Featured Guest
You’ll find this guest among our growing roll of Urban Champions.
Gregg Lintern
Director, Community Planning, Toronto & East York District, City Planning Division, City of Toronto
Ana Bailão
Former Deputy Mayor, Toronto
Amanda Gibbs
Public Engagement & Communications Specialist, Vancouver
5 Key Takeaways
A roundup of the most compelling ideas, themes and quotes from this candid conversation
1. Flipping the narrative
Toronto’s Chief Planner Gregg Lintern notes that, “the City of Toronto’s Official Plan contains areas that we call Neighbourhoods. They take up a large portion of our city. This is a real opportunity, I believe, for gradual evolutionary change.” The Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods (EHON) initiative aims to guide that change. Lintern says EHON is about adding, not taking away. More housing choice means more opportunities for families to remain in the neighbourhoods they grew up in and for employees to live close to work. Moving forward on progressive change will require flipping the narrative on neighbourhood character, focusing more on people and less on physical change.
2. Pre-pandemic & post-pandemic cities
According to Michael Lane of SPUR, the pandemic has created a moment where we have become more attentive to climate change, sustainability, housing crises and the impacts of systemic racism. Conversations around density and neighbourhood character are tough but necessary to have for Canadian cities to truly become places of diversity and opportunity. Toronto’s Deputy Mayor Ana Bailão foresees a pre-pandemic and a post-pandemic Toronto. As the city attracts people, investment and economic growth will have long lasting social impacts.
3. Dig into the worry
Adding density has spurred polarizing conversations across Canada’s major metropoles, but climate change has revealed we cannot avoid it. Amanda Gibbs, Engagement Advisor with the City of Vancouver, calls on city-builders not to be dismissive of the concerns and fears of low-density neighbourhood residents and to dig into the worry. City-builders must listen with empathy to determine the overlapping interests between residents and incoming populations. This will be essential to shift attitudes around neighbourhood change in a way that mitigates residents’ worries.
4. Mapping joy
Gibbs and the City of Vancouver have begun to map joy. Dubbed “joy data,” city planners are using it to get a sense of where people connect to each other and their environment. Gibbs calls this non-traditional form of data absolute gold. Neighbourhoods consist of complex webs of social relations and physical features. Joy data will allow city-builders to develop a better sense of the common ground that different segments of the population enjoy, whether they are newcomers or multigenerational Canadians.
5. Tying in equity
At the core of expanding housing options in Canadian cities is the moral imperative to improve equitable outcomes for entire communities. There was consensus among the panel on the need for leadership as well as grassroots engagement. “Leadership matters on this and moral clarity for people who are willing to stand up on this to bring our community together,” says Lane. Lintern speaks to the importance of bringing in historically marginalized voices. Community organizations are already tackling issues of housing at the ground level. Equity can be improved by tapping into this leadership and their existing initiatives. Lintern calls for having those champions at the table in order to build a city for all.
Additional Resources
Opticos Design, Inc – Missing Middle Housing: https://missingmiddlehousing.com/
Urbanarium: https://urbanarium.org/
Urbanarium – The Missing Middle Competition: https://urbanarium.org/missing-middle-competition-completed
Uytae Lee’s About Here: https://www.abouthere.ca/
Toronto’s Pro-Housing Movement: https://www.moreneighbours.ca/
Full Panel
Transcript
Note to readers: This video session was transcribed using auto-transcribing software. Manual editing was undertaken in an effort to improve readability and clarity. Questions or concerns with the transcription can be directed to events@canurb.org with “transcription” in the subject line.
Full Audience
Chatroom Transcript
Note to reader: Chat comments have been edited for ease of readability. The text has not been edited for spelling or grammar. For questions or concerns, please contact events@canurb.org with “Chat Comments” in the subject lin
From Canadian Urban Institute: You can find transcripts and recordings of today’s and all our webinars at https://canurb.org/citytalk
00:18:17 Jamie, Canadian Urban Institute (she/her): Welcome! Folks, please change your chat settings to “everyone” so everyone can see your comments. Attendees: where are you tuning in from today?
00:18:35 Abigail Slater (she/her): Hello from Takaronto!
00:18:46 Gabriela Masfarre: Good afternoon, Gabriela from Takaronto!
00:18:53 Elizabeth Bang: Hamilton!
00:18:55 Melissa Routley: Hello from Toronto
00:19:00 Kary Fell: Kelowna, BC
00:19:00 Andrea Betty: Penetanguishene
00:19:05 Derek Giberson: Oshawa, Ontario
00:19:05 Stephen Yu: Edmonton, AB
00:19:08 Dan Livesey: Hi from Oshawa
00:19:09 Carolyn Whitzman: Hi from Kichisippi (Ottawa)
00:19:10 Laura Wall: Laura from London!
00:19:12 Robin McPherson: Hello from St. Catharines
00:19:13 Dennis Jacobs: From Ottawa
00:19:19 Karyn Kipper: Hello from Waterloo Region!
00:19:21 Marlene Tamaki: Beautiful day today in Vancouver!
00:19:36 Abigail Slater (she/her): Sending good wishes and thoughts to our fellow folx out west.
00:19:55 Meeri Durand: Hello from City of Castlegar and the unceded territories of the Sinixt, Ktunaxa, Secwepemc, and Sylix
00:20:21 Maggie Glasgow: Hello from icy Edmonton, AB
00:20:22 Canadian Urban Institute: HOUSEKEEPING: • A friendly zoom reminder, you can see and hear us but we can’t see or hear you • We have French/English interpretation enabled for today’s session. Please click on the globe at the bottom of your screen and select the language in which you’d like to hear today’s session • We are recording today’s session and will share it online at www.citytalkcanada.ca • We hope this session is as interactive as possible, so please feel free to share comments, references, links or questions in the chat
00:20:52 Harriet Stanford: Good morning from Whitehorse, on the territory of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation and Ta’an Kwach’an
00:22:32 Canadian Urban Institute: Gregg Lintern, Chief Planner and Executive Director, City Planning, Toronto As Chief Planner for the City of Toronto, Gregg is committed to leading the City Planning Division and making Toronto more liveable, inclusive and adapted for all people. His priorities include meaningfully responding to the housing affordability challenge, growing the transit network across the entire City, proactively planning complete and well-designed communities to support population and employment growth, integrating climate adaption and modernizing planning services.
00:22:37 Linda Weichel: Hello from within the boundaries of the Toronto Purchase Treaty lands #13.
00:22:43 Canadian Urban Institute: In his over 37 years in municipal planning across the breadth of the City, Gregg has lead great multidisciplinary teams achieving housing policy transformation, neighbourhood scale redevelopment, new planning frameworks and transit facilities, high profile redevelopment projects, heritage planning and public realm redesign. Gregg believes planning is about imagining the city you aspire it to be for everyone and then setting out to help nurture and create it so that it becomes a better, more equitable place for future generations.
00:24:23 Allison Kirk-Montgomery: Hi from Downtown Toronto.
00:24:40 Mike Fabro: Hi from London!
00:25:01 Michael Lane: Missing Middle Housing https://missingmiddlehousing.com/
00:27:13 Abigail Slater (she/her): I understand the intensification of certain areas in the Official Plan, but what I don’t understand, is how we can continue to intensify without expanding transit (Eglinton and Yonge corridor).
00:27:56 Nicholas Gallant: Hi everyone, Nicholas Gallant (Deputy Mayor Bailao’s Office) here, and I’m working from home on the top floor of a triplex in Dufferin Grove neighbourhood, Davenport Ward, Toronto.
00:28:55 Elizabeth Bang: Agreed with Abigail – we’ve been looking into this as well at the City of Mississauga. Overwhelming community feedback on this so far have encouraged staff to look into permitting missing middle forms near existing and planned transit as much as possible.
00:30:29 Abigail Slater (she/her): Thanks @ELizabeth Also have found that converting single family homes to multiple units is MUCH harder than converting multi unit homes (in certain areas) into single family. It should be the opposite.
00:31:00 Abigail Slater (she/her): There is a mismatch between practice and theory.
00:31:05 Carolyn Whitzman: I like that location Nicholas. I’m working from my home, one of four townhouses where there was a single family house. Which is great. But the single family house was a rooming house and the townhouses are expensive. So that is not so great. How to bake affordable housing into zoning change is the challenge!
00:31:30 Nathan Rogers: How do you reasonably get public laneways on numerous private parcels? Seems somewhat unrealistic
00:32:38 Tahereh GranpayehVaghei: The question of affordability can also help bring better justifications into this
00:33:10 Canadian Urban Institute: Deputy Mayor Ana Bailão Deputy Mayor Ana Bailão serves as City Councillor for Ward 9 (Davenport). She has been a member of Toronto City Council since 2010 and was re-elected in 2018. As well as serving as a Deputy Mayor, she is the Chair of the Planning and Housing Committee, one of the City’s four critical decision making committees along with being a member of the City’s Executive Committee. She chairs the Corporations Nominating Panel and is also a member of the board of the Toronto Community Housing Corporation and “CreateTO.” Deputy Mayor Bailão also represents the City of Toronto at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities where she chairs the Social Economic Development Committee.
00:33:25 Canadian Urban Institute: Deputy Mayor Bailão studied Sociology at the University of Toronto and completed the Directors Education Program, a joint program of the Institute of Corporate Directors and the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, knowledge she now brings to the boards upon which she serves on behalf of the City of Toronto. With her return to Toronto City Council in 2018, Deputy Mayor Bailão has continued her central role within the City’s government where she is recognized as a decisive, innovative and compassionate decision-maker at Toronto City Council while remaining devoted to serving the Ward 9 (Davenport) community where she grew up and continues to live.
00:34:34 Stephen Tyler: Agree that affordability is an important lens but experience has been that gentle densification does not help affordability. Vancouver has lots of experience here where broad increases in allowable density have only led to higher land values passed along in unit prices. So while housing configuration becomes more diverse, residents don’t
00:36:50 Carolyn Whitzman: not inevitable tho, Stephen. See Cambridge US https://www.cambridgema.gov/CDD/housing/housingdevelopment/aho
00:36:54 Nathan Rogers: @Stephen Tyler – interesting, good to know that gentle density doesn’t = improved affordability. I mean why would it? Anyone building gentle density must carry capital debt and needs to pay if off
00:37:30 Carolyn Whitzman: Or Portland (but it won’t happen without explicit policy) https://www.sightline.org/2020/08/11/on-wednesday-portland-will-pass-the-best-low-density-zoning-reform-in-us-history/
00:38:22 Stephen Tyler: Cambridge has limited density increases to non-profit or affordable housing. But has anything been built under these rules? You can restrict who can build density, but then do you get any new units?
00:38:45 Tahereh GranpayehVaghei: Great points! Density bonusing can be a powerful tool for affordable housing supply.
00:39:42 Carolyn Whitzman: @Stephen, if you scroll down you’ll see 500+ units in the pipeline, not bad for a major by-law change a few months ago.
00:39:43 Abigail Slater (she/her): The building of lower density affordable housing needs to be underpinned by financial instruments of some sort…whether fiscal or other….and at various levels of government as well
00:39:47 Canadian Urban Institute: Michael Lane, State Policy Director, SPUR Michael has an extensive background in housing development, local government, public policy, legislation, politics & campaigns. Prior to joining SPUR, he worked for Silicon Valley at Home, the Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California (NPH), and Self-Help Enterprises (SHE), the oldest and largest nonprofit developer of affordable self-help housing in the US. He served as a regional whip on California’s successful 2002 Proposition 46 and 2006 Proposition 1C statewide bond campaigns, the largest affordable housing bonds in the nation at that time. Michael was a member of the Advisory Committee for the State of California’s 2014 Affordable Housing Cost Study and has also served on the Board of Directors of Housing California and the Board of Governors of the California Housing Consortium. Michael has worked in local government and held elective office as a school board member and city council member. He speaks, reads and writes the Spanish language fluently.
00:41:24 Elizabeth Bang: The affordability of gentle intensification is something we’ve been mindful of as well. Most times, these missing middle products are being rented or sold for at-market or above market prices. So more choice in housing form and location is provided, but only for a particular income segment. Therefore we anticipate the missing middle planning tool would need to be combined with other things such as financial incentives, program implementation, etc.
00:43:09 Sandra Miller: Also important to facilitate options like co-ops, co-housing, 2/3/4plex conversions, lot severances, etc
00:44:45 Abigail Slater (she/her): Agree 100% with Sandra!
00:45:04 Malcolm MacLean: There’s a fundamental challenge with looking for new private market housing construction to drive prices down (as per Vancouver’s experience referenced above) – except for some inclusionary units that larger developments may be able to deliver (small MM scale development tends to have the tightest margins), newly built housing will be the most expensive units in their class (compared to older stock). We need senior government funding to create a large enough supply of new units priced meaningfully enough below market to slow price acceleration. It’s a bit of an underwhelming message, but we can be transparent about the reality that municipal moves to reduce barriers (like the rezoning process) to new housing creation are critical to avoid exacerbating the problem, and making it easy for Sr. Gov funded programs if/when they turn toward funding family units in smaller scale projects like MM housing – in the meantime, we’re at least not constraining the ability of market oriented housing to respond to demand.
00:45:22 Craig Ruttan: Hi all, Craig Ruttan from the Toronto Region Board of Trade here. Agree that missing middle is not a silver bullet, but it is an important tool to accommodate growth. Preserving existing multiplexes, making it easier to convert/build new ones will lead to units that are less expensive than existing single-unit houses – which is not the only metric of affordability we need to work for, but important not to lose sight of.
00:47:20 Abigail Slater (she/her): I’m not sensing that our current provincial government is against sprawl…or is interested in filling this segment…nor are the developers.
00:48:08 Carolyn Whitzman: I agree, @craig and with Michael, zoning to meet housing need is essential. but it needs to run in parallel with a set of incentives (tax, development charges and maybe density bonuses) to incentivize social including coop.
00:48:47 Sandra Miller: Soft City published by Island Press is an inspiring book: https://islandpress.org/books/soft-city
00:49:54 Canadian Urban Institute: Amanda Gibbs, Engagement Advisor, Vancouver Plan, City of Vancouver Amanda Gibbs is a specialist in participatory civic and place-making engagement, having worked on projects throughout Canada and around the world. She was the former lead for civic engagement for the City of Vancouver (2016-2019), and is currently an advisor to Vancouver’s planning department on the first city-wide planning effort in a generation. In 2022, she will be joining Vancouver’s Park Board (the only elected board in Canada) to lead development of a new engagement framework.
00:50:35 Craig Ruttan: Agreed Carolyn – all those tools you mentioned are needed, plus more.
00:50:53 Abigail Slater (she/her): ^^
00:53:29 Sandra Miller: Yes to incentives and streamlining processes/applications!
00:56:38 Abigail Slater (she/her): And councillors with very different priorities too.
00:56:48 Leandro Santos: https://urbanarium.org/
00:56:59 Nelson Edwards: The trouble is that the middle is missing because of the pressures of high-rise. Inner city areas as well as some suburban mix-use nodes may have mid to low rise zoning but 28, 32 and 42 storey towers are being proposed and approved through variance or zoning amendment. The rest, for other communities is the pressure for tighter and tighter ground oriented but the delay of mid density mid height.
00:57:05 Simona Chiose: Along with fiscal tools to incentivize 2 – 4 plexes, legalizing / grandfathering existing duplexes may help to retain existing missing middle. In practice, zoning regulations push to conversion of plexes to single family rather than maintain.
00:58:38 Canadian Urban Institute: For the work of Uytae Lee: https://www.abouthere.ca/
00:59:11 Sandra Miller: Zoning application changes to convert multi plex back to / into fewer units definitely needs to be addressed.
01:01:49 Abigail Slater (she/her): I have always found that neighborhood resistance to any change at all is contrary to allowing families to stay and evolve and grow. It only means that you continue to price existing residents out of their own homes.
01:02:58 Sandra Miller: Would love to hear more from Amanda about the engagement / discussion process with residents in existing neighbourhoods.
01:05:14 Carolyn Whitzman: I agree, Sandra
01:05:51 Sandra Miller: Joy data! 👏
01:06:05 Nathan Rogers: 😀
01:07:32 Nathan Rogers: staying in place has value to people
01:10:21 Canadian Urban Institute: YIMBY = Yes in my neighbourhood.
01:11:04 Abigail Slater (she/her): As long as BIA’s are highly resistant to small additions to remain in neighbourhoods…whether granny suites or aide worker suites…it becomes hard to remain in neighbourhoods.
01:11:29 Lynda Lawson: I think that is an important that we also don’t forget that our population is aging and we need to incorporate more accessibility in housing as well as increased density.
01:11:40 Abigail Slater (she/her): 100% Lynda
01:11:52 Canadian Urban Institute: Keep the conversation going #citytalk @canurb You can find transcripts and recordings of today’s and all our sessions at https://www.canurb.org/citytalk CUI extends a big thank you the City of Toronto for partnering on today’s session, as well as to TD for their support on CityTalk.
01:12:49 Canadian Urban Institute: COMING UP: Join us next week on Dec 7 for information sessions on two of our granting projects, The Healthy Communities Initiative and My Main Street. At 1pm, The Healthy Communities Initiative (HCI) will be hosting a Mobilization Session on how to activate parks during the winter season. Facilitated by Stephanie Stanov and Rachel Yanchyshyn from Park People, along with guests from three inspiring HCI projects, the discussion will focus on the many creative ways communities are getting people outside. Learn more and register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Mt23PipPQHCXxUGyF1RxWA
01:12:52 Abigail Slater (she/her): ***Meant Resident Associations…not BIAs
01:12:59 Dustin Carey: This is the first I’ve heard of BIAs being against ADUs. What’s the rationale there Abagail?
01:12:59 Canadian Urban Institute: Then at 2pm, My Main Street will be hosting a session on how to apply to the Community Activator program. This is your opportunity to learn more about My Main Street and how to apply for funding. We’ll share examples of projects that are eligible, walk you through eligibility criteria and the application process and answer any questions you have. Register here: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_am6ek4YJQyambgosqfUfcA
01:13:18 Sandra Miller: Abigail: Why would BIAs be against additions?? Wondering if you mean community / neighbourhood associations?
01:13:25 Abigail Slater (she/her): @dustin…corrected above!!!
01:13:31 Dustin Carey: Thanks!
01:13:34 Abigail Slater (she/her): YES…my error!
01:14:04 Sandra Miller: Thnx Abigail! 😀
01:15:04 Sam Wong: For those interested in a local YIMBY group, see https://www.moreneighbours.ca/ (Website down right now.)
01:15:26 Simona Chiose: 100% Gregg Lintern.
01:15:43 Sandra Miller: Story telling & story sharing! 👏
01:16:21 Abigail Slater (she/her): Great session…thank you all! Thank you Mary and CUI
01:16:33 Malcolm MacLean: Thanks so much for putting this on!
01:16:38 Carolyn Whitzman: Good conversation, thanks!
01:16:40 Sandra Miller: Thank you everyone!
01:16:41 Janice Wilder: Great, thanks!
01:16:43 Nathan Rogers: thanks!
01:16:44 Robin McPherson: Really great session!
01:16:45 Abigail Slater (she/her): stay safe everyone!
01:16:55 Mark Guslits: Thanks, great stuff
01:16:57 Melissa Routley: Thank you, fantastic session.
01:17:04 Stephen Cremin-Endes: Awesome! Thank you!
01:17:04 Linda Weichel: Thank you!
01:17:07 Dustin Carey: Thanks all!
01:17:09 Holden Blue: Thank you everyone! Great session as always!
01:17:10 Emily Herd: Great year of information, thank you!
01:17:11 Joe Loreto: Thanks everyone! Great discussion.
01:17:18 dan schumacher: Do this again soon please
01:17:22 Michael Lane: Thank you!
01:17:31 Gesine Alders: Thank you for a great conversation!
