Housing Now! TOD and the Housing Crisis

Toronto, like many fast-growing cities, faces a housing affordability crisis, with one in five households in need of some form of housing assistance. At the same time, a generational investment in rapid transit infrastructure is underway, connecting neighborhoods and opening up new opportunities for housing. To meet the need and the moment, the City of Toronto and Province of Ontario launched ambitious transit-oriented development programs. Toronto’s Housing Now program includes 22 sites at existing stations and will create 16,500 new homes, while the Province’s Transit-Oriented Communities program aims to create over 30,000 new homes across 14 new stations. Hear from elected leaders and practitioners about implementing both programs, from aligning multiple layers of government to setting up an equitable policy framework, from building consensus in diverse but marginalized communities to integrating TOD into transit planning and design.

Moderator: Paul Kulig, Principal Urban Design and Transit, Global Co-Lead of Urban Design, Perkins + Will, Toronto, ON
Andrea Gaus, MArch, OAA, RAIC, LEED AP, Director, Development, Infrastructure Ontario, Toronto, ON
Yunfei Zhang, M.A.Sc., P.Eng. (BC, ON), Section Lead, Network Policy Planning, HDR, Inc., Vancouver, BC
Greg Canally, Executive Director, Austin Transit Partnership, Austin, TX
Awais Azhar, Chair, Project Connect Community Advisory Committee, Austin Transit Partnership, Austin, TX