Ontario Mayors Overlook Solution to Affordable Housing Crisis
Mayor Lastman and other Ontario Mayors implore the Federal government to open up public coffers to help solve the affordable housing problem in Canada. Mayor Lastman says his City has spent $11 billion on the problem and still has 56,000 families on its waiting list.
Solutions to this crisis are not going to be easy or facile; this is a problem that won't soon go away. However, Ontario Mayors recent cry for more investment from the public purse should not supersede efforts by Ontario cities to do their part too.
Ontario Mayors have it in their power to push a partial solution to the problem, if they have the political courage to do so. They can increase the supply of affordable housing without costing the taxpayer a cent.
In fact, the Bob Rae government almost did the job for them during its stint at Queen's Park in the early 1990s. The Rae government platform and party policy called for (and went as far as to introduce legislation) to legalize 'basement apartments' everywhere in Ontario notwithstanding any municipal zoning by-laws to the contrary.
There are an estimated 100,000 illegal basement apartments (they could actually be in the attic, rear yard, basement or above the garage) in Ontario. What the Rae government had in mind was to legalize these in home apartments and their 'second kitchens' with a view to bringing them within the purview of existing legislation and rules and regulations including the landlord/tenant act, rent control, building and fire codes.
Legalizing in home apartments would have allowed the construction of new in home apartments in all neighborhoods in Ontario. This was an important initiative for Ontario; it would have helped to provide more, cost effective housing. However, it died in the Legislature.
In home apartments can be inexpensively added to the existing housing stock. By addressing the density deficit that affects so many North American cities, they help cities make better use of public infrastructure (roads, water and sewer mains, public transit and so forth). They help folks pay their mortgage and property taxes; allow working men and women to live closer to where they work; they provide alternative accommodation for the elderly in neighborhoods where they have perhaps lived for many years.
Ontario Mayors do not have to rely on Queen's Park to make the required changes to permit in home apartments in all zones in their cities. They can simply wave their magic (by-law) wands to encourage the creation of additional affordable housing stock at no public cost.
Why did the Rae government initiative fail? For the same reason that Ontario's Mayors do not endorse such action now- strong resistance from their residents who fear that densification will negatively affect their property values. Prima facie, legal in home apartments add income to a property resulting in an increase in housing prices. In the Glebe, homes with apartments (above the garage, in the attic, in the basement, granny flat at the rear) tend to sell or rent for higher prices and tend to sell or rent more quickly too. Density, per se, does not decrease home and property values. It brings more customers for public transit, neighborhood shops and services and more potential buyers and renters for homes and apartments. Density increases, in what are now largely low density neighborhoods and suburbs, should increase property values as long as neighborhoods continue to be well maintained and civic order is not diminished.
By bringing illegal in home apartments out of the gray market, Ontario municipalities have an opportunity to ensure that they meet minimum building and fire code standards. Ontario's Mayors can encourage formation of more affordable housing stock without public subsidy- all it takes is some political courage.
By Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, B.Eng.(Civil), M.Eng.-Sci., PhD., Adjunct Research Professor, School of Architecture, Carleton University, Chair, Hickling Capital Corporation, Founder, Ottawa Senators