Lack of affordable housing among concerns raised about three-building proposal for Amroth Avenue site

By AMARACHI AMADIKE, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A community pop-up meeting hosted by CreateTO at the Danforth Mennonite Church on March 14 gave local residents a chance to learn more about the proposed development on the Green P parking lot at 72 Amroth Ave., just southeast of Danforth and Woodbine avenues.

As housing affordability in Toronto continues to plague renters, CreateTO, the city agency tasked with managing Toronto’s housing portfolio, is hoping to counteract this trend by reinforcing the city’s “missing middle”. Missing middle refers to low-rise buildings with multiple units – typically with a density somewhere in between that of a single family home and mid-rise apartment building.

With developers more often embarking on larger scale condo developments, many Torontonians have been pushed out of neighbourhoods as rental costs skyrocket.

The BEY (Beaches-East York) Pilot Project – an extension of the City of Toronto’s Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods (EHON) Program – aims to create more housing options such as detached and semi-detached houses, triplexes, fourplexes, townhouses, stacked townhouses, low-rise hybrid buildings, as well as low-rise apartment buildings.

Although the EHON program isn’t directly attached to creating affordable housing, CreateTO is hoping that diversifying housing options in neighbourhoods, especially transit-oriented neighbourhoods, will in turn have a positive impact on housing affordability within these areas.

The development at 72 Amroth Ave. will serve as a demonstration project for the impact missing middle projects can have.

“We’re coming up with some prototypes and some models that could be replicated on other sites across the city,” said Beaches-East York Councillor Brad Bradford who attended the March 14 pop-up event.

“I think that’s a great role for CreateTO –the City of Toronto – to demonstrate leadership and create a model that would work for the non-profit sector, market builders, or anybody else who wants to take up these types of projects.”

According to CreateTO staff, a major reason neighbourhoods are losing residences of this size is due to many developers viewing such projects as “high risk-low reward”. They are hoping that the BEY Pilot Project can demonstrate otherwise and encourage more developers to take on such “missing middle” projects.

The proposal at 72 Amroth Ave. is for a six-storey building that faces Amroth Avenue coupled with two three-storey buildings behind it. These buildings will have a total of 34 units and 18 bicycle parking spaces.

With the development still in its early stages, it is currently unclear whether the City of Toronto or a non-profit organization will take on the role of builder. However, Bradford is hoping for the latter.

“I’m not a proponent of the public builder model,” said Bradford. “I don’t think there’s any example that you can point to where the government has done things faster and for less money.”

This image shows the plan for the three buildings in what is presently the Green P parking lot on Amroth Avenue, southeast of Danforth and Woodbine avenues. Photo by Alan Shackleton.

Although the aim of this project is to showcase the importance – and potential cost effectiveness – of missing middle developments in Toronto’s quest for housing affordability, some residents are uncertain about the plan for this particular proposal.

Rick and Sheryl, longtime residents of the neighbourhood, told Beach Metro Community News that they hope the building will come with security due to the planners tightly packing two more properties behind the larger six-storey building of this proposal.

They say that due to the high volume of unhoused people in the neighbourhood, this “hidden area” might become an issue in the future.

But their main concern revolved around the lack of assurances for affordable housing in the proposal.

“I’m just concerned about the building itself. I don’t care if there’s a building there, but I’d rather it be something affordable or run by the government so that people can actually afford to live there,” said Sheryl. “Because they’re doing another one across the street with condos which you know will be stupidly priced.”

With the area now set to lose a major parking hub, Sheryl said she is also worried about the increased density in the area that already lacks in parking availability.

“Sure you’re encouraged to take TTC, but there are many people who have kids,” she said.

But with Toronto in desperate need of affordable housing, CreateTO staff highlighted the importance of utilizing all available plots of city-owned land to densify neighbourhoods in an attempt to battle housing affordability by providing Torontonians with a wider range of housing options.

This image depicts what the proposal for the Green P parking lot will look like as it faces Amroth Avenue.

The March 14 event was a casual pop-up, but residents can expect official community consultation meetings starting in July. Following public engagement, Toronto Council is expected to make a decision on the proposal by December of this year.

For more information about the BEY Pilot Project, contact CreateTO’s Manager of Community Engagement, Asha-Keyf Dahir at adahir@createto.ca or 437-239-5214.

– Amarachi Amadike is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter for Beach Metro Community News. His reporting is funded by the Government of Canada through its Local Journalism Initiative.