TREB Mayoral Candidate Event
The mayoral elections are approaching fast and recently TREB invited the two leading candidates, John Tory and Jennifer Keesmaat, to address its members and the Red Square Team was in attendance. Each candidate spoke for about 20 minutes and then took questions from the floor. Here is a summary of some of the key points.
Land Transfer Tax
On the screens beforehand, TREB was publicising its efforts to scrap the land transfer tax. The campaign uses the hash tag, #unLockMyHousingOptions and argues that the land transfer tax leads to higher prices and worsening affordability because it stops people from moving. That, in turn, reduces the supply of available homes and with continuing strong demand in the GTA, it is inevitable that prices will rise. In our experience, and certainly in the areas that we work in, that is the case, but whether the city can afford to lose those revenues is another question. If you are interested in learning more about TREB’s campaign, you can read about it here.
Given all of that, both candidates could have won the room simply by declaring an end to the Land Transfer Tax and walking out! Instead, both said that while they would like to scrap the tax, the revenue was essential to the city’s revenues. Both did say that they had no intention of increasing it and also planned to keep any increases in property tax in line with inflation. Jennifer Keesmaat, however, went on to outline plans for a luxury tax on homes over $4m as a way of paying for her rent-to-buy scheme. This scheme would allow first time buyers to rent homes from not-for-profit developers, but with their rent being used as a monthly payment allowing them to own their home over time.
Affordable Housing
This was a major theme for both candidates, but Keesemaat was much more aggressive in her targets, wanting to build 100,000 units over the next 10 years vs 40,000 over the next 12 years for Tory. John Tory was first to the podium and spoke of the need for “realistic targets” while Keesemaat attacked Tory’s lack of ambition. Keesemaat criticized John Tory for not making better use of vacant city land that could be used for new development. She was also critical of his plan for the Gardiner which essentially is to rebuild it as it is now with an elevated section. Her plan is to reroute it and create a boulevard. She claims this would save in excess of $400m and free up 12 acres of waterfront land for development. Tory was critical of the red tape that causes delays in new projects being approved. He said that it takes twice as long to get a project improved in Toronto as elsewhere in the country and reducing those hurdles would increase the supply of housing, especially condos.
Transit
Both candidates identified this as an urgent need and John Tory recounted stories of mayors of other major cities commiserating with him about the standard of transit in Toronto. Tory pledged a steady as she goes approach to rolling out his SmartTrack program and argued that any change to the plan would result in more delays and a return to the bad old days of endless debate and no action. Keesemaat criticized Tory for not fulfilling his election promise of 22 new stations and instead only rolling out 6. Her plan is more ambitious and calls for a $50bn investment. It includes a downtown relief line, a return to the 3 stop Scarborough subway and making permanent the King Street Transit Project.
We will be looking at future transit plans and how they can be great places to invest, in future blogs – the first one will be coming after the election once we know whose plan is the winner!
Conclusion
Much has been made of the differences between the two candidates and certainly some of the debates have been a little acrimonious, but they also agree on many things, namely the importance of transit and affordable housing. The biggest difference between the two on these issues is really the scope and level of ambition. Keesemaat is aiming high and criticizing Tory for a lack of ambition, while Tory counters that his plans are achievable while hers are so ambitious that they will never get off the ground. We will shortly know which message resonates most clearly with voters.
