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.

Similar to Toronto, Austin has experienced rapid growth in housing costs. To address this problem, the City passed landmark land use changes earlier this year that are tied to transformative investments in a new light rail system in Austin, and shape the explosive growth underway with a focus on affordable housing development.

Hear the details about these programs and about the challenges, from building consensus 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
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, Executive Director, HousingWorks / Chair, Project Connect Community Advisory Committee, Austin Transit Partnership, Austin, TX