Real Estate Development Timing in Toronto: Insights from Multi-Residential Development Applications

Toronto’s housing affordability crisis has prompted debate over the extent to which municipal governance and planning contribute to the lack of affordability. Some have laid blame for the housing crisis on municipalities for holding up new housing supply through land use regulation and protracted planning approval processes. Municipal planning authorities have responded by pointing to the building industry, documenting tens of thousands of housing units that have been approved for development but have yet to be constructed.

The 2023-24 Blanche and Sandy Van Ginkel Graduate Fellow in Municipal Finance and Governance Keir Matthews-Hunter is investigating the degree to which real estate developers in Toronto delay multi-residential development (particularly after securing planning approvals), the characteristics of development projects that are delayed, and the relationship between the stringency of land use regulation, developer (un)certainty about the profit-maximizing use of land, and development timing. In this seminar, Keir outlined the motivation for his research, presented preliminary findings from analysis of multi-residential development applications that were submitted to the City of Toronto between 2012 and 2015 and have since received approval, and outlined potential future research directions.

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Speaker

Keir Matthews-Hunter is a first-year PhD student in Planning and graduate of the Master of Science in Planning program (2018) at the University of Toronto.  Before beginning his PhD, Keir worked for four years as a housing planner with the City of Toronto, where he advised on the development and implementation of housing policy and regulation, and one year as a research analyst with the Canadian Urban Institute. Keir is a Registered Professional Planner and Full Member of the Canadian Institute of Planners.