (HOT) This plan set out the goal of achieving on average 1,000 new rental units annually or 10,000 over the 10-year period. By the end of 2015, the number of new affordable rental approvals reached 1,154 and it was clear that the City was falling short of achieving its affordable housing targets (Figure 2). Figure 2- New Affordable Rental Homes Approved and Completed in Toronto ( ) Source: City of Toronto's Affordable Housing Office, August 2018 With the support of the new Mayor of Toronto and the City s Housing Advocate, officials were tasked with revamping the City s approach in an effort to meet the annual target of 1,000 units for the period 2016 to In 2016, City Council approved a new initiative called the Open Door Program. This unilateral City program set out a consistent approach to the approval of new affordable rental housing through a partnership with non-profit and private sector organizations. The essential elements of the Program provide for a suite of financial incentives, including the waiver of development charges, planning application fees and building permit fees and the waiver of property taxes over the period of operating the affordable housing units. Capital funding has also been added to the Program to ensure project viability. In total, the value of these investments over a five-year period is $222 million. Approved Open Door developments were also assured of an expedited planning approval process.

4 Further, the Program committed the City to providing select surplus land sites for both affordable rental and ownership housing. Overall reception to the Program has been positive. Program applications have been robust and for the years 2017 and 2018, approved projects have exceeded the annual target of 1,000 units. The reasons often cited for the success of the Program include its flexible nature as it provides early certainty to non-profit and private sector organizations on the City s commitments to affordable housing and to their specific project. The approval of projects in the early stages creates a pipeline of developments and eliminates the challenging feature of other affordable housing programs for developments to be shovel ready. The Program also provides opportunities throughout the development process to stack other funding to support the construction of the project and/or during the operating phase. Additionally, the Program provides the flexibility to proposed mixed market and affordable developments, with a requirement that a minimum of 20% of the gross floor area be developed as affordable rental. The Program also has three portals through which affordable rental housing development partnerships can be approved. This includes approvals through annual proposal calls, through the final planning application approval process, and through special initiatives such as the Ontario Affordable Housing Provincial Lands Program. At the same time, the Open Door Program has also attracted a range of criticisms. Most recently, housing advocates have called for the Program to provide rents on a rent-geared-to-income basis at no more than 30% of a household income. Currently the Program sets rents at the City s Official Plan definition of no more than the average market rent for Toronto as published annually by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (Figure 3). Figure 3- Toronto Housing Rents and Affordability by Income Band Source: City of Toronto's Affordable Housing Office, August 2018

5 Non-profit groups have also been critical of the fact that the Program does not guarantee affordability in perpetuity. The minimum affordability period for the Program is 25 years. The pipeline approach of providing early project approvals rather than shovel ready projects has increased the risk of some projects not proceeding. The longer development and completion schedules have also resulted in some level of frustration being expressed by local politicians and the public who are looking for immediate results and quick fixes. The New National Housing Strategy - Growing Pains In November 2017, the federal government took a significant leap forward in introducing Canada s first National Housing Strategy. Advocacy for a National Housing Strategy stretches back to the 1990s when community advocates and organizations called on the federal government to meet Canada s obligations embedded in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and requested that the government dedicate 1% of the federal budget to housing. The achievement of a National Housing Strategy some 20-years later was no small accomplishment! Housing Rights are Human Rights. The Strategy provides for the introduction of new legislation that promotes a human rights-based approach to housing. It will require the federal government to maintain a National Housing Strategy that prioritizes the housing needs of the most vulnerable. It will also require regular reporting to Parliament on progress toward achieving the Strategy s targets and outcomes. The Strategy also provides for the appointment of a Federal Housing Advocate and a National Housing Council to promote participatory and evidence-based analysis. National Housing Co-Investment Fund: The Strategy provides for a federally managed National Housing Co-Investment Fund to create up to 60,000 new units of housing and repair up to 240,000 units of existing affordable and community housing. The Fund was launched in May 2018 and consists of $4.52 billion in funding and $8.65 billion in low interest loans. The Co-Investment Fund must be supplemented by investments from another order of government with contributions from other partners including provinces and municipalities. To maximize the impact of the Co-Investment Fund the government intends to combine contributions and loans with the transfer of up to $200 million in federal lands to community and affordable housing providers over 10 years. Maintaining a Resilient Community Housing Sector. Through a $4.3 billion Canada Community Housing Initiative the federal government will protect and build a sustainable community-based housing sector. As long-term social housing operating agreements expire, resulting in the potential loss of affordable housing units, the federal government will renew their investments to protect low-income households and stabilize the operations of housing providers. This program is intended to protect affordability for 385,000 households living in community housing administered by the provinces and supported by former federal programs. In order to participate in the program provinces will be required to cost-match the funding. This component of the Strategy also provides for a unilateral $500 million Federal Community Housing Initiative to put in place new operating agreements on federally administered housing to support subsidies for tenants in need. A New Canada Housing Benefit. The Strategy provides for a $4 billion new housing benefit to be developed in partnership with the provinces and territories to support some 300,000 households at an average of $2,500 per year. The federal government will work with the provinces and territories to develop the Canada Housing Benefit to be launched in 2020.

6 Letting Communities Lead: A Plan to Make Homelessness History. The Strategy confirms the plans for the federal government to invest $2.2 billion over the next 10 years to tackle homelessness through an expanded program. It calls for reducing chronic homelessness within 10 years by 50%. The redesigned program will be launched April 1, 2019 and be based on the advice from the federal Advisory Committee on Homelessness. Nothing About Us, Without Us. The Strategy states: No relationship is more important to the Government than the one with Indigenous peoples. Indigenous leaders have told us that there is a pressing need to co-develop federally supported distinctions-based First Nations, Inuit and Metis Nation housing strategies that are founded in principles of self-determination, reconciliation, respect and co-operation. Moving forward the government is continuing to develop a specific Indigenous Housing Strategy. Evidence-Based Housing: Research, Data and Demonstrations. The Strategy confirms $241 million in funding over 10 years to enhance housing research, data and demonstrations. This is to be accomplished through developing tools within government to address data gaps and measure outcomes from the Strategy; through building capacity for partnership outside of government; and supporting researchers and introducing housing labs. Improving Homeownership Options for Canadians. The Strategy outlines the government s efforts to maintain access to homeownership through their existing mortgage loan insurance program and through removing some barriers to homeownership. It also commits to ongoing research to inform policy on homeownership, urban planning and infrastructure investments. With all that the National Housing Strategy promises, it is important to contextualize it and to highlight where it falls short and where improvements could be made. The asserting of federal jurisdiction in the area of housing is a very welcomed development; however, it brings with it the risk that unilateral federally delivered programs will not effectively respond to or reflect local housing conditions. In Ontario, for almost 20-years the responsibility for housing and homeless service system planning and program delivery has been devolved to 47 Service Managers. With the new onewindow for accessing housing and homelessness funding and initiatives, there is a high risk of service system confusion among affordable housing stakeholders who now have to access and coordinate between government programs. In Ontario, the National Housing Strategy Bi-lateral Agreement with the province was signed with the previous Liberal provincial government. With the election of a new Progressive Conservative government in June 2018 there is considerable uncertainty about how the Bi-lateral Agreement will be implemented and how the provincial housing policy and programs will be impacted. While the National Housing Strategy sets out ambitious goals, there is no specific funding or support to build development and operating capacity within the non-profit and supportive housing sectors. This is essential should the Strategy effectively look to those most in need. Furthermore, in Ontario the Service Managers risk losing municipal affordable housing development capacity with the replacing of the Investment in Affordable Housing Program with the phase in of a National Housing Benefit.

7 Lastly, on the important issue of surplus federal lands, the Strategy commits a modest $200 million over 10-years to support the use of surplus lands for affordable housing. Given the value of federal land in urban centres, the $200 million falls significantly short on the amount of funds needed to off-set the value of many urban federal surplus properties. The Strategy s approach to surplus lands for affordable housing needs to be broadened if it is to have real impact. This could include providing land-banking funding to support strategic provincial/territorial/municipal land acquisitions for affordable housing. It could also include requiring as a condition of sale or lease of federal sites a specific percentage of affordable rental housing to be achieved. Public Land as a Catalyst for Affordable Housing Partnerships High housing costs and a shortage of housing supply in urban centres in Canada are certainly not a new phenomenon. These issues appear and then disappear through economic cycles. What is new is that today s housing challenges have persisted and grown due to the current extended period of unprecedented economic and urban growth. As a result, housing market forces have left many low and middle income Canadians behind in producing and providing the housing they need. This section will provide an overview of how public land can be a catalyst for affordable housing partnerships and spur the construction of affordable rental housing resulting from market failure. One has to look back some 65 years to find the seminal reports on the high cost of land and how this was a contributing factor to the high cost of housing. These reports also called for aggressive land policies to support the government purchase of land and the use of public land for urban growth and low-income housing. The reports also had a major impact on Canadian housing policies and programs, in leading the way to shifting national policy to the community-based non-profit and co-operative housing delivery of non-market housing. In these times of high housing costs it is instructive to return to these reports and review some of the key findings and recommendations. The Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Development, 1969" recommended, Municipalities or regional governments, as a matter of continuing policy, should acquire, service, and sell all or a substantial portion of the land required for urban growth within their boundaries. The federal government should make direct loans to municipalities or regional governments to assist them in assembling and servicing land for urban growth. Several years later, the 1972 report Programs in Search of a Policy: Low Income Housing in Canada by Michael Dennis and Susan Fish, devote an entire chapter to Land Assembly and Land Banking. In their report they found rising land prices are a major culprit in housing price inflation. Those prices have quadrupled in the last 20 years. Increased land and servicing costs have pushed residential land development and planning into the hands of small groups of large developers. They concluded we agree with the recommendation of the Hellyer Task Force that public land assembly and development is the best and most comprehensive method of dealing with land price, windfall profits and the improvement of the planning process. Fast forwarding to today s housing situation, one finds reports and explanations as to why the country and urban centres are suffering from runaway housing markets where housing goes to the highest bidder. Given the fact that prices for ownership housing are hitting the roof and there are calls for action on the affordability crisis, governments at all levels are looking to policy measures to cool the market.

8 Meanwhile, the competition for multi-residential building sites in Toronto continues apace with no end in sight. While there were hundreds of multi-residential commercial transactions in recent years, the prices have been staggering and increasing with every sale. Consider just two publicly owned development sites recently sold in downtown Toronto the former Dufferin Street school surplus site is selling for $121.5 million and the federal surplus site at 1 Front Street West sells for $275 million. The Financial Post recently reported that, the average condo lot sale price in the second quarter across Greater Toronto Area reached $64 per buildable square foot, which accounts for the density of a project. Ten years ago that price was in the $30-range across the GTA. Is it any wonder that these rising land values will produce higher cost housing that is even more unaffordable for those residents with low and moderate-incomes? As reported by the McKinsey Global Institute in a global study, Land cost often is the single biggest factor in improving the economics of affordable housing development. It is not uncommon for land costs to exceed 40% of total property prices, and in some large cities, land can be as much as 80% of property cost. The study further identifies six mechanisms to unlock land for affordable housing development including: Smart, transit-orientated development Releasing public land Unlocking serviced idle land Enabling development through land assembly or readjustment Ensuring clear titles and formalizing informal land use Improving urban land-use and using inclusionary planning (Woetzel et al. 2014). In recognition of the role of land as a determining factor in delivering affordable housing, in recent times governments across the globe have been adopting land policies and programs to support affordable housing on public lands. The cities of London, England; San Francisco, United States; and Vancouver, Canada are three jurisdictions with positive affordable housing public land policies. A Snapshot of Toronto s Recent Public Land Experience in Delivering Affordable Housing It is now some twenty-one years ago that the new City of Toronto was created through the amalgamation of five local governments and the Metropolitan Regional government. Over this period of time a series of public land initiatives impacting the development of affordable housing have emerged. Toronto s Housing First Policy In 1999, the Mayor s Task Force on Housing and Homelessness reported with a set of 106 recommendations aimed at addressing the growing homeless population and providing a comprehensive blueprint to address affordable housing. Specifically, it contained a recommendation to use surplus public land for affordable housing which stated, "The City should develop a 'Housing First' policy municipal lands to make suitable sites available for affordable housing, while retaining long-term City interest in the sites." This resulted in Toronto City Council adopting a Housing First policy in 1999 when disposing of surplus properties. Since then, this policy supported the development of 2,965 affordable housing units on 48 City surplus sites.

9 The City s Housing First policy remains in place but was subsequently revised in 2009 when the City approved the transfer of surplus properties to a new corporation Build Toronto. Build Toronto was primarily concerned with the disposal of sites at the high and best value and returning a financial dividend to the City. However, in later years under new leadership Build Toronto developed a track-record of contributing to new affordable rental and ownership housing, including contributing a portion of its land proceeds to write-down the affordable units. In 2018, Build Toronto was subsequently rolled into a new consolidated Toronto real estate entity named CreateTO. CreateTO provides a new vehicle to review the City s surplus land policies for affordable housing and most importantly, has an explicit city building and affordable housing mandate. Leveraging Public Housing Land Following the municipal amalgamation in Toronto and the provincial transfer (downloading) of housing to Ontario municipalities, the new City was faced with a decision on how to administer the various public housing agencies specifically the Metro Toronto Housing Company, CityHome, and the Metropolitan Toronto Housing Authority. In 2000, City Council amalgamated the three public housing agencies into a new arms-length corporation named Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC). Almost 60,000 residential units were transferred to TCHC and the new corporation was given broad independent powers to operate. Immediately following the creation of TCHC, the new leadership developed a public/private sector model of public housing revitalization. This model provided for the replacement of large public housing communities with new mixed-income communities by leveraging profits from the sale of public land to provide for the full replacement of social housing. Most importantly, the revitalization guaranteed the right of return to every social housing resident. The public housing revitalization projects approved by TCHC and City Council were bold, long-term, and unprecedented billion dollar social and economic investments undertaken in partnership with the private development community and impacted residents. Today there are six major revitalization initiatives underway representing the replacement of some 4,805 rent-geared-to-income social housing homes and the addition of 13,500 new market ownership homes. The revitalization sites include: Regent Park, Alexandra Park, Lawrence Heights, Allenbury Gardens, Leslie Nymark and 250 Davenport Road. In Regent Park, so far some 1,002 new affordable rental homes have been achieved through leveraging $70 million of federal/provincial affordable housing funding and $37.5 million in City financial incentives. The revitalization of these communities has been achieved through the application of planning and social development principles supporting strong complete communities. As a result, in addition to the creation of replacement and new housing units, the formerly isolated public housing projects are re-integrated into the adjacent community through reconnecting the street grid, the inclusion of new community facilities, the fostering of new commercial uses and the employment of public housing residents throughout the process. Case Study: The West Don Lands Public Lands Affordable Housing Legacy The West Don Lands are located in downtown Toronto near the west side of the mouth of the Don River. The area consists of 80 acres of land and historically supported land uses of heavy industry, stockyards, scrapyards, rail uses and a distillery. In 1987 in response to the need for new affordable housing the Province of Ontario and the City of Toronto announced the multi-million dollar expropriation of all of the

10 businesses within the West Don Lands. The lands were initially owned by the City of Toronto with the intention of creating a new community of 7,000 homes named Ataratiri. However, the Ataratiri project was cancelled in 1992 primarily as the cost of remediating the soil to new environmental standards and the need for flood protection were beyond the City s financial means. Subsequently, the lands were transferred to the Ontario government in For the next several years the lands sat abandoned with the exception of residual uses and the opening of a new a homeless shelter. At one point the provincial government considered the siting of a racetrack on the lands. Figure4 West Don Lands Phasing Map Source: City of Toronto The catalyst for change came in 1999 with a federal, provincial and City tri-government agreement to support Toronto s bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. This effort led to an agreement to establish a new trigovernment agency known today as Waterfront Toronto. The new agency was given funding and responsibility to lead the development of 2,000 acres of brownfield lands on Toronto s waterfront into beautiful, accessible, sustainable mixed-use communities and dynamic public spaces. This included the full build out of 40,000 new homes. With the creation of Waterfront Toronto, new attention was brought to the West Don Lands. Working with local residents groups and Waterfront Toronto, the City designated the area as Regeneration Area and Parks and Open Space Areas. This plan placed a requirement that 20% of all new residential housing be required to be developed as affordable rental housing, thus guaranteeing a mix of incomes in the community.

11 Phase One New TCHC Homes While the 2008 Olympic Games were ultimately awarded to Bejing the City s Olympic bid had created the momentum needed to kick-start the first phase of the West Don Lands redevelopment process. After many years of planning and false starts by 2014 the first phase of the community was beginning to take shape. Key infrastructure requirements were in place, including the construction of a flood protection berm, the design and build out of the 18 acre Corktown Common Park, and the completion of new residential housing. Critical to the successful implementation of the first phase of development was the reaching of an agreement in 2009 among Waterfront Toronto, the Ontario government and the City of Toronto that they would provide serviced and clean land available at no cost to support the development of the affordable rental housing. The West Don Lands Affordable Housing Agreement provided the foundation for a partnership among the parties to support TCHC in the construction of 243 new affordable seniors and family TCHC rental homes at River Street and King Street West. Investments from the federal/provincial Affordable Housing Program, the City of Toronto and TCHC provided the capital to construct the homes. The West Don Lands first phase development was underway but what about phases two and three where the majority of the land still remained vacant. A further catalyst was soon on the horizon. That catalyst came in the form of the provincially back City bid to host the Pan American Games to be held in Phase Two New Non-Profit Homes Through strong leadership from the Ontario government and the former Premier David Peterson, the City won the bid to host the Pan Am Games in The bid plan called for the creation of a village in the West Don Lands to house the expected 10,000 athletes. As the owners of the West Don Lands, the provincial agency Infrastructure Ontario (IO) assumed the lead in securing a private development partner and ensure the build out of the next phase on time and on budget. Through a special Pan Am Office the City co-ordinated the involvement of various City Divisions throughout and during the Games. Most importantly, IO and the Ontario Ministry of Housing engaged the City s Affordable Housing Office in the detailed planning, approving the specifications and selection of two non-profit organizations who would own and operate 253 units of affordable housing in two rental buildings. This unique arrangement where the master developer of the Pan Am Village and the Province of Ontario would build and turn over the ownership of the buildings the new owners and operators was the first of its kind in Toronto. This unique partnership resulted in new affordable non-profit housing for Fred Victor Homes to provide housing for low-income and vulnerable residents and Wigwamen to provide housing focused on the needs of indigenous residents Phase Three The Public/Private Partnership With the Pan Am Games successfully completed attention turned to how to maintain the momentum in building out the new community. The key issue was how to fund the build out of the affordable rental housing. This time the catalyst came not from a sporting event but directly from Toronto s overheated housing market. With rapidly rising house prices in the Greater Toronto Area, a shortage of affordable rental accommodation and cases of evictions from rent increases the federal, provincial and City governments all introduced measures to cool the housing market and provide new supply. In particular, the province introduced the Ontario Fair Housing Plan and the Ontario Affordable Housing Lands Program.

12 The first phase of the Ontario Affordable Housing Lands Program identified Blocks 3W, 4W, 7W, 8 and 20 in the West Don Lands for new residential development. In working with the City of Toronto, the Province created a new public/private sector development model where the primary objective through this premier urban land site offer is to leverage the prized land value of Sites in exchange for a conscientiously designed mixed market and affordable rental housing development. To this effect, the collective vision for the Properties is that they are specifically developed in a manner that effectively marries a broad range of residential unit layouts and accommodates a wide diversity of low to highincome residents. The West Don Lands offering provided a total of 550,000 sq. ft. of residential and mixed used density where the builder/operator would be required to provide 30% of the residential units (390) at affordable rent levels of ten percent at 40% of average market rent, forty percent at 80% of average market rents and fifty percent of the units at 100% of average market rents for a lease term of 99 years. In return for providing the affordable housing, the developer obtained a 99-year discounted leased to reduce up-front land costs. As part of the offering package the City pre-approved Open Door Program municipal financial incentives for the affordable housing units. The incentives included waiver of planning, building and development charge fees and property taxes for the duration of the lease. The planning approvals are also being fast-tracked. It has taken some 30 years but the Toronto-Ontario vision of a new mixed-income community in the West Don Lands is finally being realized. At present, 886 affordable rental homes are being developed as a result of strong public/private partnerships leveraging the essential value of public lands in delivering affordability. Conclusion: Ramping Up a Public Lands for Affordable Housing Strategy Addressing the affordable housing crisis is on the top of the agendas for many global cities. It is of little surprise that given the range of housing and homeless issues facing Toronto, increasing the supply of affordable rental housing has emerged as a top priority. The City has developed a range of program and policy tools to stimulate new supply. In particular, Toronto s Open Door Program provides a range of incentives to eligible non-profit and private builders. The new National Housing Strategy is also welcomed as the federal government has an important leadership and funding role to play - as do provinces and other housing stakeholders. But in efforts to scale up new affordable rental housing, governments must look carefully at the importance of public land to leverage affordable rental housing in new developments. This applies to existing land assets and the potential to secure strategic land sites for affordable housing such as through purchase, expropriation, and inclusionary zoning practices. The City of Toronto s experience and track record demonstrate that it is possible to successfully develop new mixed-income communities and new affordable housing on existing and surplus municipal lands. The shining example of success of leveraging partnerships for affordable rental housing is the 30-year partnership between the Ontario government and the City of Toronto. While not the silver bullet solution to the urban affordable housing crisis, the strategic use of public land has an important role in contributing to solutions today and for generations to come.

13 Some Suggestions on Leveraging Affordable Rental Housing Land Partnerships o o o o o o Develop a local inventory of municipal, provincial and federal land assets and a strategy for activation using a Housing First policy approach. Develop a strategy to support strategic land acquisition for affordable rental housing partnership purposes. Find and/or create a catalyst event or activity that could support an affordable rental housing partnership on public land. Examine other municipal, provincial, federal policies and programs to leverage the value of public lands. Examine and learn from the experiences, successes and failures of other jurisdictions, Advertise the success stories in leveraging public land to achieve affordable housing to foster more public buy-in and awareness. Acknowledgments This paper has been prepared with input and assistance of Mercedeh Madani, Policy Development Officer, Affordable Housing Office. Views expressed in this paper are those of the author. References CBRE Limited (2017) Land Portfolio Offering for the Provincial Affordable Land Program. City Planning Division. (2018) Rental Housing Market Conditions in Toronto, City of Toronto. Retrieved September 13, 2018 from: Dennis, M. and Fish, S. (1972) Programs in Search of a Policy: Low Income Housing in Canada, Hakkert, pp 13, 328. Golden, A. (1999) Taking Responsibility for Homelessness: An Action Plan for Toronto: Report of the Mayor's Homelessness Action Task Force, City of Toronto. Government of Canada (2017) Canada's National Housing Strategy. Retrieved September 13, 2018 from: Hellyer, Paul (1969) Report of the Task Force on Housing and Urban Development, Government of Canada, pp 40-41, 43. Hulchanski, D. (2010) The Three Cities within Toronto Income Polarization among Toronto s Neighbourhoods, , Cities Center, University of Toronto. Retrieved September 13, 2018 from

14 Kneebone, R and A. Jadidzadeh. (2017) An Analysis of Homeless Shelter Use in Toronto, Toronto: City of Toronto Shelter, Support and Housing Administration. Retrieved September 13, 2018 from: Marr, G. (2015) Toronto's residential land prices reach new highs: 'More condominiums coming'. Financial Post. Retrieved September 12, 2018 from: condominiums-coming. Monsebraaten, L. (2018) Mayor s affordable housing plan missing the mark, advocates say, Toronto Star. National Housing and Homelessness Network (2004) "Ending Homelessness: The One Percent Solution" in Hulchanski D and Shapcott, M. (eds) Finding Room: Policy Options for a Canadian Rental Housing Strategy, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto, pp Pagliaro, J. (2018) Affordable housing may need to be redefined, Tory acknowledges, Toronto Star. Woetzel, J., Ram, S., Mischke, J., and Sankhe, S. (2014) A Blueprint for Addressing the Global Affordable Housing Challenge, McKinsey Global Institute. Retrieved September 13, 2018 from: Woetzel, J., Ram, S., Mischke, J., Garemo, N., Sankhe, Sh. (2014) A blueprint for addressing the global affordable housing challenge. Zurich: McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report.