Toronto’s condo explosion is just getting started: A record 100 towers could go up every year — and these neighbourhoods will be most impacted

The Unicorn Pub used to be just around the corner from her, a local haunt playing live music most nights. But now it’s gone, with a 33-storey tower in its place. The historic Capitol Event Theatre, built in 1918 and later revitalized, used to add charm to the cityscape. Now, a 14-storey tower is proposed to take its place.

With construction of the Eglinton Crosstown light rail transit (LRT) route ongoing for more than a decade, and dozens of new condos being erected around the new line, there’s a lot more change to come.

“There was such a sense of community here and it’s absolutely gone,” Carr said. “You used to know the store owners or wait staff and now it’s just big chains. That sense of knowing your neighbours is lost.”

Carr is one of countless residents in Toronto who feel like their neighbourhood is disappearing as the city erects new condos at warp speed. And it’s about to get worse. A record 25,000 new condominium unit completions are slated for 2023 with an additional 100,000 units set to be completed between 2024 and 2028, according to research firm Urbanation.

That could mean a record 100 new condominium buildings being built in Toronto every year for the next five years. Many of those tall, glass towers will be located right next to the backyards of unsuspecting homeowners and, some fear, could destroy the character of some of Toronto’s most livable neighbourhoods in the process.

Most of the new towers will be built in downtown areas such as Queen and Spadina, King and Bathurst, Exhibition Place, and Corktown, which have all been designated as transit-oriented communities for the new Ontario Line subway in an effort to promote increased housing density around transit hubs. In some areas, historic housing is being demolished to make way for those highrise condos.

That is exactly what Coralina Lemos fears will happen in Corktown — an area she’s lived in since 1981. One-hundred-year-old homes could be torn down to make way for highrises, giving her an uncomfortable glimpse of the historic area’s future.

“When people visit they feel like they’re stepping into another area of the city,” said Lamos, who serves as the heritage lead for the Corktown Residents and Business Association. “Even if some (developers) keep the facades of the historic homes and build on top, it’s just façadism. Highrises all look the same. I don’t want to live in a place that all looks the same.”

A flood of new condos

Like it or not, a flood of new condo units is coming, and many Toronto residents say it’s about time: with both rentals and home purchases getting increasingly unaffordable, housing is badly needed. The Ontario government says it is committed to boosting housing supply to accommodate the rapidly growing population.

The seeds of the current boom were planted a few years ago, just before the pandemic hit. Before condo buildings can be built, 75 per cent of the units need to be pre-sold. Typically 80 per cent of those units are sold to investors. It then takes around four to five years for the buildings to be completed, said Shaun Hildebrand, president of Urbanation.

In 2017 and 2018 there was a burst of presale condo activity, but then the pandemic slowed project completions during the lockdowns — which is why there’s a post-lockdown surge in project completions this year, with 25,406 new condo units planned.

The city of Toronto also reported a significant increase in proposed residential units, such as apartments, to more than 180,000 in 2021 from almost 80,000 in 2020.

The increase in applications in 2021 is partly due to the anticipated implementation of inclusionary zoning in 2022 — which would require new residential developments to include affordable housing units, a city spokesperson said.

The Ford government has, meanwhile, promised to cut red tape and speed up the approval process for development proposals, as part of its More Homes Built Faster Act, aiming to build 1.5 million homes in the next decade.

On top of all that, the province is pushing hard to create new transit-oriented communities around the Ontario Line subway transit stops. The goal is to bring in more highrise condos and ground-level retail to promote transit use and boost the local economy.

“Transit-oriented communities will be connected to or within a short distance of transit stations and stops, while increasing the housing supply,” said Ian McConachie, manager of media relations at Infrastructure Ontario. “Work is already underway to deliver transit-oriented communities at seven future stations along the new Ontario Line and Yonge North Subway Extension.”

The stations that will see significant development include the Bridge station (between Highway 7 and Highway 407), High Tech (Richmond Hill Centre area), Corktown, Gerrard-Carlaw North, East Harbour, Exhibition, King-Bathurst, and Queen-Spadina.

The radius of the transit-oriented community “varies” depending on each site, McConachie says. For example, around East Harbour station (just east of the Don River and north of Lake Shore Boulevard East) 302,000 square metres of development has been proposed, or around 4,300 new residential units.

Communities under pressure

The fast pace of condo building has led to a boiling point in some communities. While many support development, some are concerned about the lack of services for the influx of people. Others feel densification can be accomplished with smaller builds in areas flooded with single-family homes.

While building around transit is a “very good idea,” having almost unlimited highrise development with 70-storey towers in neighbourhoods that are currently filled with livable lowrise housing isn’t the right approach, said Eric Miller, research director for the University of Toronto travel modelling group, which studies GTA traffic and highway infrastructure issues.

“There are limits on how densely we build areas,” he said. “You have to think about the totality of the services being offered with schools, hospitals, groceries — can the infrastructure support the new builds?”

Luci Brown has noticed the rapid change in her Yonge and Eglinton community since she moved to the area 13 years ago. The region is a designated urban growth centre, a designation the province first issued in 2006, targeting select regions that were deemed suitable for higher levels of density. The new Eglinton Crosstown LRT also makes the area a transit hub, pushing densification even higher.

“I don’t mind change, but I think you have to have the right support systems in place,” she said. “Without the proper infrastructure the area becomes less livable.”

She’s noticed that the transit system on the Yonge line is overwhelmed during rush hour and that the Toronto District School Board has posted notices on development proposal signs about limited availability in schools for families looking to move into the area.

“I have a three-year-old and five-year-old so they’re already in school, but often you move to an area because of the local schools. Now there’s all these notices saying the available spots are limited,” Brown said.

The traffic congestion has also worsened, making it dangerous to cross intersections, especially for children and the elderly, she said.

Carr also noted there have been multiple deaths along Eglinton Avenue from people being hit by construction trucks or other vehicles. In 2016, the street was one of the deadliest in Toronto, according to police.

“It’s not a family friendly neighbourhood. Eglinton used to be such a nice street but it doesn’t feel like it anymore,” she said.

The Annex and Seaton Village are also hotbeds for development, with dozens of developments planned along Dupont Street and Bloor Street.

Ron Soskolne, a member of the board of directors of the Annex Residents’ Association, has lived in the Loretto Lofts on Brunswick Avenue for 15 years and has mixed feelings about the drastic development occurring in his neighbourhood.

“I’m less comfortable with large-scale development as it gets closer to the neighbourhood streets, and how it doesn’t accommodate to the existing character,” he said. “There’s a stark contrast in scale from the new to the old.”

The Annex is primarily comprised of semi-detached and detached homes, but there are 37 new development projects underway. So far, seven are approved and under construction, 19 applications are under consideration, and 11 developers are preparing for an application, Soskolne said.

A 20-storey development has been proposed right behind Soskolne’s home which he’s “very concerned” about. He’s proposed that the building be staggered in height so the part of the building that’s closest to the houses is only five or six storeys tall, and then steps back as the tower rises upward to whatever height the developers want.

“We welcome intensification in the neighbourhood as long as developers work with us to tailor a building that fits better,” he said.

Jared Gordon, leader of the Seaton Village Residents’ Association, also said residents welcome densification, but the units along Dupont Street are luxury properties and are too small to accommodate families wishing to move into the area or the elderly who want to downsize but remain in the community.

“Our main concerns are the city doesn’t mandate enough large units for families and having enough affordable units in the buildings,” he said.

Another concern is developers push up against the sidewalk, resulting in some areas along Dupont Street having sidewalks that are a metre and a half wide.

“We have some of the narrowest sidewalks in the city and it’s always a battle to preserve the walkability of the neighbourhood,” he said.

Toronto’s future

As literally hundreds of new condo towers sprout in Toronto over the next few years, the debate over what we’re gaining — and what we’re losing — will intensify. Charming, walkable neighbourhoods will be infiltrated by glass and steel, but thousands of new homes will be built to accommodate increasingly desperate residents.

Urbanation’s Hildebrand agrees the city needs the new housing, but said ultradense condo hubs aren’t the only way to create it. He noted that currently, development is concentrated in the downtown core and around some transit hubs, while other parts of Toronto remain untouched.

“If we can spread out the development to more than just a few places in the city to lower-density areas it will satisfy some of the demand pressure we’re seeing,” he said.

However, midrise housing is “very expensive” and the process takes longer, which is why Toronto prioritizes highrise development which is cheaper to build, experts say.

Renovating residential homes into multiplexes to accommodate two or more apartments is a productive way to densify an area without resorting to highrises, said Michael Piper, assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design.

But with record levels of immigration planned for the next three years, vacancy rates at dangerous lows and housing costs soaring, something has to give.

At the end of the day creating more housing and improving affordability trumps historic preservation, he said.

“Heritage is important for our cities, but we’re at a point now where housing production and affordability are starting to take precedence, and I don’t see that as a bad thing. Some buildings are super important to preserve but not every one, everywhere,” he said. “I believe that’s a hard pill for people to swallow.”