Condo boom helps drop curtain on the age of sprawl
By John Barber - Globe and Mail
Talk about a green shift: For the first time in generations, developers are now building as much housing inside city limits as they are in outlying suburbs. The result of surging condominium construction coupled with a steady decline in green-fields housing starts, the new balance suggests strongly that the age of sprawl in Toronto has passed.
One thing is certain: There is no end to high-rise construction in the central city. Record sales from 2007 have turned into record construction this year, with 11,200 new units started in the first seven months of 2008 - more than the total number of housing starts in all 2007.
“We’re forecasting record levels of high-rise starts for 2008 and very high levels for 2009,” said Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation analyst Jason Mercer. Despite a decline in suburban, low-rise construction over the first seven months of 2008, he noted, regional housing starts are up 32% over the same period this year.
The stage for this year’s dramatic construction boom was set last year when sales of new high-rise apartments outstripped sales of front-door housing for the first time ever. The result today is more high-rise construction in Toronto than virtually anywhere else on the continent.
There are 99 high-rise buildings under construction in Toronto, according to Emporis.com, a website that tracks buildings worldwide, which ranks it second among North American cities to New York City, with 179.
On a per capita basis, however, there is currently twice as much high-rise construction in Toronto as there is in New York. On an absolute basis, no other U.S. city is comparable. Chicago has 54 high-rises under construction, Boston has 14 and Atlanta 19.
Toronto is already No. 10 in the ranking of world cities with the most skyscrapers, according to Emporis. Among world cities with more than two million people, it ranks third - behind Hong Kong and Singapore - in most skyscrapers per capita.
But nothing is more indicative of the future than the current location of regional construction crews. Prior to the latest wave of condominium construction, outlying suburbs held a virtual monopoly on new-home starts in the Toronto region, leading to widespread fears of population loss and economic “hollowing out.” As a result, many observers were slow to note the city’s gradual recovery of market share. None predicted what occurred in the first seven months of 2008, when housing starts in the city and the 905 suburbs drew even.
Affordability is not the only factor behind the central-city revival, according to Mr. Mercer. “You’re seeing new projects across the spectrum in terms of pricing,” he said. Just as important, according to some analysts, are new provincial policies that restrict green-fields development in favour of urban redevelopment.
In fact, the trend back to urban living began long before Queen’s Park threw its weight behind it, and it is accelerating despite growing concerns about central-city job growth. This year it reached a level that overthrows the conventional image of Toronto as a city of homes beneath a leafy canopy.
Today Toronto is unquestionably a city of apartments, extremely compact in its core, with steadily intensifying suburbs. The sprawl that seemed to characterize it for so long was never as bad as it seemed, at least in comparison with similar U.S. cities - and now it has stopped.
————————————————————————————————————
Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960
