The Road to Toronto’s Housing Hell was Paved with Good Intentions

Good Intentions Don’t Build Homes

They say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Don’t dwell on what you meant to happen; focus on what does. Intentions mean little if results never materialize. This lesson applies to life, business, and politics, and nowhere more urgently than in housing.

Toronto’s housing crisis will not be solved with good intentions alone. Yet good intentions are all we seem to have. We hear endless calls to increase supply and cut red tape, countless announcements and pilot programs, but little real change. The public doesn’t need promises; it needs results. Housing is too fundamental a need to be treated with “thoughts and prayers.” We must be bold, decisive, and, for once, willing to get out of our own way.

The Logic of Land Use Liberalization

It seems to me that the best path forward is liberalizing land-use regulation. It’s a numbers game: if we need more housing, it must become easier, not harder, to provide it. The logic is simple. The development process should be navigable and outcomes predictable. That predictability should apply at every stage of a project: site selection, financing, construction, and occupancy. When rules are clear and consistent, execution risk falls, capital flows, and competition increases. The result is a wider array of housing options and ultimately, more affordability.

In such a rational world, Toronto would be filled with choices: single-family homes, townhomes, multiplexes, mid-rises, and even towers. We would stop obsessing over form and start enabling function. Housing policy should allow all types of buildings letting market forces, tempered by planning logic and building codes, decide what fits best where. Density should be guided toward existing infrastructure but not strangled elsewhere. Every unit counts, regardless of project size.

Smaller projects in particular should be simpler to deliver. Their success would create a steady, decentralized flow of new homes between large development cycles, a kind of “always-on” model that smooths supply provision. The formula is straightforward: the easier it is to build these smaller projects, the more consistently new homes will reach the market, across a wider geography.

Where We Fall Short

Recent reforms like Toronto’s multiplex zoning changes were meant to move us in this direction. They are, undeniably, steps forward. But they are not yet producing the influx of new units that policymakers envisioned. The reason lies in the details.

Zoning may now be “as-of-right” for small multiplex projects, but that doesn’t mean they’re profitable or even feasible. A six-unit building will never make anyone rich, nor does it need to, but it should still be worth doing. For most, it isn’t. The process remains unpredictable and costly. To navigate the system, you practically need a PhD in land-use economics just to decode variances, service upgrades, and obscure triggers buried in the bylaw. The intentions are noble, and the vibes immaculate, but vibes don’t build homes.

The Fear of Gentle Density

Worse still, the most effective reforms often apply only in select parts of the city. On paper, this seems sensible: “preserve neighbourhood character,” “phase in change.” But in the midst of a crisis, excluding density is indefensible. You can build four units anywhere in Toronto, yet six only in certain wards. Why micromanage that distinction? The difference is trivial.

A close second in the pantheon of self-defeating rules are unit caps. Zoning already dictates the physical limits of a building: its height, setbacks, lot coverage, and depth. The Ontario Building Code already governs livable area, ventilation, fire safety, and egress. So why does Toronto layer on arbitrary limits to the number of units permitted, despite this?

Consider a typical example: a 4,500-square-foot, four-storey multiplex. This footprint fits comfortably on many Toronto lots and aligns with prevailing zoning. That same building could hold around ten 450-square-foot studios, or six 750-square-foot two-bedrooms, or four 1,125-square-foot family units. The envelope is the same. The building form barely changes. The decision of which mix to pursue should depend on location and market need, not bureaucratic fiat. Near a university, ten small units might serve students best. In a quieter neighbourhood, four larger homes might suit families. Eliminating unit caps would let these micro-markets function naturally, aligning supply with local demand. The real point here is that localized market demand will help dictate what gets provided; studios will not pop-up everywhere, as many may fear, as the market may not need that unit type in that location.

Eliminating unit-caps would also ease financial constraints. Allowing more units in a fixed envelope gives developers flexibility to make more expensive sites viable. In some cases, the added density simply allows a project to exist at all. Let the codes and the market do their work. Zoning should regulate form and use, not micromanage interior layouts.

Pragmatism Over Perfection

If we are serious about unlocking supply, we must stop treating the most accessible projects,small multiplexes, like radioactive experiments. Unit caps should be removed. Development charges should be reserved for larger projects, perhaps those above sixty units. Doing so would make small-scale housing feasible without crippling city revenue. If the city truly needed that revenue, the loss would be recovered through modest property-tax adjustments. The world would keep spinning, only with more homes.

Will such reforms be perfect? Hardly. But perfection is not the goal. Progress is. The real danger lies not in imperfection but in bureaucratic inertia. Every year of delay compounds the affordability crisis and drives young Torontonians out of the city.

The paradox of our planning system is that it obsesses over what might go wrong while ignoring what is already going wrong. We write endless policies to anticipate growth, yet our over-caution produces its own harm. The status quo is not neutral, it’s destructive. It prevents people from living in the city that needs them.

Outcomes Over Intentions

Toronto does not need another round of consultations, task forces, or pilot programs.The city needs permission not perfection. We must have the courage to accept that mistakes will happen, that not every building will be beautiful or beloved, but that stagnation is worse than imperfection. The only way to build a livable city is to actually start building.

For too long, our housing policy has been paralyzed by good intentions: cautious, contradictory, endlessly refined. Every bylaw, every consultation, every “gentle” reform has been crafted to avoid offence. Yet housing policy cannot be about intentions, it needs to be about outcomes. And right now, our only outcome has been failure. It’s time to stop legislating hesitation. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, Toronto has been laying asphalt for decades. It's time we start building homes instead.

At accordingto.ca, We Believe in Rebuilding the Missing Middle.

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