Environment, Climate & Energy

Key insights:

This Small Housing Guidance Paper presents recommendations that will assist various actors involved in planning, designing and constructing energy efficient buildings, especially as it relates to new gentle density development.

It provides background information and identifies challenges and recommendations in eight key areas:

  1. Building industry productivity and collaboration
  2. Expertise gap in building sector
  3. Training and skills development
  4. Standardization and process improvement
  5. Challenges with legislation and bylaws
  6. Focus on embodied carbon
  7. Energy modeling and verification
  8. Infrastructure and utilities

Key insights:

This report investigates the potential for infill development in Mississauga to accommodate the region’s population growth projections and ensure that new development does not infringe on the urban greenbelt.

The report outlines:

  • Mississauga could add approximately 174,000 new residential units (at an average unit size of over 1,000 sq.ft.) via low- and medium-density intensification.
  • Through this approach, Mississauga could accommodate 435,000 new residents.
  • This is enough housing to support Mississauga’s growth projects, and to also accommodate approximately 85% of Peel Region’s assigned growththrough to 2041.
  • This housing can be delivered without the consumption of new greenfield land, reducing the need to encroach into the Greenbelt

This report is authored by Graham Haines and Brianna Aird of Toronto Metropolitan University.

This report aims to rapidly develop and scale solutions to address some of the main land use policy, project financing and design challenges faced in delivering affordable missing middle housing.

Key recommendations:

  • Reforming zoning bylaws to allow as-of-right development of Missing Middle housing,
  • Reforming current public consultation processes
  • Creating incentive programs and seed funding (via CMHC) for the development of missing middle housing
  • Establishing missing-middle specific building standards and development fees
  • Creating a set of missing middle typologies that can over time allow for replicable approval, design, finance, and construction phases.

A pilot project has been identified in Little Jamaica (Toronto) to test out the proposed affordability framework and housing financial models advanced in this report.

Additionally, a National Scalability roadmap has been created to continue to progress the work of the Missing Middle Lab, through maintaining partnerships, bolstering municipal support, and developing design catalogues and financial incentives.

This report was authored by CMHC & Keesmaat Group.

This report from BC Housing explores the tiny home typology and explores ways to regulate and legalize this built form within the context of BC.

The report provides sample cost estimates for building tiny homes, highlights opportunities (including build time and environmental impacts) and challenges (including building code and standard compliance) and discusses potential home warranty solutions.

The bulk of the resource features BC and North American case studies that delve into project details such as construction timelines, project financing, and lessons learned.

This report was compiled and crafted by the research and writing team of Anastasia Koutalianos, Writer and Co-founder BC Tiny House Collective; Christina Radvak, Project Manager at Light House; Joanne Sawatzky, Director of Green Building Services at Light House; and Sarah Jones, Project Coordinator at Light House.

This report from Salt Spring Solutions aims to bring together a comprehensive set of solutions to the housing crisis on Salt Spring Island.

Key insights:

Salt Spring Island’s housing challenges are currently exasperated by several factors, including sprawl, demographic changes and strained infrastructure capacity.

As this report details, Salt Spring Island looks to address these by establishing a local housing framework that advances five strategies:

  • Strategy 1: Coordinated and Properly Resourced Local Approach to Housing
  • Strategy 2: Effective Public Education, Engagement, and Dialogue on Housing.
  • Strategy 3: Preservation of Rural Areas and Nature Space through Clustered Housing.
  • Strategy 4: Readying Ganges Village for More Housing
  • Strategy 5: Accessory Dwellings for Housing, in the Right Places

Amongst the key policy actions recommended include:

  • creating an entity to oversee and coordinate interagency tasks,
  • developing a public education and engagement policy,
  • updating policy and zoning regulations to incentivize compact,
  • clustered housing development,
  • intensifying growth in the town centre,
  • and permitting ADUs for long-term occupancy.