Housing Now Initiative

The Housing Now initiative is coordinated through a steering committee comprised of senior staff from the Affordable Housing Office (AHO), City Planning and CreateTO. The first four properties deemed most ready for market offering this fall by the Steering Committee are: 140 Merton St., 777 Victoria Park Avenue, 705 Warden Avenue, and 50 Wilson Heights Boulevard. One or more brokers of record will be retained by June 2019 to support the marketing of the first four sites. The remainder will be marketed in the following two to three years. The Steering Committee, spearheaded by the Director, Affordable Housing Office, has engaged with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation ("CMHC") to ensure their participation through a range of funding and financing programs. In a February letter to Mayor Tory, the CMHC's President confirmed their support and interest in partnering with the City of Toronto in implementing the Housing Now Initiative. In collaboration with City staff, CreateTO has retained multi-disciplinary consultant teams for each of the four priority properties to support due diligence work and the City-initiated rezoning process. Our team is presently organizing the first round of public meetings for each site with input from the local Councillors. These meetings will introduce the Housing Now initiative and begin to solicit stakeholder input on development concepts for each site. The Affordable Housing Office is coordinating the involvement of non-profit housing organizations in the Housing Now Initiative. An introductory meeting was held on February 13, 2019 with a number of non-profit organizations to explore various approaches for the involvement and participation of non-profit and co-operative housing organizations in the 11 sites. This year, 140 Merton will be exclusively offered to non-profit housing organizations. The other three sites offered in 2019 will also provide for non-profit participation. The Affordable Housing Office will continue to work with the non-profit sector to activate the Non-Profit Housing Capacity Fund established through the Housing Now Initiative. CreateTO staff have engaged City divisions and agencies to clarify city-building opportunities to pursue on the properties, in addition to affordable housing. Environmental/geotechnical investigations and approval processes are underway. Draft market research reports (which provide market rents and sales prices and absorption rates for each of the sites) have been received for the four priority properties. This data along with approved densities and height will inform our business cases. The business cases and proposed marketing programs are to be submitted to the Board in September for approval. City and CreateTO staff will report to the CreateTO Board at two key milestones for each property: - Prior to the market offering process - CreateTO Board will review for approval the business case and proposed market offering process. - Prior to finalizing sale/lease agreements - CreateTO Board will review for approval the terms and conditions of the proposed sale/lease agreements with the successful proponent(s).