Demovictions, design rules, and policy priorities discussed at housing crisis meeting hosted by Beaches-East York MPP
November 23, 2023
By AMARACHI AMADIKE, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Beaches-East York MPP Mary-Margaret McMahon hosted a Community Conversations event aimed at discussing ideas on how to tackle Toronto’s ongoing housing crisis on the night National Housing Day on Tuesday, Nov. 21.
The meeting, Housing in Toronto: How Can We Help?, took place at Hope United Church at Danforth Avenue and Main Street.
Guests included vice president of WoodGreen Community Services Mwarigha; affordable housing advocate and consultant Joy Connelly; urban planner and economist Alex Boshoti; and representatives from Don Valley Legal Services Karly Wilson and Laura Anonen.
The panelists shared a variety of opinions about what needs to be done in Toronto to fix the housing situation.
“We know that this crisis is going to take every single tool in the toolbox, everyone working together,” said McMahon. “There’s no one golden ticket to solve it.”
Panelist, Boshoti emphasized that that the City of Toronto planning department’s extensive and costly requirements to develop buildings with a specific aesthetic is one hurdle getting in the way of developments being completed in a timely manner.
“Buildings speak values,” said Boshoti. “But our building right now speaks to the value that we care more about the people on the outside than we do about the people on the inside.”
In agreement with this statement was WoodGreen’s Mwarigha who said that developments are slow to be completed because builders are trying to meet requirements that “we as the public have gotten used to as what’s important”.
With housing developments now taking more than three years to get approved, Mwarigha believes that eight months could be shaved off this wait time if the technology utilized in this process was enhanced. However, he told Beach Metro Community News that the amount of public consultation meetings required before approval can be granted, which some complain about, needs to stay in place.
“I don’t want to see us going through a process where there’s no consultation,” said Mwarigha. “I think that’s a slippery slope.”
Mwarigha also condemned policies which he said have decoupled housing from social services and health.
“That was the mistake we made at a policy level,” said Mwarigha. “Because now governments can choose to invest in one versus the other.”
Although there’s much work to do on the planning, development and building side of the housing crisis, other panelists, such as Wilson and Anonen, highlighted the urgent need to protect tenants from unjust evictions by landlords whose intentions are to increase rent once a renter leaves.
The Don Valley Legal Services representatives’ call for vacancy control comes with the Rent Stabilization Act stuck in its first reading at Queen’s Park. Implementation of such a policy would go a long way to securing tenants’ rights but also provides protection for the current batch of affordable units in Toronto by preventing arbitrary increases in rental costs.
“We need to stop the displacement of tenants from their homes, especially lower-income tenants,” said Anonen. “We see this happening through renovictions and demovictions across the city.”
Currently, for every affordable home created in Toronto, 18 are lost partly due to a lack of vacancy control, she said.
To make matters worse, said Liberal MPP McMahon, the Ontario government appears to be passing up on opportunities to leverage its own land for the building of affordable housing.
“I keep bringing up 8 Dawes Road,” said McMahon. “It was a Metrolinx site and they sold it with no condition whatsoever for any affordable housing in the new development. We’re not looking in our own backyards at provincial lands that we can utilize.”
The application for 8 Dawes Rd. proposes a 38-storey mixed-use building. This development will contain 399 dwelling units – 39 three-bedroom, 109 two-bedroom, and 251 one-bedroom units.
Following the community meeting, McMahon said that she will now take the resolutions discussed to Queen’s Park.
However, many of those in attendance at Hope United Church expressed an understanding that their collective suggestions might fall on deaf ears when presented to the provincial government.
Link to article: https://beachmetro.com/2023/11/23/demovictions-design-rules-and-policy-priorities-discussed-at-housing-crisis-meeting-hosted-by-beaches-east-york-mpp/