Inclusionary Zoning: Best Practices and Lessons Learned for Toronto

Description

The final recommendations for Toronto’s Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) policy are planned to go before City Council in the first half of 2021. The IZ tool has been implemented across the United States and in the United Kingdom as a way to produce new affordable housing by compelling developers to set aside a portion of their new housing units as affordable housing. What lessons can be extracted from these localities to help inform the implementation of IZ in Toronto? Two of our panelists will present their research, which evaluated how well IZ worked in London, UK and three US regions (San Francisco Bay Area, Washington DC area, and Boston suburbs) to generate more affordable housing and create mixed-income communities. The formal presentations will be followed by a discussion on how these experiences from other jurisdictions might be considered in the Toronto context.

Panelists

Deanna Chorney is a project manager with the City of Toronto’s City Planning division. In her current role she works with a team of housing experts to maintain the City’s supply of existing affordable rental housing and secure new affordable rental and ownership housing. Since 2016, she has been leading work on advancing inclusionary zoning, including supporting the City’s position on provincial legislation and proposing a local framework that responds to Toronto’s specific housing needs and market conditions.

Fei Li is an Assistant Professor at the Urban Studies Institute, Georgia State University (Atlanta). Her research interests involve transportation, housing, segregation, inequality, public health, and the social impacts of emerging technologies. Her current research focuses on 1) the integration of multimodal urban transport and smart technologies in promoting sustainable, safe and equitable mobility; 2) healthcare accessibility and the disparate impact of COVID-19; and 3) inclusionary housing policies. Fei holds a PhD in Public Administration from New York University and a bachelor’s degree from Peking University (China).

Jenny Schuetz is a senior fellow at the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings. She is an expert in urban economics and housing policy, focusing particularly on housing affordability. Jenny has written extensively on land use regulation, housing prices, and neighbourhood change. She has served as a principal economist in the Federal Reserve System. She is a non-resident senior fellow at GWU’s Center for Washington Area Studies and teaches in Georgetown’s urban planning program. Jenny earned a PhD in Public Policy from Harvard University, a Master’s in City Planning from M.I.T., and a B.A. from the University of Virginia.

Jeanhy Shim is the Founding President of Housing Lab Toronto – an independent real estate development consulting firm, and Founding Partner of PMA Sales Lab – a neighbourhood-focused housing advisory firm. For the past 28 years, she has provided strategic market analysis and development advisory services to developers and financial institutions in the Toronto region. Jeanhy serves on the Board of Directors at Waterfront Toronto, and is a founding Co-Chair of the Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee at Urban Land Institute Toronto. She has a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a B.A. from McGill University.

Moderator

Susannah Bunce is an Associate Professor in the Department of Human Geography and City Studies program at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Susannah’s research focuses on socio-environmental processes in urban neighbourhoods and community-based engagement. Her research on Community Land Trusts examines the provision of affordable housing, community decision-making, and collective practice. Susannah is also the co-lead, along with Dr. Alan Walks (Geography & Planning, UofT), of the Affordable Housing Challenge Project at the School of Cities, University of Toronto.