Why Are There Not More Townhouses Being Built in the Greater Toronto Area and What is the Outlook? /

M a y. 3 0 ,. 2 0 1 7. P a g e. | 2 C E N T R E. F O R. U R B A N. R E S E A R C H. A N D. L A N D. D E V E L O P M E N T 1. BACKGROUND The Province of Ontario in its recently announced update of the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe1 accepted many of the recommendations from the Crombie Advisory Panel’s report.2 The Crombie Panel Report in December 2015 recommended raising the Province [...] M a y. 3 0 ,. 2 0 1 7. P a g e. | 4 C E N T R E. F O R. U R B A N. R E S E A R C H. A N D. L A N D. D E V E L O P M E N T 2. ISSUES CONSIDERED The sharp drop in the production of single-detached houses since the first half of the 2000s occurred at a time MLS sales of existing houses were increasing. [...] The failure of townhouse starts to increase since the Growth Plan came into place in 2006 could be the result of: (a) a lack of consumer demand; (b) a scarcity of serviced sites on which to build townhouse developments in both the 905 regions and the City of Toronto; and/or (c) site development economics that favour the rezoning of townhouse sites to higher densities (e.g., stacked townhouses). [...] M a y. 3 0 ,. 2 0 1 7. P a g e. | 6 C E N T R E. F O R. U R B A N. R E S E A R C H. A N D. L A N D. D E V E L O P M E N T 4. A LOOK AT HOUSING START PATTERNS BY TYPE OF HOUSING UNIT IN THE GTA9 Our research looks at housing starts by unit type from 1996 to 2016 – roughly the decade before and the decade after the 2006 Growth Plan was enacted in order to analyze the shifting trends in residential d [...] M a y. 3 0 ,. 2 0 1 7. P a g e. | 7 C E N T R E. F O R. U R B A N. R E S E A R C H. A N D. L A N D. D E V E L O P M E N T 4.2 The Decline in 905 Townhouse Starts Mirrored the GTA Decline in Starts The decline in the 905 area of the region, where most new townhouse production occurs, mirrored the GTA-wide decline falling from an average annual 5,700 units in 2001-2005 to 4,400 units in 2006-2016 (s