Adam Vaughan would like to see developers alter their philosophy.
“Developers are very existential. They look at what sold yesterday and they want to build that today to sell tomorrow.”
In this case, the Toronto city councillor for the Trinity-Spadina ward is calling on builders to do more to accommodate families who want to live downtown. Condominium buildings, he says, should offer more of the condo sizes, services and stores that make that possible.
“We need to effectively get them to become a vertical neighbourhood.”
For their part, builders are answering the call with amenities such as daycare centres and recreation facilities. They are also asking designers to stretch their creativity and come up with units that provide three bedrooms without swelling in size so much that only the ultra-wealthy can afford to buy them.
In Mr. Vaughan's opinion, the family-oriented offerings have improved in the past few years, but not enough to meet the needs of a city that has made increasing density and reducing sprawl part of the official plan.
Mr. Vaughan has put forward an amendment to the city's official plan that would require builders to offer more units that cater to households with children.
If they don't, he says, enrolment in downtown schools will continue to decline, libraries won't load shelves with children's books and new daycare centres won't appear.
Adam Vaughan: Families have to be attracted to condos to maintain viable family services in the downtown core.
“The family-friendly services you require to stay downtown won't be downtown,” Mr. Vaughan says. “The current trajectory makes the situation worse and worse over time.”
Builders need to provide a mix of affordable housing, he says, because if they don't, only the affluent will be able to live downtown and affluent parents have fewer kids.
The change would require that 10 per cent of all units in large downtown developments be built with either three bedrooms and up, or have the ability to easily be converted to three bedrooms and up. To achieve the latter, Mr. Vaughan says, developers are looking at making walls that move, for example, so that floor plans can be reconfigured.
Builders are coming forward with their objections and suggestions, meanwhile, and the Building Industry and Land Development Association is collating views. Mr. Vaughan expects the draft policy will need some tweaking.
Since taking office, he says, he has asked developers building in his ward to voluntarily provide a minimum of 10 per cent of their units as three-bedroom residences.
Of the applications Mr. Vaughan has approved in his ward in 2007 and 2008, the voluntary approach led to 516 three-bedroom units out of 4,864 units.
He compares that with the period between January, 2005, and December, 2006, in the ward, when only 73 of the 2,551 units approved contained three bedrooms.
Jim Ritchie, senior vice-president of sales and marketing for Tridel, says some customers do ask for three-bedroom condos, but the demand is relatively meagre compared with the numbers of people who want compact one- and two-bedroom units.
“We have sold to families in most of our communities for many years.”
The problem for developers, he says, is that land downtown is so expensive to acquire that larger condos have to be sold at rich prices. Families who have the means to spend upward of $1-million for a property will likely opt for a house with a backyard and a barbecue.
Mr. Ritchie says it's not unusual for people to ask to have two condo units combined, say, or tailored to accommodate a disability. His team reshapes suites for all kinds of reasons.
“If people tell us they want a three-bedroom home, I'll have one designed and we'll sell it to them.”
But the Tridel executive doesn't like the idea of the 10-per-cent mandate.
“Can children live happily in a condo? Of course they can.”
