East Bayfront
“Number one, who is going to draw the names of the 50 or 75 lucky people that are going to live on the lake?”

—Councillor Doug Ford

Situated south-east of Canary Lands, East Bayfront will be built by Tridel and will sit beside Lake Ontario. There will be 1,800 condominium residences built on 13 acres of land.

To spark redevelopment, Toronto sold several parcels of city land to a group, including Tridel, to create the mixed-use neighbourhood of East Bayfront: commercial, retail, condos and rental. The deal reserved two parcels on the eastern fringe for affordable units — expected to come on stream in 10 to 15 years.

City council’s plan for the area demands that 20 per cent of housing there be set aside for affordable units, so that the waterfront will not be the sole preserve of the well-off.

Apparently, some of the developers are appealing the city’s 20% affordable housing target to the Ontario Municipal Board.

Pilot project
In late October 2013, Toronto’s affordable housing committee approved a pilot project to buy 20-25% of the units in a new condo development, Aqualina at Bayside in the new East Bayfront neighbourhood, The 80 units will become affordable rental apartments operated by Artscape.


Affordable rental units in a waterfront condo

As much as $15-million is expected to come from federal and provincial governments, with $7 million from the city in direct grants and a further $7.6 million in indirect contributions. Artscape will take out a $7 million mortgage that will be paid from the rent money.
 
Councillor Ana Bailao, chair of the affordable housing committee, heralded the pilot project as a creative way to help address an affordable housing shortage.
 
This isn’t creative as this “poor-door” arrangement exists in England and the United States and soon will be in a new condo in Vancouver. –editor
 
Segregated units (Poor door)
The affordable apartments, to be located on eight floors along the north and west side of the 11- to 12-storey condo complex, will function as a separate entity in the building with their own lobby, elevator, roof-top amenity space and parking.

City staff state that the units would be designed with a “modesty standard” in mind. The one-, two- and three-bedroom affordable housing units are also larger than the planned condos.

Rent will be 20% less than the average market rate.
 
Artscape's role

The city will own the units and lease them out to Artscape who will select the tenants and will manage the units.

The location is questioned
Critics on the political right, including Mayor Ford and his brother, councillor Doug Ford, question the building of affordable rental units on Toronto's waterfront especially because some of the units will have waterfront views.

They think that government funded affordable units should be built elsewhere, where exactly, they do not say.



Yet in Vancouver where the Sequel 138, a condo development with 18 social housing units is being built, the lefties have protested because they claim that putting a new condo in the poor downtown east-end neighbourhood will drive up rents which will push the small independent businesses and the low income people out.



The middle-class city planners and professional social workers can't please the critics on either side.
 
What about the condo owners?

There have been a handful of affordable rental units included in a few downtown condos but nothing of this size has yet has been built in Toronto.
 
Will these rental units be a separate non-profit corporation that has limited shared facilities with the condo or will the 80 units be incorporated within the larger condominium corporation? This is an important point.
 
If the city owns approximately 36% of a corporation’s units, then the city would have enough votes to have political control of the corporation especially if the condo has a lot of absentee owners who rent their units.
 
If the segregated rental units are a separate corporation, then they may both belong to a shared facilities corporation and that could cause problems.
 
Any potential buyers would be wise to carefully read the Declaration and Disclosure documents before signing a sales agreement.
 
Will it be approved?
"Congratulations to all of the partners involved in making affordable housing happen in the new East Bayfront community. The approval of the Bayside Pilot Project affirms Toronto's commitment to city residents having the opportunity to live in all neighbourhoods."
—Deputy Mayor Norm Kelly

The project was approved by city council on 10 June 2014.

Should Poor Doors Be Banned? Aqualina Bayside Stirs the Waters.
By Tracy Ruddell
Condos.ca   (for the full article)
June 1, 2015
The developers have partnered with the City, who in turn have brought on Artscape, a non-profit arts organization, to manage 80 affordable rental units in one section of the building for artists to live and work in. In theory, a great idea for a vibrant, mixed-use, mixed-income artistic community. The controversial bit? The low-income residents will enter by a different door.

These “poor doors” have been used in New York condos where they faced similar public outrage. So much so that the mayor of NYC is considering banning the practice altogether. Toronto city council is receiving pressure to do the same.

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