Toronto Federal Housing Challenge grant recipients focus on innovation housing solutions
Model for the AECO Research Lab’s One Ontario online platform for development application review by municipalities. The interface seeks to streamline and centralize existing municipal processes for development application review. AECO Research Lab has been awarded funding to implement the platform with Simcoe County through the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation [CMHC] Housing Supply Challenge.
TORONTO, Ontario, October 21st, 2022
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CHMC) announced the recipients of its Housing Supply Challenge federal grant program earlier this month. Part of the government's National Housing Strategy, the Challenge seeks to find and support innovative project ideas and approaches for improving Canada's supply of affordable housing across multiple funding rounds.
Round two of the housing supply challenge - 'Getting Started' - aimed to support the development of new solutions for speeding up the preconstruction phase of affordable housing development and for removing structural and financial barriers preventing Indigenous, racialized and marginalized communities from participating in housing development.
Selected as part of an overall list of 14 shortlisted project proposals from across the country, the four Toronto recipients of the 'getting started' round were awarded funding from an over all $38-million federal allocation for round two funding of their project proposals.
AECO Innovation Lab received support for its project proposal to establish a 'proof of concept' for its One Ontario data exchange platform that seeks to digitize the development application review process for Ontario municipalities. With the Housing Supply Challenge funding, AECO will partner with Simcoe County to build a One Ontario web platform for municipal staff to access to process development applications received by the Region. The web portal will be used to store and access documents online from a central location and would function to create an 'interoperability' between disparate municipal systems.
According to AECO director of business development, Mark Anderson, Simcoe is the perfect jurisdiction to pilot the One Ontario platform since it has a range of new urban and rural development, and there are extensive Indigenous populations living in the area who must be notified when new development is proposed that could potentially impact their lands. Using the platform, Anderson says meetings for new development applications could be more easily organized to assist consultations with Indigenous and other community groups and to increase transparency in the assessment processes of development proposals.
"By having a system like [One Ontario], you can essentially notify as soon as any thing's happening within municipalities, and that's just not available in any standardized format today,” Anderson told NRU.
City of Toronto has established its own online interface, Concept 2 Keys, to streamline the city's pre-development ap plication process. C2K director for development process and performance Kris Homburg says the city is having 'ongoing discussions' with One Ontario to learn more about the initiative and how it could benefit C2K.
"We are always keen to explore any opportunities that contribute towards a more streamlined and efficient development review process,” Homburg told NRU in an email. With its share of the funding, Housing Supply Challenge grant recipient CP Planning received support to develop its proposal to establish a Roadmap for Inclusivity, consisting of 17 Inclusive Neighbourhood Planning Hubs in areas where there are major transit stations. CP Planning will provide members of racialized communities in these hubs with the necessary planning advice and support to pursue affordable housing development. An event to celebrate the launch of the roadmap will be held on November 18.
Seventeen hubs will be established across Toronto, Peel Region, York Region, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo as well as Ottawa where a major transit station is located or under construction, CP Planning principal Cheryll Case said.
"We will be partnering with community organizations to pro vide mentors, strategic planning and outreach support for local residents,” Case told NRU. "That includes reaching out to local property owners on how they can build affordable housing.”
According to Case, while major transit projects like the Eglinton Crosstown LRT line have created opportunities for new housing, little of that is affordable, and the new units often price out and displace residents from their own communities. Having a dedicated source through which to receive planning advice and support will empower local property holders to pursue housing that benefits their community.
Case is also co-founder of the PARTNA housing model that seeks to connect home owners from racialized neighbourhoods with financing and other supports for building secondary apartment suites on their property. She says the neighbourhood planning hubs model is based on the same idea as PARTNA, while also taking advantage of the opportunity to act as a champion for new affordable housing located next to major transit.
"The inclusive neighbourhood planning hubs are a direct response to the lack of coordinated action to ensure that public transit investment results in good affordable housing,” Case said.
Non-profit Tapestry Community Capital also received funding through the Housing Supply Challenge to expand the use of community bonds for the purpose of developing affordable housing. For 12 years, Tapestry has facilitated community bond issuances - social financial instruments that allow community groups to raise sufficient amounts of capital to support a project - raising over $90-million for various community-backed ventures.
Just like a traditional government-issued savings bond, community-backed bond issues provide a fixed interest rate as well as the added benefit of supporting a project that has a public good. Community bonds have been used to support non profit groups in the purchase of property that's used for a common need, such as housing.
"We're talking about a democratic investment vehicle,” Tapestry co-executive director Ryan Collins-Swartz told NRU. "It's a way that a non-profit charity can raise investment directly from the people that support them.”
Noticing that some 40 percent of community bond issuances submitted to Tapestry were for affordable housing, the group decided to apply for the housing supply challenge. Its winning proposal includes creating 12 'demonstration projects' in Ontario and BC to build confidence in the community model as well as to create an online platform where would be investors can be matched up with a community housing project to support.
“What we've found out is there is a really strong need for new sources of financing and what we're doing is allowing [affordable housing providers] to tap into a whole new pool of capital which they never had access to before, right in their communities,” Tapestry communications lead Stephanie Pinnington told NRU.
At least one non-profit housing provider is already interested in exploring how to utilize community bonds: PARTNA.
"[The community bonds model] aligns very well with what PARTNA is trying to do, which is to enable the average home owner to build affordable housing on their property,” Case said. "We're setting up to partner with Tapestry for community bonds to be one of the vehicles for raising funds to build that housing.”
Also receiving funding through the Housing Supply Challenge was Ratio.City for its plans to create web-based data analysis tools to help with the speeding up of affordable housing development applications as well as aiding collaboration efforts between developers and municipalities.
"While we intend to test this solution in Toronto, our vision is to increase transparency and collaboration in all Canadian cities affected by a low housing supply and high demand.” Ratio. City said in its Housing Supply Challenge project submission.
A full list of winners and information about the housing supply challenge can be accessed at the CMHC's project webpage here. Further rounds of grant money will focus on northern and remote housing supply solutions and construction innovation.
For more information:
Kristen Tam
Marketing and Communications Manager
AECO Innovation Lab
kristen.tam@aecoinnovationlab.com
