Markham, York housing forum focuses on crisis in real-estate industry
Event looks at affordability, legislation, policies

YorkRegion.com
May 4, 2017
Tim Kelly

Hundreds of concerned and interested citizens are expected at a forum in Markham Saturday on the hottest topic of the moment: housing.

The open event Saturday at 9 a.m. at the Markham Civic Centre will feature seven speakers discussing a variety of topics related to the issues swirling around the shortage of affordable housing in the GTA these past few years.

On the menu will be: the housing market and house affordability; Ontario's housing legislation, including the just-announced Ontario Fair Housing plan; regional and municipal housing policy; private-sector perspectives; a case study on social housing; and case studies on secondary suites or basement apartments and purposed-built rental apartments.

Reid McAlpine, vice-president of the Unionville Residents Association, co-hosting the event with Markham Deputy Mayor Jack Heath, is hopeful the event will draw attention to the multitude of problems swirling around residential real estate these days.

For McAlpine, one of the key issues is the lack of purpose-built rental housing in Markham and throughout York Region.

"There is virtually no purpose-built rental housing in Markham and very little in York Region.

"Think of the people who clean the hospital, they don't live in Markham, they can't afford to live in Markham, think of any other number of service workers, they live in Scarborough, they live in Stouffville or other places; whole class of people who can't afford to live in Markham and yet we need those people for the health of our society," McAlpine said.

He pointed out the push for the forum came about six months ago when the URA discovered the average family income in Markham was around $100,000 yet it cost about $130,000 to afford a home in the city, a "scary topic," McAlpine said.

"As the price of housing of all sorts goes up, in the long run we're going to have real social and economic problems.

"I don't think anybody has good answers; that's the problem. We've got all these questions and nobody has answers, how sustainable is that? It just can't last," he said.

He said the forum will seek some answers and try to push governments to take action.