Ford Gives Toronto $114M For Exceeding Housing Targets

Toronto is being rewarded for exceeding its provincially mandated housing targets, to the tune of $114M.

Premier Doug Ford announced on Thursday that the money would be provided to Toronto through the Ontario government's Building Faster Fund. For 2023, Toronto was given a target of building 20,900 new homes, which the city handily surpassed, seeing 31,656 new housing units break ground last year.

Of the $114M, $38M is an additional bonus for exceeding their target by 51%.

“Toronto has shown it can get it done on housing and we are proud to reward them for their success,” Ford said.

In Thursday's announcement, Ford challenged Toronto May Olivia Chow, along with every mayor in Ontario, to keep building even more homes. Chow appeared to accept the challenge, saying, "We are committed to addressing the housing crisis by building more homes of all kinds, faster. Toronto has an ambitious plan to speed up approval times and build 65,000 rental homes in the coming years. The Building Faster Fund will help us meet and exceed our housing targets and provide the critical infrastructure that creates great neighbourhoods for people to live in."

Toronto, however, is just one of a handful of municipalities to reach their housing target in 2023, let alone surpass it. In fact, just 12 of the 27 cities with annual housing targets hit 100% of their goal, and only another seven hit 80%.

Municipalities that do not reach at least 80% of their annual target are not eligible for money from the Building Faster Fund, a three-year, $1.2B program. The funding reserved for those cities will be redistributed to other municipalities to help build housing-enabling infrastructure, the Ford government confirmed last month. Municipalities will have to apply for this additional funding.

Over the next few weeks, the Province will announce Building Faster Fund rewards for all other municipalities that achieved 80% or more of their targets.