Toronto offering five of its own properties for affordable housing

Toronto : The City of Toronto will offer five empty lots it owns across the city —including a large one in CityPlace near the waterfront downtown —to developers to build affordable housing units, Mayor John Tory said Thursday morning.
The move, part of the city’s “Open Door” program, is meant as the city’s way to jumpstart construction of units, as the waiting list for affordable units continues to hold the names of more than 90,000 households.
Standing in a vacant plot of land bordered by Bathurst Street, Fort York Boulevard and Queen’s Wharf Road dubbed “Block 36 North,” Tory said the area was zoned residential 20 years ago.

“Imagine this piece of land, chosen for affordable housing and here it sits 20 years later, still vacant,” Tory said.
The properties will be offered to developers through a request for proposals process in the coming months, and the city will aim to have 389 affordable rental or owned units built on them as fast as possible.
“Once a developer is chosen the approvals process will be accelerated and affordable housing will be built on this piece of land,” Tory said. “I look forward to repeating this process over and over again across the city so that we can catch up on four years and frankly more than that of inaction and start to meet our housing targets.”
In a jab towards his predecessor Rob Ford, Tory said less than 2,800 units of affordable housing were built during Ford’s term in office, with a goal of 10,000 units between 2009 and 2019.
“This is not acceptable, both to set a goal and not achieve it and just to build that small a quantity of affordable housing in a big city like this with the need as it is.”
Tory said that the city will “roll out the red carpet” to any landowner, non-profit entity or developer that offers land for affordable housing units, saying there are a wide range of incentives the city will offer them to get units built, such as waiving development charges or property taxes.
The city will also aim to release 13 other plots of land it owns throughout the city for possible affordable housing construction in the next few months.
Tory appealed to the federal and provincial governments “who own a tonne of land in this city” to contribute some of that land for affordable housing construction.