Transit-Oriented Development

Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government is expected to introduce new legislation tomorrow that would make it easier to build housing on top of or adjacent to new subway and light-rail transit stations.

The Star broke that news today.

It’s been a long-running mystery to me why this wasn’t being done before. Over the past 10-15 years that I’ve been paying attention, subway stations along Bloor and Danforth in Toronto have been renovated to still be 1-storey single-use buildings.

That never made any sense to me.

Why wouldn’t you (the City) partner with developers to both introduce a tonne of new housing where it’s well served by transit, and offset some of your costs in the process? Win-win, no?

In any case, it looks like we’ll start doing that now. And not a moment too soon. Toronto’s rental vacancy rate is hovering around 1%. We need a lot more housing, and this is one good way to deliver it.