A coun­cil­lor wants larger units to encour­age fam­i­lies to stay down­town

Excerpt from an arti­cle by Jim Byers and Phinjo Gombu – Toronto Star
With files from Paul Moloney

Aimee Stoyles loves her down­town lifestyle. Restau­rants, nightlife, a lake­front apartment.

But would the 25-year-old raise a fam­ily in one of the con­dos that have sprung up in her neigh­bour­hood? Not likely.

“If I wanted to have a fam­ily, I would con­sider mov­ing out­side of Toronto,” she said while walk­ing along Queens Quay.

Stoyles pointed out that she likes liv­ing along the water­front sim­ply because there are “not a whole lot of families.”

And that has at least one local politi­cian wor­ried that Toronto’s con­do­minium boom will become a bust. Coun­cil­lor Adam Vaughan argues that a lack of plan­ning means gleam­ing new condo build­ings could turn into slums if devel­op­ers don’t build places for fam­i­lies to live

Vaughan con­vinced the city’s plan­ning and growth man­age­ment com­mit­tee last week to ask city staff to doc­u­ment the num­ber of bed­rooms being built in the tow­ers spring­ing up all over Toronto. He hopes to use that infor­ma­tion to get devel­op­ers to build three-bedroom units that would draw fam­i­lies to the city’s core as well as sin­gles, young mar­ried cou­ples and retirees.

Condo owner Bruce McKay, who lives in the King St. W. and Spad­ina Ave. area, said while he’s not con­cerned the build­ings will become vacant and turn into slums, he sup­ports the gen­eral thrust of Vaughan’s ini­tia­tive. “I’d love to see a much more bal­anced com­mu­nity down here,” said McKay.

Vaughan said a lack of three-bedroom units often means peo­ple with grow­ing fam­i­lies must move to the sub­urbs and com­mute to a down­town job. Oth­ers, he said, will try to buy exist­ing, afford­able single-family homes in the core, which helps fuel the cost of down­town hous­ing and sparks higher prop­erty taxes that peo­ple with mod­er­ate incomes can’t afford.

Laura Tip­ton, 26, who rents an apart­ment near Har­bourfront with her boyfriend, said she might con­sider liv­ing in a condo to raise a fam­ily one day, but she couldn’t see her­self being able to afford a three-bedroom unit.

“You’re by default cre­at­ing slums or the poten­tial for slums. If the rail lands goes the way of St. James Town and if the condo dis­trict north of there goes the way of St. James Town, we as a city will have built slums next to our finan­cial district.

“I had one pro­posal in my ward for a build­ing with 55 units, all of them one-bedroom. But I spoke with the devel­oper and now he’s plan­ning 39 units, seven of them with three bedrooms.”

Chief Toronto plan­ner Ted Tyn­dorf said the city doesn’t have the author­ity to demand cer­tain types of con­dos be built.

Read the full arti­cle
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