Withdrawal of Appeal Against City of Toronto Affordable Housing Bylaw

By Dawar Naeem
Dawar is a Community Journalist with FOCUS MEDIA ARTS CENTRE

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023, a coalition of community groups held at press conference at City Hall to celebrate developers withdrawal of appeal against a City of Toronto Affordable Housing By-law. These groups included Friends of Kensington Market, Lakeshore Affordable Housing Advocacy and Action Group, Build A Better Bloor Dufferin, Regent Park Neighbourhood Association, Parkdale People’s Economy, Toronto Community Benefits Network, the West End Coalition for Housing Justice, BOLD Coalition and ACORN. The following is a little background information related to the press conference.

After years of assessment, the City of Toronto revised its affordable housing bylaw in 2021 to ensure all development that receives municipal incentives and credits for being "affordable" housing are actually affordable to the average Torontonian by using income to define affordability, rather than market rents. The new bylaw sets rent for an affordable bachelor unit, for example, at $812 a month, which the average single person in Toronto can afford. Similarly, the new bylaw would set rent for an affordable one-bedroom at $1,090.

In September 2022, developers from across Toronto filed overlapping, separate appeals against the City of Toronto's new affordable housing bylaw. The appeal was filed by developers including Minto, Dunpar, Greenwin, Carlye, Metcap, Pemberton Group, and their subsidiaries.

However, the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) ordered on February 10th that the city-wide bylaw be in full force and effect, with the exception of a handful of outstanding local appeals on individual sites. Developers have now all withdrawn their appeal.

The City wide appeal was officially dropped on February 10th, 2023. The City Solicitor will provide a written status report to the Tribunal and parties, with respect to the status of the remaining appeals on or before June 30, 2023.