The Math of Symbolic Progress: 74 Units vs. a City in Collapse
AI-generated image · Bay Street Wire
Toronto officials celebrate a new rent-controlled project on Dundas Street West, but the scale of the build highlights the vast gap between political milestones and systemic affordability.
OPINION: There is a specific kind of political theater reserved for the Toronto housing crisis: the groundbreaking ceremony. As CBC Toronto first reported, Mayor Olivia Chow and Councillor Ausma Malik stood on a former city parking lot at 1113-1125 Dundas Street W. on Monday to celebrate the start of a project that will yield 74 rent-controlled units.
On its face, the project is a victory. According to CBC Toronto, the development will include 17 units with rents adjusted to tenant income, and 40 per cent of the total units will be two- or three-bedrooms. It is a thoughtful use of public land, as noted by Danielle Martin, MP for Toronto's University-Rosedale, who argued that transforming a municipal parking lot into housing is the exact partnership approach required to ease citywide pressures.
But when you step back from the photo-op, the math is sobering. The city's HousingTO plan aims to deliver 65,000 new rent-controlled homes by 2030—a figure that includes 41,000 affordable rentals, 17,500 rent-controlled homes, and 6,500 rent-geared-to-income units. In the context of a goal that large, 74 units is a rounding error.
This disconnect is precisely why Councillor Brad Bradford, a mayoral rival to Chow, dismissed the announcement in a news release. Bradford argued that "approvals aren't apartments" and "announcements aren't construction," asserting that while federal funding is available, the responsibility for actual delivery rests with the mayor.
To be fair, this project is part of a larger federal push. CBC Toronto reports that Prime Minister Mark Carney recently pledged $2.7 billion over three years for more than 18 Toronto housing projects. This includes $310 million specifically for nine projects on city-owned land—of which the Dundas Street project is one—intended to create nearly 1,900 homes, with over 700 meeting affordability definitions.
Even these larger numbers struggle to keep pace with the collapse of affordability. While Mayor Chow told reporters that the city is "doubling down" and that those who work in Toronto should be able to afford to live here, the reality is that we are fighting a forest fire with a garden hose.
Managed by the city agency CreateTO, the new building will utilize energy-efficient design and low-carbon mass timber construction, managed eventually by a non-profit provider. It is a model for how we *should* build: sustainable, non-market, and strategically located near transit and services. But the crisis is not a lack of models; it is a lack of scale.
Until the city can move from celebrating dozens of units to delivering tens of thousands, these ceremonies will remain symbolic gestures in a city where the rent is anything but controlled.