How six retailers could help solve Toronto’s housing crisis

They already provide beer, hardware and groceries. Now a University of Toronto study is suggesting that some of Toronto’s favourite stores could also hold the key to the city’s housing crisis, including the need for more affordable shelter.

Six major retailers — Choice REIT, Sobeys, Metro, the Beer Store, Ikea and Canadian Tire — have enough land to accommodate the construction of 68,579 homes, according to the university’s School of Cities.

The study found that if only 10 per cent of those units were designated affordable, that would add 7,000 homes to the city’s affordable stock.

Many of those units would be larger, family-friendly homes rather than the studio and one-bedrooms that currently dominate the market, said Matti Siemiatycki, director of the school’s Infrastructure Institute.

The report says it will be up to government to steer the majority of affordable housing development, but retail redevelopment that incorporates residential uses is already a trend. It notes that Choice REIT has proposals for transit-oriented developments in the Golden Mile near Eglinton Avenue and the Don Valley Parkway, Riverdale and Mount Dennis.

What surprised the researchers was the vast potential of retailers to help solve the housing shortage, said Siemiatycki, who called the study “an illustration of what is possible.”

Even though Toronto is on the right track in redeveloping these commercial sites, there is a missing sense of urgency, he said.

“There are these huge retail locations, many of them concentrated in a small number of firms that are very large that are often legacy properties, meaning they own them outright. (They) are on main avenues, close to transit, often not disrupting existing neighbourhoods and less central for community pushback.”

Toronto needs a transparent dialogue about the community benefits that should accrue when developers want to add density to a site. In Vancouver, there is some standardization around rates and the additional value that accrues to both the developer and the public, said Siemiatycki.

Much of the infrastructure to build more affordable homes is in place in Toronto but the city’s pace isn’t going to get it to the goal of 40,000 affordable rentals and 4,000 affordable ownership units by 2030, he said.

The report recommends the city re-evaluate its criteria for development applications that encourage partnerships with non-profit and public agencies, co-opt communities into the development process so there is less opposition to density, and consider more financial incentives to encourage the construction of affordable homes.

The study, “Rethinking Retail Land Portfolios: How to Grow Housing Supply,” was done in partnership with Esri Canada, which builds mapping platforms. That allowed for better visualization of the retail sites and to overlay them with zoning information.

Because the researchers wanted to look specifically at underused sites, land that already had midrise or highrise buildings or was subject to a development proposal wasn’t included. Flood plain sites were also excluded.

The number of affordable homes was calculated to be 10 per cent of the overall potential housing that could be built on 65 sites that met the researchers’ criteria.

Those sites could also accommodate about 700,000 square metres of green space and 800,000 square metres of non-residential development for retail, institutional and community uses.

Other findings included:

The study imagined the redevelopment of three downtown sites that could all incorporate the stores already in those locations, homes, green space and other amenities. They were:

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