Toronto has 6 months to meet terms of housing agreement with Ottawa, minister says

Toronto has six months to meet the terms of a housing agreement with Ottawa, the federal housing minister said — a deadline that comes as the city risks losing $30 million in federal housing funds.

Minister Gregor Robertson said it was "disappointing" that Toronto city council voted against allowing sixplexes citywide last month, which was a key condition of its deal with the federal government. 

"We need Toronto, as the biggest city in Canada, to be really leading the charge in solving the housing crisis we have," Robertson said in an interview with CBC Radio's Metro Morning on Wednesday. 

Robertson did not say whether Toronto risks losing some of the federal funding it was promised if it sticks to its sixplex plan, but he said the government will review its agreement with the city in January. 

He said he sent a letter to Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow this week that lays out these terms. 

"We've got six months ahead of us to sort this all out," he said. 

"Certainly, my expectation is that Toronto will respect the agreement and the commitments that they came up with, and we're going to see that delivered." 

Zeus Eden, Chow's press secretary, said the mayor "has been a champion" of missing middle and affordable housing by supporting as of right fourplexes, laneway and garden suites and mid-rise apartment buildings on major avenues.

"We are working closely with Minister Gregor and city councillors to advance ambitious housing policy," he said in a email.

Toronto on track to meet housing goal, Chow says

Toronto city council voted in June to allow sixplexes in only nine wards and give other wards the chance to opt-in. 

In his letter to Chow, provided to CBC Toronto, Robertson wrote he was disappointed about the decision, which he wrote "goes against the level of ambition that was committed to in our Housing Accelerator Fund Agreement by the City of Toronto." 

"I will underscore the possibility of reduced funding if the City of Toronto does not present solutions that ensures the spirit of the agreement is met," reads the letter from Monday. 

In March, then-federal housing minister Nate Erskine-Smith warned Chow that any deviation from a citywide policy permitting sixplexes would result in 25 per cent less federal funding. That amounts to almost $30 million of the total $118 million that Ottawa has pledged annually to Toronto from its Housing Accelerator Fund, a program that provides incentive funding for cities to build more homes.

Chow responded to Robertson's letter on Wednesday, writing the city is on track to exceed its target of building 60,980 homes over the course of the three-year agreement with Ottawa. 

"We are making progress on multiple fronts: zoning, building, cutting red tape, and protecting existing homes," she wrote in the letter, obtained by CBC Toronto. 

Chow wrote she has added a motion to city council's meeting on Wednesday to waive development charges for sixplexes "to make these projects more financially viable and easier to build." 

Some residents had opposed building sixplexes in Toronto at a city planning and housing committee meeting held in June before the council vote. One resident said multiplexes have caused many issues, including problems related to parking and privacy. 

Robertson told Metro Morning there is "a lot of misinformation" about sixplexes, which he called relatively gentle density. 

"I think there are great tools and options like sixplexes, and Toronto's got to do the hard work to make sure that the overall agreement is respected," he said.