Mayoral candidate Anthony Perruzza announced a plan to build affordable housing fast by adopting a Smart Housing solution that already works, like the Quad at York University. Under Perruzza’s plan, the city can start building housing today, and have units up and running in less than two years.
 

“As Mayor, I will engage the industry in built-form housing projects that have proven to work in Toronto, to solve some of our most urgent affordable housing needs: seniors’ independent living, transitional housing and homeless shelters,” said Perruzza.

The Smart Housing plan is simple:
 

• Provide City of Toronto land sites (including those currenlty allocated to Housing Now) on long term leases;
• Facilitate further cost-savings for builders through property tax breaks and city fee breaks;
• Involve CMHC for loan guarantees to further reduce the costs of building.

“We can quickly build housing that is truly affordable and provide single units at less than $1000/month,” added Perruzza. “This plan is flexible: it can either be built and operated by private operators or by the public sector.”

“Housing Now tried to leverage affordable housing units out of market units through density boosts and development charge breaks.  It doesn’t work,” said Perruzza.  “Bailao and Bradford’s plan hasn’t built a single unit of affordable housing yet, and it won’t for years to come.”

Perruzza pointed out that the city needs to leave bad housing ideas behind and start implementing smart housing solutions that work today.