The number of new homes constructed in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) is projected to decline by 7,200 each year until 2041, due to the possibility of unmet provincial population targets, according to Residential and Civil Construction Alliance of Ontario (RCCAO).
According to the GTHA's Unbalanced Housing Stock: Benchmarking Ontario's New LPAT System, up to 165,600 homes are at risk of not being built over the next 23 years. This will result in a yearly loss of $1.95 billion in GDP from residential construction activity if, various constraints continue to hinder the goals set by the provincial growth plan, Places to Grow (P2G).
Paul Smetanin, president of socio-economic research and data firm the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CANCEA), said that the lack of medium-density housing starts, or the Missing Middle, will significantly restrain the region from hitting provincial home-building targets.
"Hamilton has made the most progress on the 'Missing Middle. Toronto, Mississauga, Markham, Newmarket less so, while Brampton is biased towards lower density starts,'" Smetanin said.
RCCAO also identified the different issues among the region's most populous municipalities, including the fact that the number of Toronto’s annual starts is higher than the required figures by the P2G
