For homeowners and renters in Toronto, there’s a common interest on everyone’s mind coming into 2022 — how to make sure there’s enough (affordable) housing supply to support ourselves and our families for years to come. Jennifer Keesmaat, former chief planner for the City of Toronto and upcoming panellist for Post City’s 15th annual Real Estate Roundtable, spoke with us about how to build Toronto into a permanently family-friendly city.
What are some of the major concerns for Torontonians looking to remain in Toronto?
Obviously there is a shortage of supply, and the really big issue is supply for families, because this city is just at a price point now where accessing housing as a family, given the amount of space that you need, is incredibly tricky. When I was chief planner, there was a need to recognize that there is a risk to the city that families could no longer live here, people could no longer live here and raise a family. I think we’re seeing all of that coming to fruition. People who were raised in the city are in their early 20s and looking around and saying, “Wait a minute, I love the city, the city is my home. And I have no idea how I can afford to access housing here.” Particularly the past two years have made it a situation that is untenable for many people.
Is the new elementary school within a condo building project the future of Toronto?
It’s brilliant. It’s about the responsible use of land, but it’s also about creating complete communities. The integration of vertical schools is something that you do when you start using land in a more strategic way, rather than building one-storey buildings with surface parking. This notion of thinking vertically also comes back to reducing our environmental footprint. When you have schools that have housing directly above or adjacent, it means the walk to school is a no-brainer. Whereas today, a large portion of our rush hour traffic is people driving their kids to school, which is a real crime.
What are the best ways to build a vertical community?
When you’re building vertical, you have to think about the design of the unit, you have to think about the design of the building and the design of the neighbourhood. One of the reasons why people don’t want to raise their families often in condos is because the unit, the building and the neighbourhood hasn’t actually been designed for families. This is something that we need to go back to: things like thinking about where people are going to park their strollers in the unit, putting in a basketball court where a 10-year-old can go play unsupervised rather than a pool. At the scale of the neighbourhood, it comes down to narrowing streets, slowing down cars, creating a culture where people expect children in urban environments. Many places in the world have crossed over that threshold. We haven’t yet; we’re just not doing it at a sufficient scale. This, along with affordability, is where we really need to focus as a city over the next five to 10 years.
Recent affordability discussions included a proposed tax on homes over $1 million.
Well, most people in Toronto live in a home worth more than $1 million, so I think that threshold is too low. In my mayoral campaign, I ran on a platform of taxing the most expensive homes in the city, a very elite tier of homes that are over $8 to $10 million. A better way is to tax the real estate that has had the greatest uplift and where the implications of that tax are going to be the least felt. Take the one per cent most expensive homes in the city and put a three per cent tax on them. You’ve done extremely well in real estate. We’re going to ask you to give a little bit more back, so that the next generation can access housing, and then take that money and put that money into delivering affordable housing.
