Toronto low on vacant land to build housing, says new StatCan report

Figures show the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area has 131,000 acres sitting empty. But only 2.1 per cent of that vacant land is in the city of Toronto.

Thestar.com
Oct. 26, 2023
May Warren

As the Greenbelt land swap scandal sparks discussions about where to build housing, new numbers from Statistics Canada show that the Toronto region only has about nine per cent vacant land -- and even less in the city core.

Released Wednesday as part of a larger housing report that for the first time provides a breakdown on vacant land, the figures show that Toronto has 131,000 acres sitting empty, or about nine per cent of the total land area.

But only 2.1 per cent of that vacant land in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), a large region that includes most of the GTA, is in the city of Toronto.

“It’s suburban or rural,” said Brahim Boualam, head of StatCan’s Canadian Housing Statistics Program.

Radu Parvulescu, co-author of the study, said vacant land is defined as a residential zoned area without a “permanent structure that’s used as a home,” and doesn’t include agricultural or commercial properties.

The information comes from the land registry and assessment roles. In the Toronto CMA, Parvulescu said 74 per cent of the vacant land is owned by business and government. Of that, 68 per cent belongs to corporations

Toronto has less vacant land than the Ottawa region at 18 per cent and more than Vancouver at 4.5 per cent. But the report cautions that it’s hard to compare, as some of these regions are much bigger than others.

What does this mean for housing? Premier Doug Ford has backed down on opening up parts of the Greenbelt for development, a plan now under investigation by the RCMP. But the $8.28-billion land swap was initially pitched as necessary to build new homes and help with the housing crisis, which raised questions about whether more land is needed to build homes, or if the land that is available could be used better.

Matti Siemiatycki, director of the University of Toronto’s Infrastructure Institute, said he’s not surprised that there’s not “huge amounts” of vacant land, and that what is available is at the edges of the region.

But he noted it wouldn’t include commercial land like shopping malls or municipal parking lots, where there’s a lot of potential for redevelopment. The numbers also don’t reflect opportunities for building more housing where it already exists, such as allowing for several units on each lot.

It’s “not a land issue,” but about financing, the real estate market, public funding and the labour force needed “to make housing more affordable in our region,” he said.

Toronto’s former chief planner -- and one-time mayoral candidate -- Jennifer Keesmaat, said building on vacant land is actually not ideal. That’s because there’s all kinds of infrastructure that needs to be built along with it -- such as roads, and sewers.

“But at the same time we know at a regional scale that we have a phenomenal amount of existing infrastructure that is underutilized,” she said.

“The vast majority of the Toronto region that is going to be developed for additional density and additional housing, over the next 20 to 50 years, is not vacant land, it’s areas where we don’t have enough intensification.”

In Toronto, that means looking at places like libraries and community centres and how to put residential units above them, she said. When you consider land with that lens, Keesmaat said there’s a “phenomenal amount of opportunity.”

Christopher Alexander, president of RE/MAX Canada, said the amount of vacant land is less than he would have expected, although it makes sense given the boom in real estate over the last few years.

It means developers are left without a lot of options for building on a blank canvas, but they could instead focus on redeveloping communities with “obsolete use,” such as shuttered factories.

He also noted that there are not a lot of empty lots seen around downtown Toronto.

As for what is available?

“That’s got to be very valuable land.”