Approved is Not Built

🌟 An approval is not a home. Ward 14’s housing record should be measured by what has been completed, occupied and made affordable.

🌟 Zoning decisions are permanent. Employment land, institutional space, clinics, childcare and arts facilities can be lost long before promised housing is built.

🌟 Residents deserve a public record. Every major development should show what was approved, what was delivered and what community infrastructure disappeared along the way.

Measuring Ward 14's Housing Record

Toronto does not have a shortage of housing announcements. We have rezonings, planning applications, architectural renderings, funding announcements and Council motions. We have towers approved years before anyone knows whether financing is secured, construction will begin, or the homes will ever be occupied.

That is why we need to be more careful about the language we use.

An approval gives a property owner permission to build. It does not produce a home.

Toronto’s development pipeline contained just over 791,000 proposed residential units at the end of 2025. Almost half remained under review. Another 38 percent had received at least one planning approval.

Only 13 percent have reached the building-permit stage. The same report found that proposed non-residential space had fallen by more than one million square metres as projects removed or reduced their employment components.

Toronto clearly has enough theoretical housing capacity. The City says the pipeline could accommodate 1.36 million additional people, but only if all those units are built and occupied. Current economic conditions make that outcome increasingly uncertain.

That is the gap we need to confront. We are making permanent decisions about land based on housing that may exist only on paper.

The Market Has Changed

Toronto’s housing system has relied heavily on pre-construction condominium sales. Developers sell enough units in advance to satisfy lenders, secure financing and begin construction. When buyers disappear, that model stops working.

CMHC reports that Toronto’s pre-construction sales fell to multi-decade lows in 2025. High construction costs, weaker demand and growing inventories of unsold units have made financing thresholds harder to reach. Projects are being delayed or cancelled, while developers concentrate on completing buildings that are already underway.

Toronto’s own planning staff reported that condominium starts in 2025 were 79 percent below the ten-year average. Only six new condominium projects launched that year, compared with an annual average of 41 between 2014 and 2023. In the first quarter of 2026, Toronto recorded 1,797 housing starts, down 23 percent from the same period in 2025.

This does not mean Toronto should stop approving housing. It means approval cannot be the final measure of success.

The City can process an application and change the zoning. It cannot force a private landowner to secure financing, hire a builder or begin construction. Toronto’s development report acknowledges this directly.

Between 2022 and 2025, the City consistently approved more units than were started or completed. Planning approvals moved forward without a corresponding increase in construction activity.

That difference matters enormously in Ward 14. We are being asked to accept the loss of existing buildings, workplaces and community-serving spaces because a developer has received permission to construct housing. Yet that housing may not begin for years. The land may be resold. The project may be redesigned. The developer may enter restructuring. The site may remain fenced and empty while the community loses what was there before.

Financial Risk Has Become Public Risk

Construction is being squeezed from several directions. Borrowing remains expensive. Labour and material costs remain high. Economic uncertainty has weakened buyer confidence.

Statistics Canada reported that tariffs on steel and steel-related products contributed to price increases in metal products during the first quarter of 2026.

These pressures do not affect every project equally, but they add uncertainty to projects that were often financially marginal before the tariffs appeared.

We are also seeing builders encounter serious financial trouble. Assembly Corp., a Toronto company specializing in affordable housing and social infrastructure, filed a Notice of Intention under insolvency legislation in May 2026. An interim receiver was appointed the following month. Its portfolio included affordable and transitional housing developments that were already between 85 and 98 percent complete.

This is not an argument against innovative builders, modular construction or affordable housing partnerships. It shows how fragile delivery can become when public housing goals depend on a private company’s balance sheet.

A project can be worthy, approved, funded and almost finished, yet still fail to reach occupancy on schedule.

Governments cannot simply hold a press conference, issue an approval and declare the housing delivered. Public agencies need to monitor financing, construction progress, ownership changes and completion risk. When affordable or supportive housing is involved, contingency planning must begin before a project fails, not after residents discover that the promised homes are stalled.

Zoning Decisions Outlive Developers

The greatest risk is not simply that approved housing will take longer to build. It is that Toronto will permanently surrender the land needed for employment and community services while waiting for that housing to appear.

Zoning determines the future value and use of land. Once a property is rezoned for high-density residential construction, its value is tied to that residential potential. Returning it to employment, institutional or community use becomes extraordinarily difficult.

Toronto’s Official Plan recognizes that employment lands are finite. It states that there is little opportunity to create new employment land and that residential properties are rarely converted back to employment uses. Employment Areas provide space for manufacturing, warehousing, research, technology, utilities, media production and other activities that cannot simply be moved into a condominium storefront.

That distinction is important. Ground-floor retail is not a replacement for employment land.

A small commercial unit beneath a tower may accommodate a coffee shop, salon or convenience store. It is unlikely to replace a production studio, repair business, medical centre, light-industrial workshop, arts organization, food-processing facility or growing technology company. It also may not be affordable to the businesses displaced when the original property is redeveloped.

Institutional capacity presents a similar problem. Toronto’s Official Plan recognizes that schools, hospitals, colleges, universities and government facilities will need room to expand as the population grows. It also recognizes the importance of libraries, childcare, nursing homes, recreation centres and other community institutions woven throughout neighbourhoods.

Not every clinic, daycare or community organization requires land formally designated as an Institutional Area. Many can operate within mixed-use neighbourhoods. But they still need legal permissions, suitable buildings and rents they can afford.

We cannot continue adding thousands of residents and assume these services will somehow find space later. Once residential land values take hold, acquiring property for a daycare, health centre, library or community hub becomes more expensive. In many cases, it becomes impossible.

This is why unclear zoning is so damaging. Residents deserve to know what is protected, what may be converted and what must be replaced before redevelopment proceeds. Developers also need predictable rules. Constantly shifting expectations create delay without guaranteeing better outcomes.

Good planning should provide certainty while protecting the public interest. It should tell us where housing will grow, where employment will remain, where institutions can expand and how essential services will be secured before the population arrives.

Ward 14 Needs a Housing Delivery Record

Ward 14 needs more housing. We need rental housing, affordable housing, co-operative housing, supportive housing, seniors’ housing and homes large enough for families. That need is real.

Density, motion passing and zoning alone do not tell us whether those homes were built, who can afford them or what the community lost in the process.

Ward 14 should publish a housing delivery record that follows major projects from application through occupancy. The public should be able to see the difference between units proposed, approved, permitted, started, completed and occupied. Affordability commitments should be tracked for the full period promised, rather than celebrated once and forgotten.

Residents should be clearly informed when redevelopment removes essential community and social infrastructure. The public record should show whether employment space, arts facilities, healthcare offices, childcare capacity and community organizations were protected, replaced, relocated or permanently lost.

Approving a tower is relatively easy. Building a complete community is harder. It requires coordination between planning, infrastructure, transit, energy, healthcare, education and economic development. It requires the City to protect land for uses that may not generate the highest immediate return, but are essential to the long-term function of the neighbourhood.

This is not anti-housing, anti-density or anti-development.

It is how we can make housing policy credible, and a valuable addition to the social fabric of our community.

Ward 14 has experienced years of development pressure. Residents should no longer be asked to judge that record by the height of proposed buildings or the number of motions passed at Council. We should judge it by the homes people have moved into and the community infrastructure that was delivered beside them.

Approvals have value, but approvals are not housing.

The real measure is whether the building opened, whether the homes remained affordable and whether the neighbourhood became more complete.

Approved is not built. Announced is not delivered. Zoning away the future is not planning.

Advanced voting starts October 6th. I would be honoured to gain your support.

For a Ward 14 that is stronger for the next generation.