Why Downtown is Not Attractive to Families

One of the talking points in the recent Ontario Home Builders’ Association (OHBA) mayoral debate to discuss new development in the city of Toronto, was the significance of family units in new residential buildings.

Both John Tory and Olivia Chow stated their opposition to the current mandate for three-bedroom “family units” in new developments because they aren’t fulfilling their intended purpose, which is to provide affordable housing to help families who wish to live in the city.

Regardless of the desire to attract more families to the city centre, there appears to be two main avenues of thinking as to why family units don’t seem to work: they’re too costly for the average working family (for the space you get) and there is still the notion that families need to grow in single detached homes outside the downtown core.

The first challenge is basically related to economics (or economies of scale). When you put up a building, you divide up the units in order to make the whole pay for the build. As floor space goes up in each unit, so does the price, so developers figure out how many sellable units must be made in order to make the development viable.

It’s often more advantageous to build more small units than it is to build more large ones, because there are tax exemptions for units priced at less than $400,000. In order to keep the price-attractiveness in the new units, developers try to keep the price below that point, which also translates into fewer square feet. And fewer square feet means smaller rooms or fewer rooms. Families prefer more larger rooms but may be willing to settle for smaller space with room to expand as the family grows, so that leaves them with two alternatives: either pay more to get the larger space downtown, or start hunting for more space in a single detached home on a lot in the outskirts.

The second challenge is sociological. Many growing families still have this notion of buying a home near a park, to which they can take their children every day and watch them play with the neighbours’ kids. Wide open green space and a baseball diamond are still idyllic in many families’ eyes, when compared to the asphalt basketball courts of a downtown chain-linked enclosure. There are developments like Canary Park by Dundee Kilmer, which is built right on the edge of Corktown Common, but these kinds of developments are few and far between.

The view of Corktown Common from Canary Park

This one is perhaps more costly because not only do developers have to plan for buildings that house fewer, more costly units that may not sell as easily (if at all), but then they also must contribute more toward the green-space to attract those families.

And it’s no less easy to fix because people are attracted to the downtown cores when they see the ability to get around easily. In order for them to come, you have to build it near transportation hubs, and Toronto just doesn’t have enough empty space near its meagre public transit centres. In order for city living to become more viable for families, Toronto needs to get in the game, transportation-wise.

And so, we’re back to the debate on how to improve our public transit infrastructure, with everyone acknowledging the need for an improved subway system but nobody really providing any concrete ideas on how to get them built quickly and on budget.

If you build them, they will come.