City hall said two affordable housing projects were ‘shovel-ready’ last summer. Why hasn’t construction started?

But that effort has once again found itself months behind schedule — a chronic problem since the first Housing Now sites were unveiled five-plus years ago.

Despite the August announcement, construction on the first project at 5207 Dundas St. W. did not begin until February, and work hasn’t started at the other two “shovel-ready” sites, 140 Merton St. and 50 Wilson Heights Blvd.

City officials say the issues holding up these projects range from an increasingly difficult economic climate to delays securing funding and efforts to be more ambitious with density. But observers say the latest delays are yet another example of the systemic issues that slow down much-needed housing.

When Housing Now was first launched, city hall expected to start construction at the Merton and Wilson Heights locations by 2020. These two projects alone represent thousands of potential homes, with the latest designs promising 1,778 units with hundreds of those guaranteed to be rented at lower costs. 

However, the Housing Now effort has contended for years with broad market challenges — from pandemic slowdowns to higher interest rates — as well as site-specific roadblocks. At Wilson Heights, the Star has reported on barriers from pushback over the loss of a parking lot to required sewer upgrades.

Now, Merton has been delayed again by an effort to boost its height and density, city hall says.

Meanwhile, Susan O’Neill, a spokesperson for city real estate agency CreateTO, noted factors from interest rates to new players joining the project team as slowing down Wilson Heights. The team was still finalizing loan agreements with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., she said.

Construction on the Merton development is now expected to begin by the end of 2024, while the city is eyeing shovels in the ground at Wilson Heights by this summer, with one recent city hall report identifying a June target. 

“It’s no longer Housing Now. It’s Housing-maybe-in-the-future-sometime,” lamented Coun. James Pasternak, whose York Centre ward includes the project at 50 Wilson Heights Blvd. “It’s run into one problem after another.”

Still, CreateTO sees its statement last August on Merton and Wilson Heights as accurate. “When we say a site is shovel ready, that means zoning is final and binding and we have a development partner in place,” O’Neill said in an email.

While David Wilkes, president of the GTA-based Building Industry and Land Development Association, demurred from commenting on specific projects, he suggested that definition strayed from usual industry practice.

“When something is termed, from an industry perspective, ‘shovel-ready,’ you do have — for the most part — your zoning done. You have your financing done. You’re ready to go, and ready to put those shovels in the ground.” 

Wilkes, however, was not surprised by the six-month gap between the ceremonial groundbreaking at 5207 Dundas and construction starting in earnest. That kind of delay is not out of the ordinary, he told the Star.

O’Neill, the CreateTO spokesperson, suggested it was a longer gap than the city expected. “While financing agreements and permit approvals took longer than anticipated, once complete, construction began immediately, and work is now well underway with an expected completion date of late 2027,” she wrote.

Players involved in the other two sites are blunt about the hurdles still ahead.

“Financial viability continues to be more of a challenge for the entire industry than it was in years past,” said Jessica Green, a spokesperson for Greenwin Corp., which is working on the Wilson Heights project with Tridel and KingSett.

“We would have hoped that this project would have commenced construction some time ago,” added Tridel executive Mike Mestyan. Work was still progressing, he said, but the situation was dynamic. While they had an approval in place, they needed permits — with no guarantee of timing, as the team also needed to provide some notice to shut the on-site parking lot.

Housing advocate Mark Richardson, a member of the volunteer group HousingNowTO, sees the latest delays as symptoms of a wider problem — namely, a lack of co-ordination and communication between official bodies.

It’s the same kind of holdup he worries might befall projects later in the Housing Now pipeline. At 2444 Eglinton Ave. E., he noted the city is aiming to create its first Housing Now project with a co-op housing model. If, for example, the city decides to pursue financial assistance with that project from a forthcoming federal co-op development program, the speed of its efforts could depend on the speed of Ottawa’s rollout, Richardson noted. 

“The pace of these will only improve when all three levels of government are putting executive-level attention onto these sites moving quickly,” he said.

To Pasternak, the projects continue to show how best intentions can crash against the reality of today’s market. “Sometimes, it looks like everything is aligned and they’re ready to go, and then along comes another curveball, which really throws them off their schedule,” he said, noting issues ranging from the speed of needed infrastructure work to now-shakier financing plans. 

To Pasternak, the previously outlined timelines simply assumed too many problems could be readily fixed. “A housing crisis cannot be solved with a flick of a switch or overnight solutions. I think that was the flaw in this.”