Toronto City Council has voted in favour of moving forward with amending City policies to allow for more mid-density housing – also referred to as 'missing middle' housing – in local neighbourhoods.
Last week, City Council approved a plan that will create more housing opportunities in Toronto neighbourhoods, including 'missing middle' housing, which is defined as unit types that fall between a single detached or semi-detached house and a high-rise building.
This comes after the Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) urged the various levels of government to expand local housing supply and to specifically supply a greater variety of mid-density housing types.
READ: TRREB Urging Governments to Expand Housing Supply in Relief Plan
Prior to their vote, City Council considered a report from City staff titled Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods that laid out principles and a process for developing new policies to allow for more housing options in Toronto's "yellow belt", which refers to the 35% of the City designated as "neighbourhoods", of which, 70% allow for only detached housing.
TRREB, which has consistently called for the creation of more housing options in the City to increase housing supply, says it applauds local councillors for their support in moving forward with the process to amend city policies.
“TRREB believes that housing affordability challenges in the City of Toronto are largely a result of inadequate and inappropriate housing supply and mix. The best long-term solution to housing affordability is to increase the supply of available housing and to encourage a more balanced mix of housing types, especially the “missing middle”, said Lisa Patel, TRREB president in a statement.
The next step in this process will be for the City to conduct consultations before developing detailed policies to move ahead with this initiative. TRREB will be monitoring this issue closely and participate in consultations.
