Are the City of Toronto’s Housing Now plans for Scarborough too small?

Thestar.com
Sept. 6, 2019
Mike Adler

The City of Toronto wants to turn a couple of TTC lots in Scarborough into housing, and that’s sure to upset some people.

But what if city proposals for the lots are wrong because they’re too small?

Mark Richardson thinks the plan for 705 Warden Ave. needs more ambition.

“I think the city is being incredibly timid in its proposals,” said Richardson, technical lead for HousingNowTO, a group that is critiquing Housing Now, a program Mayor John Tory hopes will create 11 new sources of affordable housing.

“If (affordable housing is) the mayor’s No. 1 priority, we need to make sure people understand it,” Richardson said.

Commuter lots north of Warden Station and beside Victoria Park Station at 777 Victoria Park Ave. are two of the earliest projects on the list. Recent city concepts say each would have 450 units, split evenly between rentals at market rates and those “affordable” by families making between $21,000 and $52,000 a year.

But the affordable units would have to remain that way for 99 years, a term longer than the city has used before.

Since the buildings will need funds to maintain themselves for a century, Richardson argues more density is “the only way that you can make the math begin to work.”

Instead of 450 units, HousingNowTO says a better use of seven acres at Warden is a larger complex, with 1,500 units split between 500 market-owned, 500 market-rental, and 500 affordable.

The group is satisfied with 450 units at 777 Victoria Park -- the parcel is only two acres, so it meets the 200-units-per-acre threshold HousingNowTO supports. At only 63 units per acre, 705 Warden doesn’t.

HousingNowTO also proposes a large-format grocery store be included at the Warden location -- something Richardson said the surrounding community needs.

This counterproposal will be in the background as the city hosts open houses to review the latest on each project.

A meeting on the Warden proposal is Sept. 12 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Warden Hilltop Community Centre. Victoria Park will be covered, also from 6 to 9 p.m., at the Seicho-No-le Toronto Centre on Sept. 9.

The city and its real estate agency, CreateTO, hope to offer developers or non-profit builders $280 million in incentives to build the affordable homes, including relief from property taxes and development charges.

The program has already drawn objections from commuters who use a lot Housing Now seeks to develop in North York.

One Scarborough resident, Nancy Gaughan, said neighbours of the Warden and Victoria Park sites consider the area to be “overflowing” already, with highrise apartments and more on the way.

“We all acknowledge the need for affordable housing, but we are looking for some real input into the development so it doesn’t adversely affect the surrounding neighbourhood,” she wrote.

Gaughan also questioned how such rental buildings could be kept in good condition for 99 years.

Richardson acknowledged the proposals will face opposition, but he said housing the city’s workforce is more important than preserving “cheap parking.”

The city has typically built 1,000 or fewer affordable units a year, and it would have to ramp up efforts to fulfil Tory’s pledge of 40,000 over 12 years, he said.