Stop building the wrong types of homes, report advises

A new report from the C.D. Howe Institute concludes that botched land-use planning issues at both the municipal and provincial levels have lead to an over supply of apartment or condo units.

Author of the article:

Paul Barker  •  Special to Postmedia Network

Published Aug 14, 2026  •  2 minute read

Housing policy cannot succeed if it ignores consumer demand, says Frank Clayton, a senior research fellow at Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Toronto Metropolitan University.

A new report from the C.D. Howe Institute concludes that botched land-use planning issues at both the municipal and provincial level have lead to an over supply of apartment or condo units and an alarming shortage of ground-related housing across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

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The report, entitled Room to Grow: Building More of the Housing Homebuyers Want, concludes that a “majority of homebuyers including first-time and immigrant households, prefer ground-related housing, particularly single-detached homes and more affordable substitutes such as semi-detached homes, townhouses and stacked townhouses.

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“Yet, the types of housing being built in the region have become increasingly misaligned with those preferences.”

Written by Frank Clayton, a senior research fellow in the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Toronto Metropolitan University, the report notes that:

• Since the mid-2000s, land-use planning policies have favoured higher-density apartment development in built-up areas over development on greenfield lands, an approach that has limited ground-related housing type
• Better aligning land-use planning with market preferences would improve housing affordability and market efficiency.
• In 2001, single-detached housing accounted for 44 per cent of total starts but by 2024 that number had declined to just 13 per cent.

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“Housing policy cannot succeed if it ignores consumer demand,” says Clayton. “Canadians continue to aspire to ground-related homes. Planning for the housing people want, rather than simply counting units, is key to restoring affordability.”

He points out that “it is clear Ontario homebuyers prefer homes with an exterior entrance, a garage, and a plot of green space. The evidence is in the numbers.”

According to Clayton, “between 2017 and 2024, single-detached homes accounted for 40 to 62 per cent of all first-time home purchases in Ontario, far exceeding demand for condominium apartments. Yet, by the end of 2022, apartments accounted for 86 percent of all approved and proposed housing units in the GTHA development pipeline.”

As a solution to the problem, the report recommends increasing the supply of the housing homebuyers prefer while at the same time lowering the cost of suitable alternatives to traditional single-detached subdivisions.

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This, it states, includes “maintaining an ample supply of serviced greenfield land, reducing government-imposed development costs, and encouraging greenfield communities that combine townhouses, low-rise apartments, and smaller-lot single-detached homes.”

This approach, notes Clayton, has already gained market acceptance and improved affordability in municipalities including Oakville, Waterloo Region, and Ottawa.

The onus, he said in a interview is for the politicians to come up ways that will stop the flow of people having to leave the GTHA because they simply cannot afford to purchase a home.

Local politicians and planners, says Clayton, may be able to control “the kind of housing built within the boundary of a municipality, but they can’t control the people. People can move.”

He suggests they should also consider following Edmonton’s a lead, which is the “poster child right now of housing affordability” through a policy that includes an “aggressive intensification of existing single detached neighbourhoods” and allowing homes to be built on greenfield lands.

In the case of the GTHA, Clayton says that the provincial government “has to take charge because nobody else is taking charge of what’s going on, which is too bad.”

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