You can spin the population figures for the Annex and somehow try to show them in a more positive light.
Unlike others here, I don't do 'spin'. I post exact, real, numbers with citations. Spin is when you decide that the facts are positive or negative, I did no such thing, I simply put the facts out there to correct a statement that was not accurate.
At the end of the day, the lack of growth in the Annex is entirely a policy decision made by planners and elected leaders
Sure, to a point. Leaders didn't order the rooming houses consolidated, nor did they dictate that aging people had to stay in the homes in which they raised their children as emptynesters, but sure, its absolutely a policy decision as to how much growth to permit or incent/facilitate.
. There is no reasonable argument in the year 2024 for the City to prevent the redevelopment of low-rise streets in one of the neighbourhoods in the country with the best access to public transit, cycling infrastructure, community services, and local amenities. Every housing unit not built in the Annex is one more housing unit built beside a highway or in a sprawling GTA exurb.
Fundamentally here, we completely disagree, and I would argue, the facts are on my side here.
Demand for housing, driven by population growth, primarily, via foreign students and temporary foreign workers and to a lesser degree by the economic-class immigration stream is also a policy choice of leaders. They can choose to flat-line population growth, then there will be no new housing in suburbs or downtown in significant amounts. (only what's driven by replacement housing, and internal migration)
Further, Federal and Provincial leaders can choose were to direct growth as they do now through the Provincial Nominee Program and used to do so by simply saying "If you wish to come to Canada, we're current accepting people who wish to live in ;Province 'x' or 'City 'Y' (that person gains full mobility rights with citizenship after 3-5 years.
Beyond this, it's possible as has been achieved to some degree with the Greenbelt legislation to dictate housing location and form.
That same authority can be used to double the Greenbelt in size, ban expansion of urban boundaries, downzone Whitebelt lands to farms/nature, and nix all highway projects in suburbia.
If you want to ban housing by existing highways, I suppose we could do that too, it's just a policy choice like any other. I would personally support tolling GTA-Area highways, and reducing the size of the 401 corridor to a hard limit of 12 lanes from as much as 18 today. Of course that choice may not be a vote-getter......and regardless would need to be supported by a new GO Line in the same corridor which we aren't currently planning or building.
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To be clear, housing isn't being built beside the 427 because those people want to live in 'The Annex' but are being refused the right to do so. People moving into those units generally live/work in the west end or somewhere easily accessible by highway and building another 1,000 units downtown won't change that at all.
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Finally, I would again point out, I've done more to enact zoning reforms that most UT'ers and supported multiplex rights, and have no problem with intensifying major roads. I simply want arguments made cleanly, based on real info, not spin.
I also want to preserve the best of what exists today from mature leafy tree canopy, to walkable streets to attractive architecture to heritage. That doesn't mean wrapping everything in a bubble in the status quo, it just means not tearing everything down based on false dichotomies and slanted information.
