URBAN SPRAWL DESTROYS IT ALL   -   TRUE/FALSE

The newspaper headline in 1981 read.."Mr. Trudeau, where are our children going to live?"   A provocative statement from the Toronto Home Builders' Association in response to soaring mortgage interest rates. At the time they topped 21% and literally shut down the new housing industry. The impact on affordability and consumer debt management was catastrophic.

Today, 33 years later, one could ask the same question but for quite different reasons. Affordability and consumer debt management is not, at least yet, influenced by rising internet rates but by contraction of land supply.

The availability of the raw material for the home building industry and then ultimately for the consumer is under severe attack.

Notwithstanding that the GTA is probably in the eighth year of a seven-year economic cycle the sheer volume of housing activity in the last seven (7) years tops 266,000 units - a record performance.

The economic roar of the new millennium has been led by the housing sector producing employment levels five times agriculture and twice that of the automotive industry.

This phenomenal growth in housing has been driven by the fundamentals of market demand - employment growth, income growth, population growth and historically low interest rates.

But all this booming construction has led to an unintended consequence - a backlash against growth. A backlash against traffic gridlock and the perception of urban sprawl.

Urban sprawl means different things to different people. When the GTA is constantly playing "catch-up" or sometimes even "give up" with infrastructure - from roads, to sewers, to libraries and public transit - even modest growth may seem too much.

The fact is that the GTA is experiencing record growth in housing construction - but not urban sprawl!

The GTA is being developed at the highest densities of any city in North America . Toronto is producing the most number of units on the least amount of land of any comparable jurisdiction.

At the same time the development industry has adopted an "environment first" planning principal - protecting woodlots, watersheds, open space and environmentally sensitive areas first - ahead of housing and commercial activity.

Both sides of the urban sprawl issue talk about managing growth. Recent "green legislation" removed 700,000 hectares of raw material from development potential. Changes to the planning act will lengthen the time to process a plan of subdivision and not allow property owners outside an urban boundary to independently submit their lands into the process.

These changes, while targeting "urban sprawl", constrict supply and drive up prices - immediately!

The battle cry against urban sprawl must put in context the type and form of development occurring in the GTA while recognizing that managing growth shouldn't mean stopping growth dead in its tracks.

The GTA housing scene is in a fragile period nearing the end of a powerful growth cycle - great care must be taken by our political leaders not to be the unintended ended symbol that precipitates a major correction.

The more things change the more they stay the same - the question remains, as it did in 1981 -   "Where are our children going to live?"