Encouraging Family-Friendly Condominium Development and Creating Complete Communities in Downtown Toronto

Abstract

This thesis explores the idea of complete communities and discusses how condominium development in downtown Toronto can be made more family friendly by focusing on the proposed ‘Official Plan Amendment to Encourage the Development of Units for Households with Children’ (OPA) that is currently before City Council. In order to address this issue, the study employed a detailed policy review of the current planning policies for the City of Toronto and an overview of the planning policies in the City of Vancouver, as well as in-depth interviews with key informants in the planning and development field and parents who have lived in or are currently living in a downtown condominium with at least one child. The findings indicate that there is a growing segment of the population choosing to live in downtown condominiums after having children and that housing and community policy must better address the needs of this population. The proposed OPA would require new high-rise condominium development in downtown Toronto to contain a minimum percentage of three bedroom units suitable for families. This policy would be a significant step towards meeting these needs and creating the desired complete communities; however, it is a contentious issue and there are requirements beyond bedroom counts that need to be addressed to create the supportive family-friendly infrastructure. From these findings, this thesis proposes recommendations and changes to the proposed OPA that would clarify and refine its intentions and implementation. As well, the concept of the family life cycle is reconsidered and an updated model of housing requirements based on the “condo family” is proposed. This research contributes to the literature on families living downtown, condominium living, and the family life cycle.