On Friday, July 4, Toronto mayoral candidate Olivia Chow released a three-part plan to create new affordable housing in the city of Toronto. The plan, which aims to add 15,000 new affordable rental units to Toronto’s rental housing stock over the course of four years, also includes ideas for improving the city’s existing rental buildings.

“Our city’s cultural and economic diversity is often found in our apartment buildings,” says Chow. “With new targets for building affordable housing, and better zoning and governance of existing buildings, we can help more people find homes they can afford and build stronger communities.”

Chow’s three-component plan includes:

• Expanding mixed-income neighbourhoods by introducing a target of 20 per cent affordable units in new residential towers;
• Changing restrictive rezoning rules for the areas surrounding the city’s 1,200 existing residential towers to allow for more welcoming public spaces such as farmers’ markets, community gardens and child care facilities; and
• Improving governance in public housing through the establishment of a pilot project which will allow for a more decentralized, tenant and community-driven approach to building governance.

If successful, Chow’s pilot project will reduce the Toronto Community Housing Corporation’s management costs, thereby freeing up funds for maintenance and repairs.

“I grew up in low-income housing and know how important it is that these communities thrive,” says Chow. “About half the people in our city rent, and we need to be innovative in making these neighbourhoods more vibrant, and safer. We’ve also seen a building boom lately. I want to keep this energy going, and work with the industry to use it to build new affordable units to address our affordability crisis.”