Toronto’s Housing Now affordable housing plan delayed by COVID-19, planning issues

Fri., June 12, 2020

Mayor John Tory’s signature plan to create affordable housing quickly has run into delays ranging from six months to two years at some sites, according to a city report tabled Friday.

The Housing Now initiative was announced by Tory soon after his election in 2018 and was aimed at getting affordable housing to market in a streamlined way by making 11 city properties available to developers.

Now development of all 11 of those sites is behind schedule, according to an update presented on Friday to CreateTO, the city agency managing Toronto’s real estate portfolio.

Disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic were cited as a source of delay at about half of the sites, but didn’t account for everything.

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COVID delays and lease negotiations and approvals are keeping the site at 777 Victoria Park Ave., a year behind schedule.
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www.thestar.com

Toronto’s Housing Now affordable housing plan delayed by COVID-19, planning issues

Development of all 11 sites in Housing Now program is behind schedule by as much as two years.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com

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AlbertC said:
Toronto’s Housing Now affordable housing plan delayed by COVID-19, planning issues

Fri., June 12, 2020



www.thestar.com

Toronto’s Housing Now affordable housing plan delayed by COVID-19, planning issues

Development of all 11 sites in Housing Now program is behind schedule by as much as two years.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com

Outline - Read & annotate without distractions

Outline is a free service for reading and annotating news articles. We remove the clutter so you can analyze and comment on the content.
outline.com outline.com
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So, Housing 10 years from Now is now Housing 12 years from Now?
This is shocking news.
 
From a Nov. 20 report prepared by CreateTO's Vice President of Development: http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2020.RA19.5#

777 Victoria Park Avenue

The selection of the preferred bidder 777 Victoria Park Avenue has been approved by the Deputy City Manager, Corporate Services and the Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. The site's Zoning by-law was approved by Council at its November 29, 2019 meeting and is in force. Final documents are being negotiated with the proponent. Due diligence periods are underway. The preferred proponent is actively pursuing financing. Further details on this project can be found in Confidential Attachment 1.
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Some other notable updates include...
  • The total number of units has increased from 508 (254 affordable) to 575 (288 affordable)
  • Construction is currently forecast to begin Q4 2021
 
Increase in affordable units is good.

Timeline is a bit better than the Warden site (1 quarter sooner).

Still 10-12 months out.
 
ferusian said:
From a Nov. 20 report prepared by CreateTO's Vice President of Development: http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2020.RA19.5#



Some other notable updates include...
  • The total number of units has increased from 508 (254 affordable) to 575 (288 affordable)
  • Construction is currently forecast to begin Q4 2021
Click to expand...

Remember that the ORIGINAL concept for this site in January 2019 was just 450 units ---- so 575 is a 28% increase within what is essentially the same built-form. Will be interesting to see how they have accomplished that. Our assumptions are that their chosen proponent has altered the unit-mix to allow for more Studio/1-Bedroom units and that they have pulled back a little on the Average Unit-Size / Accessible-Units format. Hoping those details become public soon.

1607370562505.png
 
Does anyone have an understanding of when info on this will become publicly available? I’d be interested to see who was awarded the project. Understandably this has been confidential through negotiations but it’d be great to see who is actually doing this work ...
 
Technical Difficulties said:
Does anyone have an understanding of when info on this will become publicly available? I’d be interested to see who was awarded the project. Understandably this has been confidential through negotiations but it’d be great to see who is actually doing this work ...
Click to expand...
If they want to be "shovels-in-the-ground" this Fall (2021), then the deal has to be 100% CLOSED and made public by the next CreateTO Board meeting on Tues. May 11th.
 
Soil sampling appears to be underway or imminent with barrels on site. No pic, as I was driving.

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Just checked, no sign of an SPA having been filed yet.
 
Next CreateTO Board meeting is July 7th - so we should see an update on the Wilson, Warden and Victoria Park sites made public about a week before that meeting. They usually update their Milestone and Tracking reports for the Board.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1389598729825660932
 
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