On the heels of last week’s release of the Ontario Home Builders’ Association and Pembina Institute’s report, Make Way for Mid-Rise – How to build more homes in walkable transit-connected neighbourhoods, the Canadian Urban Institute (CUI) hosted a panel discussion on mid-rise urbanism. BILD President and CEO Bryan Tuckey moderated the breakfast session held at the University of Toronto’s Innis College on May 8.
On the expert panel were BILD members, Roland Rom Colthoff, Director at RAW Design Architectural Studio and Mazyar Mortazavi, President and CEO of TAS.
“Right now, on most of the projects we’re working on, it seems that eight storeys make it economical,” Rom Colthoff told the group of about 80 attendees. “This building type offers a rich variety of living environments with a variety of sizes and layouts. The challenge can be making room for building services, program elements and appropriate space for retail at grade.”
Mortazavi, whose Kingston & Co. development (pictured above, photo courtesy of TAS) in Toronto’s east end recently won a BILD Award for best suite design, spoke to engaging the neighbourhood and how there is an increasing appetite for a new housing type.
“There’s a shift in sensibility where people are choosing to live in multi-unit style neighbourhoods,” he said, adding that about 93 per cent of the Kingston & Co. homes were sold to families who will live in the building as opposed to rent it out. “People want to live in a village and at the heart of it is a community.”
Also on the panel was Jessica Hawes, senior associate at Brook McIllroy Ltd., who said that 100 of the 217 applications submitted to develop mid-rise in the City of Toronto between 2010-14 are now under construction. The fourth panellist, Richard Lyall, President of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON) spoke to getting the Ontario Building Code amended to allow for six-storey woodframe construction and said it will help to bring a new housing type to the GTA and beyond.
The panel agreed that a smoother process including pre-designating and pre-zoning for intensification along key transit corridors would go a long way to make mid-rise happen. Mike Yorke, President and Senior Business Representative of Carpenters Local 27 gave the closing remarks.
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