Federal

This collaborative report from Happy Cities/ Hey Neighbour Collective summarizes discussions from municipal staff (planners & policymakers), developers, community organizations, and researcher perspectives on how to facilitate social connection in multi-unit housing.

Multi-unit residential buildings can help densify and increase housing supply in growing, land-constrained cities. If designed appropriately, multi-unit residences can also provide occupants the opportunity to lead more socially connected lives.

Key insights:

As the report outlines, elements for social connectedness were identified through group discussions, and included:

Tenure alternatives
Feeling safe
Having exposure to other tenants.

Supportive policies (e.g., exploring alternative ownership models) and design features (e.g., creating clusters of smaller amenity spaces) were articulated to help advance these outcomes.

Along with key challenges, a roadmap is articulated to help collective evidence and increase awareness of the importance of social connection, and pilot the proposed concepts in new housing projects.

The Housing Needs Assessment tool, developed by Housing Assessment Resource Tools (HART) & University of British Columbia provides a framework to compare housing needs across Canada.

Key insights:

The tool leverages census data to define the cost of affordable housing and the percentage of households with a core housing need for each area median household income category.
The tool additionally articulates the total affordable housing deficit in a given community based on income level and household size.
Households with a core housing need are further broken down by priority population (e.g., single mother households, Indigenous households, etc.).
Users can explore trends at the national, provincial, regional, and municipal level.

Download (PDF)

A growth management strategy that relies on extensive urban infill requires major changes from past industry and regulatory practice. For the strategy to succeed, builders and local governments must change the way they operate and work more closely together to further each others’ goals.

Key insights:

This report from the Housing Partnership discusses ten essentials for advancing gentle density infill development, including:

Building political will
Making infill attractive and profitable to developers
Planning development based on market demand
Ensuring new housing preserves existing neighbourhood character
Promoting livable designs
Providing a supportive regulatory process.

For each essential, a section is provided to discuss the topic’s importance, highlight the changes that must be made, and denote the roles that developers, local organizations, municipalities, and provincial governments must uptake to successfully deliver each initiative.

An emphasis is placed on municipalities working closely with developers to ensure that regulatory environments work to support development and vice versa.

This publication was prepared by The Housing Partnership, through a contribution from
the Washington Association of Realtors.

In July 2023, the Casita Coalition convened a dialogue featuring prominent figures in the field of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) from various regions, including Portland, OR, Vancouver BC, California, Seattle WA, and Montana.

These leaders, pioneers, and innovators shared their insights on the strategies they employed to successfully implement significant ADU and middle housing reforms. In addition, perspectives from advocates in Texas and New York about their ongoing initiatives were shared. Small Housing was represented by Co-Founder Jake Fry, who presented

Key insights:

What are some of the key steps Government can take to support the delivery of ADUs?

Build a broad coalition across political and other divides.
Talk to other ADU/middle housing reform advocates from cities/states that have been successful to speed learning and avoid pitfalls.
Tailor the messaging based on local values–and always center the human stories.
Raise awareness and gather supporters by offering tours and showing photos of appealing ADUs, ‘plexes, cottage courts and the happy people who live in them.
Passing statewide laws is essential, but prepare for the next barriers after zoning restrictions are removed.

Federal

Key insights:

Are you a planner?

Do you have resources to share?

Key insights:

Are you a planner?

Do you have resources to share?

Key insights:

Are you a planner?

Do you have resources to share?

Are you a planner?

Do you have resources to share?