A majority of GTA residents agree that adding more new homes to the market will help with housing affordability, however, "not in my backyard" remains an obstacle to overcome, according to an Ipsos poll for the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB).
The poll is the second in a series that aims to shed light on voters’ priorities and issues for the Oct. 22 municipal elections, according to the two organizations that have joined forces to ensure housing supply and affordability are election issues.
“Last week’s poll data clearly showed that housing affordability and supply are key issues for GTA residents. Residents expect municipal politicians to tackle these issues in the upcoming election,” TREB president Garry Bhaura said in a news release yesterday. “This week’s results show that building more new homes are seen, overwhelmingly, as a critical part of the solution to housing affordability."
The real estate board is urging local politicians to help battle the NIMBYism that can prevent or make it more difficult for affordable and diverse housing projects to get underway.
"Overcoming resistance to change and ‘not in my backyard’ sentiment in existing neighbourhoods is a huge barrier that municipal leaders can help overcome by taking a leadership role,” Bhaura said.
Some key results of the poll are:
- 87 per cent of York Region respondents indicated it is important to build new homes in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) as a means toward addressing the issue of housing affordability.
- Those living in the 416 (88 per cent) feel slightly more strongly about the importance of new builds versus those in the 905 (86 per cent).
- Nearly nine out of 10 agree municipal zoning bylaws should be reviewed, and changes considered, to allow for greater flexibility in creating middle-density housing types.
The poll indicated opposition to new build construction increases with residents' proximity to the potential development, as well as with the density — nearly 60 per cent of respondents are against a high-rise condo being built within half a kilometre of their homes.
“In order to build a livable GTA for the future, we need to be able to build more homes, faster. Clearly, we need to have a broader discussion on how to accommodate growth, particularly in established neighbourhoods," Dave Wilkes, president and CEO of BILD, said.
Other findings of the poll are:
- 30 per cent oppose the building of a new single-family detached home within a half kilometre of their home;
- 37 per cent oppose the building of a new townhouse development within a half kilometre of their home;
- 44 per cent oppose the building of a stacked townhouse development (defined as middle-density housing) within a half kilometre of their home;
- 49 per cent oppose the building of a small condo apartment building (defined as middle-density housing) within a half kilometre of their home;
- 52 per cent oppose the building of a mid-rise condo apartment building (defined as middle-density housing) within a half kilometre of their home;
- 59 per cent oppose the building of a high-rise condo apartment within a half kilometre of their home.
To accommodate the tremendous growth that the GTA has experienced in recent years, and the continued anticipated growth to 2041, policies of urban intensification and increased density of housing have been implemented by various levels of government. Resistance to new developments slows construction of new housing, negatively impacting supply and increasing housing prices, the news release stated.
“If we want to truly address housing issues in the GTA, we need to take a comprehensive approach and that means being open to innovative ideas and change. Outdated zoning rules and other obstacles need to be reconsidered. The same policies will get us the same results, and that’s just not good enough any more,” said John DiMichele, TREB CEO.
“We are encouraging home buyers and renters to let municipal election candidates know their views through UnLockMyHousingOptions.ca that clearly outlines the problem, the reason and the solution to some of the challenges we face. Getting involved and sharing your concerns is easy, as the website does all the work for you,” said DiMichele.
For this survey, a sample of 1,503 GTA residents from the Ipsos I-Say panel was interviewed Aug. 20 to 23. Quotas and weighting were employed to ensure that the sample’s composition reflects the overall population according to census information. The precision of online polls is measured using the credibility interval. In this case, the results are accurate to within +/- 2.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what the results would have been had all adults in the GTA been polled. Credibility intervals are wider among subsets of the population.
