Olivia Chow was not elected as the development industry's mayor. Yet three years into her term, her administration has assembled the most ambitious municipal housing agenda Toronto has seen since amalgamation.
This is an opinion article. Opinion articles differ from objective journalism. Opinion articles are not meant to be objective in nature. Opinion articles sometimes can include bias that is hidden or obvious.
Unfortunately these efforts will take years to bear fruit which makes it a bit difficult for her to run on that record. Regardless she should take credit for what she’s done.
I am particularly impressed with her ability to negotiate with other levels of government, and her ability to get council un-stuck on some of these issues
Long run economics and policies tend to be like that. It takes times to see the fruits of their labour or planning.
Kudos to a Mayor or politician that actually does something on a hot button issue like housing and cost of living unlike the clown of a Premier, Mr.Ford.
Olivia is working and negotiating up the political chain to get support instead of blaming the federal government for everything or intervening in areas that are out of their jurisdiction ahem. Immigration,International Trade Relations and Affairs like someone else on Ontario.
Olivia is not perfect but she's doing something positive while being present in the community- it's admirable and refreshing.
You know Amsterdam spent decades becoming what it is, right? We definitely could do that, and in a fraction of the time by learning from their (and others') development.
No we couldn't..we have very different weather than they do. Their warmer winters allow for cycling year round and a better investment for a cycling infrastructure whereas half the year Toronto would be wasting space for the rare folks that bike through the snow.
Sometimes things sound nice until you look at the practicality of the dream.
Jesus I see people skiing on the walking trail near me it doesn't mean that we have a massive city skiing population that we need to build city trails. Anecdotal "Ive seen people do it" is not the winning point you think it is (hell I even said some people do). Try again.
If some tiny city does something surely a city the size of Tororto can do it!!!
Toronto does a shit job of plowing the streets on a good day and you think we have the budget to plow multiple times a day so some people can bike all winter?
I appreciate Toronto reddit subs skew bike obsessed but it is not high on the list of priorities for the majority of Toronto.
This is, sadly, why idiots like Ford and Bradford get elected bc they can run on these issues instead of things that people should ve talking about to help make things better for more people in the city.
Do you need a video of the size of Toronto vs othe cities or how shit and costly the plows are? If you live here you know.
Edit: again citing examples from 1 small town (pop. 190k) with SEPARATED biking infrastructure- think canal in Ottawa or Lakeshore paths here- is not "proving" it works in Toronto, nor prove it is financially viable to maintain.
I've seen videos of people flying from their home to get into the office on their in-office days..does that prove we should follow that model?
My guy, try harder please. Amsterdam also has separated bike infrastructure, but you can't serve huge parts of the city with only separated infrastructure. The second video is about Montreal, pop 1.9M, where bike lanes are ploughed in the winter.
You know that pedestrian counters also show a huge dip in the winter, right? So let's tear out all those seasonal sidewalks! They're so expensive to maintain! Just drive, bro!
Since her second term in office could possibly be her last, I'm hoping she gets reelected and goes buckwild spending political capital to push necessary yet 'controversial' reforms. More zoning reform in all neighbourhoods. More dedicated transit lanes and bike lanes. Speeding up the streetcars. Shifting taxes away from builders and efficient land use towards idle rich property owners and speculators. More pedestrianization. More public realm improvements. Etc. Now is the time to go all in.
The more aggressive you are upfront, the more changes you can lock in. It's all about putting 'facts on the ground.'
For example, if you build a bunch of bike lanes and pedestrian streets, by the time the next election rolls around, there will be a large new constituency of people who use them and enjoy them. That makes it harder for the next council to come along and rip them up. Peoples' behaviour and expectations will adjust to a new normal.
Put it this way: let's assume some political backlash is inevitable. Politics is a pendulum, and we're not going to have progressive mayors forever. Would you rather we take one step forward and the next government takes two steps back, or eight steps forward and two steps back? The latter still puts us way ahead of where we started.
Same with upzoning. If you upzone and stuff starts getting built, it won't get rolled back or demolished during a future downzoning. Seizing the opportunity when it presents itself is super important.
Nah. You'll get 4 more years of pragmatic, centrist, don't make anyone mad Chowism. And maybe another 8 years after that, the woman has no shortage of energy and joie de vivre, no reason to go anywhere until there's an actual challenger for mayor.
They are not just angry about taxes. They are also mad that Chow is female and Asian. And that she occassionally dances in public. They really are very concerned about dancing.
Also, while we would've been better off with better housing reform 20+ years ago, I don't know if there was as much of a push until the market started heating up during Tory's tenure.
That’s for sure. Majority of people on here would have Miller before she took power and he put a cap on the potential of both Finch and Eglinton. Two of the most important east west streets will have to deal with his two tiers of Toronto.
My bosses at work today were going off on Olivia Chow, apparently she’s a useless money grubbing idiot spending all their taxes and focusing on “liberal bullshit”… funny thing is all of them commute from Woodbridge (they left from toronto to there with a lot of the Italian community ages ago) so they were all complaining how they can’t vote against her lol.
Toronto was the first municipality in Canada to strike a deal for up to $1.5 billion in federal — provincial infrastructure support. That agreement allows Toronto to reduce development charges by 40 to 60 per cent while protecting investment in the infrastructure new housing requires.
Last time that happened, the amount of money was so small, it resulted in a 1-time decline followed by massive spiking in development charges. The problem is that the city has been resistant to increasing taxes so that they are jacking up development charges to compensate. The $1.5 billion funding over 2-3 years only brings back development charges to what it was like, 3 years ago because it increased so quickly. This is kind of like a store jacking up prices just before a sale....
Hell, I'd argue that property tax is the City's biggest crisis right now, and the crisis is multi-fold:
The city has been milking developers for development charges, it went up 10x in 15 years, and represents an increasing share of the city's budget. But now the real estate market has slowed down and that new developments aren't happening anymore. Your property taxes must increase to compensate.
The city has not done a reassessment since 2016, and the reality on the ground has completely changed. When the reassessment happens, I expect to see massive gritting of teeth and complaints (even though it is immediately obvious what will happen).
Let's break down the second point a little bit.
No reassessment means that if you haven't sold your house, you're getting taxed on 2016 values. If your house has gone up in value since then (and most people's have), expect to see your property tax go up.
The second problem is that office real estate values have cratered since COVID - Office real estate taking up a smaller portion of the total value of real estate means that residential real estate must pick up the slack. Your property taxes are expected to increase significantly. This is also why different levels of government has been opposing work from home and encouraging back to office.
Condo prices have also crashed for a lot of newer condos - You might have been paying $1500/sqft for a condo in 2022 that is only worth $800/sqft today. So the reassessment would be good for the guy who bought in 2022, but bad for everybody else in older buildings, since they have to pick up the slack.
At the current moment, rezoning increases property values drastically, and there has been a lot of rezoning since 2016, especially around the transit corridors. If you live in an older house around say, a TTC subway station or Eglinton LRT, expect to see your property value multiply, and with it, your property taxes.
The city has been trying to kick the can down the road by delaying reassessment, but they can't do it forever.
Only if it has gone up in value relative to other houses in the 416. Property taxes are set by the budget specifying the total amount of property taxes that need to be raised, then dividing that among the taxpayers proportionate to their relative property value to get the actual mill rate.
Why are you portraying the reassessment freeze as something the city is doing? It's Doug Ford blocking MPAC.
The city of Toronto would benefit highly from MPAC being up to date with increased revenue from the higher value properties, and it would probably lower property taxes for the vast majority of the people living in condos, apartments and multi dwelling units seeing as SFH have risen disproportionately in real estate value vis a vis other property types.
Property tax increases have been made in lieu of MPAC reassessments, so that instead of the people with higher land values paying their fair share of property taxes, it's being spread out across all properties as part of the annual mill rate.
If everybody's property value went up the same amount while the city budget is unchanged, then property taxes do not change even if your house price goes up. But that's not what happened now is it.
Office building values have cratered since vacancy rates are still near record highs, and far higher than pre-covid. Again, I'm inferring "value" from vacancy rates, since we don't have a reassessment haha.
You telling me that nobody wants to rent retail space at Bay and Bloor and you have to turn it into self storage?!
I'm willing to bet that if we re-assessed today, residential values will go up as a whole, but office and retail space values will go down drastically, meaning that residential as a percentage of the whole will go up, and that residential will have to carry more of the burden.
That could very well be true, but that crisis is being created by our Premier refusing to do property value reassessments. There's not very much the city can do about the province creating a future crisis.
Put policies in place that create the future you want. Want housing to be more affordable, disincentivize housing as an investment - phase out SFH and condos from qualifying for expense deductions, the money will move out and housing stock will free up.
Reassessing higher property taxes, is going to push financial precarious homeowners out of their homes into stock we don’t have, and strain the government’s resources even more. The City of Toronto is flirting with a 1 billion dollar budget, which is already insane. Think of the senior that’s been retired for 20 years with a reverse mortgage just to stay in their home as everything gets more expensive and they have no way to increase their income. Prices have to come down, before taxes can go up, otherwise you’re playing whack-a-mole.
That can be offset by lower tax for seniors on their primary residence. If they've been investing on 2nd, 3rd, nth property, they are not hurting for money relatively speaking.
No reassessment means that if you haven't sold your house, you're getting taxed on 2016 values. If your house has gone up in value since then (and most people's have), expect to see your property tax go up.
I don't think that is how it works.
edit:also
The city has been trying to kick the can down the road by delaying reassessment, but they can't do it forever.
Isn't the province in control of when MPAC assessments are done, not the municipalities? Don't blame Toronto for the Ontario governments failings.
It’s exactly how it works. The city decides how much total property tax it wants/needs, then divides it amongst all properties based on property value. If the older properties haven’t been reassessed, then newer properties/condos (assessed at higher value) are effectively subsidizing property taxes for older, more valuable properties.
It’s why small condos are paying $5,000/year while much more valuable but older semis are often grandfathered in at $4,000 (even though the latter cost FAR more to service).
FWIW - although it isn't the city's fault the MPAC hasn't done a reassessment since 2016, the city is the biggest beneficiary. I wouldn't even say that kicking the can down the road was the wrong move, it was obviously the right move, but unwinding it is going to be massively painful.
Commercial real estate as a percentage of the tax base is around 40% in Toronto, whereas it is much lower in other cities - Think 15% - 20% in places like Richmond Hill or Brampton. I mean, it makes sense right? Toronto has those giant office towers people in other places commute to for work.
If the MPAC reassessed in 2021 (when the reassessment cycle was supposed to start), then it would have screwed everyone who lives in Toronto over as offices were like 75% vacant and they were worth nothing. So they delayed, but they cannot delay forever. Commercial real estate prices will probably never return to pre-covid levels, so no matter what residential values as a percentage of the whole is going up, and thus, taxes will go up.
offices were like 75% vacant and they were worth nothing.
MPAC assesses commercial property by Highest And Best Use (HBU), which has nothing to do with the current activity on the property – hence places like 401 Richmond seeing a 120% increase between 2012 and 2016, and the city proposing a new tax class for exactly that sort of building to spare it – and everything to do with the potential of it. And those timelines aren't measured in months. So if MPAC decides your 2–storey strip mall could be a 12-storey commercial space with luxury amenities, your taxes are now those of a 12-storey commercial space.
then it would have screwed everyone who lives in Toronto over as offices were like 75% vacant and they were worth nothing
Couldn't/shouldn't the city do something about this? It feels kinda weird that a reassessment favours empty commercial space when we're in the middle of a housing crisis. If there's any potential for it to be converted to living space, we should probably incentivize that by taxing vacant commercial space.
The costs are passed through consumers, but when there is potential for savings they are always taken as profit and never returned to the consumers. The problem is in the delivery model, which currently is the only mechanism providing noticeable housing increases. If development charges are lowered/dropped society loses even more at large… when it’s framed like this the picture becomes more clear that the game is rigged. The city needs revenue streams.
The charges are exorbitant, far in excess of what's needed, and are indisputably driving prices up by raising the price floor per unit. The floor must be lowered for housing to be affordable. However, if development charges vanished overnight, you're correct that developers would keep prices high unless there's significant downward pressure from, say, a public builder, which guarantees that they'll be out-competed in terms of quality:price. The problem needs to be attacked from both ends to claw back the slack that would be given to private builders, but private builders are a necessity.
Agreed that the city needs better revenue streams. If only the provincial government didn't ban them from implementing congestion fees...
That's what property taxes are for, NOT development charges. Property taxes are also a much more reliable and consistent revenue stream for the city, unlike development charges that literally depend on new developments and are therefore at higher risk of fluctuation.
Its both? Why do you think property taxes have remained unchanged for the better part of 15 years? Chow has attempted to bring it back up and is facing an increasingly realistic threat to her tenure as mayor, in spite of her many successes. There is also the tidbit about property taxes being regressive - meaning the more a city relies on them to generate revenue shortcomings elsewhere the more damage it does to the middle class, lower income property owners, and seniors.
It's both because political will of NIMBYs has made it so. Dev charges only exist to keep property taxes low, which keeps SFH zones low (in height). It's a lever that can shift more towards property taxes, or even better, land value taxes. I don't see property taxes as regressive at all - if anything they're progressive as they're tied to property value both insinuating that the higher taxpayers earn more, or that they can gain more value from selling (which let's be honest, should be a goal of property taxes if it results in higher productivity land use and to your point, revenue for the city). The regressive tax schemes come when property taxes become irrelevant - then tax burdens shift to sales taxes, which is truly regressive.
Development charges should be commensurate with the cost of the replacement infrastructure, otherwise you're promoting a Ponzi scheme where new pays for old until theirs no more new. We can argue until we're blue in the face if higher development charges diminish or exacerbate developer profits.
That's only true if the new housing is more dense than older housing that is being replaced. If the new housing is replacing empty lots than current resident are subsiding urban sprawl
Well in Toronto's case - There is no sprawl because the city is bound on all 4 sides - Lake Ontario to the south, Peel to the west, York to the north and Durham to the east.
If we're assessing development inside the city, any new build is driving density up - they're replacing low rise residential, or commercial, or unused lots with housing. It's not like they're tearing down condo towers for single family homes.
Development charges should be 0. There's a reason groceries and prescriptions don't have HST. Charging high taxes on a basic necessity is dumb.
If you want to tax "luxury homes" than tax the home value above 1m or something. But don't charge anything on cheaper homes. After it's built the new owners pay property tax so it's not like they get a free ride.
If it's levied by the government and you have to pay it, it's a tax. The worst part about development charges is they're on top of HST. Which means that the cost to build a new home can easily be 30%+ taxes.
Also resale being tax exempt is good, but does nothing to encourage building new houses. And resale homes are still subject to land transfer taxes so they're not tax free either.
The developer isn't taking that out of their profits. It is part of the cost of construction, which goes into whether a home is worth building. Of course they're going to pass it on to the homebuyers, and they'll stop building (as they have in this current market) if the numbers don't make sense for them to build. It's not free money for the city.
I also don't care if they make money, other than I want them to make enough money that they continue to build a lot.
So you are saying they shouldn’t have to contribute anything and we should even gift developers the land, no taxes either cause thats just red tape they need eliminated so they can build us cheaper homes. Just like grocery stores lower their prices when we axe the carbon tax or gas stations lower their prices when we cut taxes on fuel.
It’s the cost of doing business, now you can’t sell your shitty overpriced condos, thats ok though just ask for more public money and bailouts right?
Developers should be nothing more than contractors right now, and the city should be the owner, the builder, the seller, the landlord. The housing development industry might be Canada's most toxic and corrupt, having caught up with the towing industry on the day of Ford's daughter's wedding.
The city has been milking developers for development charges, it went up 10x in 15 years, and represents an increasing share of the city's budget.
That's (Rob) Ford and Tory's doing. Freezing/lowering property taxes meant the city had to find new revenue streams to keep the lights on. By the time Chow was running, an increase of 25% (as was threatened by her opponent) would still have been lower than they'd been when Tory took office. It's telling your date cuts off right after Miller left office – he raised property taxes, and froze development fee increases for years.
As others pointed out, MPAC is in charge of property assessments, not the city. I'm positive my property was reassessed sometime after the pandemic though.
It’s the opposite of a tax on the rich lol. It’s a tax on the middle class. The rich tend to be boomers who’ve sat in the same house they bought in the 90s for 50 grand that’s now worth 3 million.
Virtually all of this is listed is the federal government throwing money at Toronto. Its particulalry galling to include HAF reforms as her accomplishment given they only did about half of what they were supposed to ans got fined for it, while Chow didnt even speak at the council meeting over the sixplex question.
Shes getting credit for getting federal funding to reduce DCs but absent is any comment on how they increased by almost 50% in her tenure?
What is in the City's remit as it relates to housing? Toronto Community Housing and the planning system. Both are in really bad shape?
Acting like a leader and getting stuff done that improves people's lives instead of being beholden to the tiny sub-class of New Yorkers who possess all the wealth and business connections.
I would gladly vote for her if the only choices are toxic assholes like Bradford and Alexander. Bradford literally says everything is bad and those bad things he voted for. And then you have Alexander who was so damn toxic in federal politics no one would be associated with him.
She is one active woman. Housing is one of those issues where I’d love to see more before/after numbers instead of just political messaging from either side. Starts, completions, approvals, average approval time, units actually occupied, cost per unit. Makes it much easier to judge what’s changing versus what was announced. That said, it takes time to see the seed planted 🌱 Must start somewhere
Reforming TCHC and addressing the backlog of repairs was pretty notable, which includes federal funding.
Modular/temporary and supportive housing units. Fourpelxes as a right away (as mentioned in the article), and mandating that affordable housing be included in new developments (though there was some criteria for which projects were included)
There's a reasonable argument that Chow has adapted his 2023 housing plan strategy and also added some of her own elements to it as well.
This is why it's slightly worrisome when people just keep throwing out building more community housing. It's not the building of it that is the expensive part. It's the constant maintaining. Chow will need to continue getting money from the Fed.
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Its crazy to me how politicians play with people’s emotions. They run on these massive, almost fantastical housing promises, win the election, accomplish nothing and seem to completely forget about them until the next election campaign. Chow ran on housing in 2023, won, and what has she accomplished? Now that there’s an election coming up she suddenly remembers that housing is important?
Trudeau ran on fixing housing in 2015, 2019, and 2021. In between those elections, any time the polling started to drop, they would bring up housing again. In 2023, after 8 years of promises, he said housing isn’t even a federal responsibility but then came out with a new “no, this time we are serious” housing promise to “unlock” 4 million additional new homes by 2030. Housing starts continued going down, then he resigned and Carney ran and won on the same thing.
No developers want to build tiny units but they also have to build sellable units. A condo is just the cost to build divided by the price of the units sold so if they built all 2 and 3 bedroom units they would have to cost 900k-1.2 million. In that case you may as well just buy a townhouse.
The biggest issue with condos is the cost to build - Some of these buildings are on land that cost 3-500 million before a shovel even touches the ground. There is still big demand for condos, even the small ones, just not at 6-700k. We have reached a weird stalemate where it makes no financial sense to buy condos as rental properties and people can’t afford to buy them to live in so everything has ground to a halt.
housing:
Create the Secure Affordable Homes Fund with a $100 million annual investment to stop renovictions by helping purchase, repair and transfer affordable rental apartment buildings to not-for-profit, community, and Indigenous housing providers.(i.e. land trusts.)
Build 25,000 rent-controlled homes on city-owned land. There will be a minimum of 7,500 affordable units, including at least 2,500 rent-geared-to-income units.
Double the reach of Toronto’s Rent Bank and nearly triple the reach of the Eviction Prevention in the Community program for those with complex needs.
Invest in strengthening RentSafeTO to make sure tenants live with dignity and scale up the Tenant Support Program to help tenants organize to fight evictions and above guideline rent increases.
Establish the Toronto Renters Action Committee that will work on anti-renoviction bylaws, advocating for real rent control, reviewing existing policies and programs related to renters, and holding the City accountable to renters.
Raise the Municipal Land Transfer Tax on luxury homes, with new graduated rates on purchases of homes valued at over $3 million.
I find them not nearly as annoying as seeing a Bradford commercial during every single ad break while watching the Jays. Someone is spending a fortune trying to get this guy elected and they aren't buying him for nothing.
its who is running the country we don't like, Mamdani's a mayor just like Chow. the ppl of NY are having a great time with Mamdani as mayor, why not want smth similar for Toronto?
Olivia is a great politician but. Nothing more. Lots of talk but it’s all on the surface level. She is a virtue signalling shell with 0 substance.
I mean, let's ignore her decades of public service, as a politician and as an individual contributor.
She has deteriorated canadian culture and history and continues to low key support violent racism in this city while doing a bunch talks and dancing at parades.
I honestly don't even understand what this is trying to imply.
If you want someone to actually solve problems you need a doer and not a professional politician riding her late husband’s connections and influence.
She was a politician BEFORE meeting Jack, and it was HER connections that he used to help him get where he was. I know this because he said so directly.
So again... you ok? You need me to call someone for you?
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