Making Homes More Affordable Requires a Balanced Approach

The affordability of housing in the Greater Toronto Area is a serious issue and one that we have been raising for several years. We are the industry that builds and develops the new homes and communities that house the growing population of the Greater Toronto Area. We build all kinds of homes for all kinds of people. But we don’t just build what we want. Our industry is one of the most regulated and three levels of government policies, plans and processes determine how land can be used and control where and how development occurs.

In recent past, the provincial government released its growth plan which set out to change the nature of development in the GTA and move away from the largely suburban-oriented development pattern that we had been following for many decades. Over the last 10 years, the home-building industry has become experts in implementing the province’s plan — adapting from building mainly low-rise homes to, today, building at least as many high-rise homes as ground-related dwellings. We are not building more homes overall. We are building to government policy and building more high-density developments and fewer low-rise homes, especially fewer detached single-family homes.