Development approval timelines in the Greater Toronto Area

As per Altus Group their recently completed study for BILD (Building Industry and Land Development Association).

They have looked at various factors that might be contributing to housing affordability and supply issues.

Here in the Greater Toronto Area. One area that they looked at was development approval timelines, which I thought developers must be aware of:

This demonstrate that the approval timelines don’t seem to really vary based on project size.

Doesn’t matter if you’re rezoning for 3-50 homes or 400-500 homes, it’s probably going to take you a similar amount of time.

This in turn creates a strong incentivize to want to develop bigger projects.

Among other things, it brings down the “number of days per unit” metric shown in this second chart.

Size does matter!

Yes , it does, what is too small or too large size for each developer would be varies depends on their risk prospective , if capital is not a constraint, there’s a tendency to want to do bigger projects .

It unfortunate!

We should incentivize smaller infill projects. Our cities need development at all scales.