Why Canada’s Condo Blueprint Needs a Structural Rethink
Every city eventually confronts the limits of the model it built its growth on. Toronto and Vancouver are having that reckoning now, and the numbers behind it are hard to ignore. Vancouver had roughly 70,000 detached homes in 1971. Today that number sits closer to 35,000. Density was always going to be the answer to that math. The question policymakers and developers still have not answered is what kind of density, and for whom.
Commentary from a CMHC economist, recently amplified through industry channels including Mortgage Fest Canada, put the issue plainly: the condo model as it currently exists may not be built to last. Not because towers are the wrong shape for Canadian cities, but because the units going up inside them are not the units families actually need. A four-bedroom condo in downtown Toronto is a rare, oversized, and expensive proposition, typically north of 2,000 square feet. Developers have optimized for volume and turnover, not for the household that wants to raise children in the core.
This is a supply strategy problem before it is a market sentiment problem. Brokers on the ground are already describing a market under strain. Dan Eisner of True North Mortgage noted that a buyer is generally in reasonable shape only if they can find a quality unit above 750 square feet, a threshold that says a great deal about how compressed the current stock has become. When the baseline unit shrinks that far, the product stops serving anyone beyond single occupants and investors, and the pipeline of long-term, community-anchored ownership dries up.
The consequence is showing up in migration intent, not just affordability surveys. A statistic raised at a recent mayoral debate found that one-third of Greater Toronto Area residents want to leave the region, with affordability cited as a primary driver. That is a signal no development strategy can afford to dismiss. A city cannot intensify its way to competitiveness if the housing produced during that intensification pushes its own residents toward the exits.
We’re still not building the type of housing stock this high-density environment actually requires, and that is the change that needs to come.
For those of us thinking in terms of land value, feasibility, and long-term community identity, this is the real project ahead. It is not enough to approve density. The unit mix, floorplate design, and family-oriented amenity planning have to be part of the feasibility conversation from day one, not an afterthought layered on once towers are already entitled. Municipalities that rework zoning and incentive structures to reward larger, family-viable units will be the ones that retain tax base, school enrollment, and long-term neighbourhood stability. Those that do not risk building density that empties out as fast as it fills up.
The detached home was never coming back at the scale earlier generations knew it. That transition is settled. What remains unsettled, and what will define the next decade of urban growth strategy, is whether the high-density replacement is actually designed for the households cities need to keep.
Source: Canadian Mortgage Professional
