Open Door Incentives to Support 856 Affordable Rental Homes

The Open Door Affordable Rental Housing (“Open Door”) program is a key program under the HousingTO 2020 2030 Action Plan (“HousingTO”) that offers capital funding and/or financial incentives to support non-profit and private sector housing developers to create new affordable rental housing for low- and moderate-income households. These new homes are critical to help the City meet its target of approving 65,000 rentcontrolled homes by 2030, including 41,000 affordable rental homes.

Since 2016, Housing Secretariat has released an annual Open Door call for applications to allocate grant funding to support eligible projects. Due to a series of legislative, policy, and budgetary changes a call for applications was not released in 2023. The adoption of Bill 23, More Homes Built Faster Act (“Bill 23”) by the Government of Ontario in November 2022 has significantly changed the impact of the benefits offered though the City program, reducing the ability to negotiate and secure long-term affordability on new affordable rental projects, because equivalent benefits are now provided automatically with less requirements.

Also Read: Increase Government Support for Build-to-Rent: Should We Expect Affordable Housing?