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Mayoral candidate Chris Alexander promises at least 3,000 affordable housing starts next year and 10,000 annually by 2029, while Brad Bradford defends his fiscal plan and Olivia Chow touts the Scarborough busway.
Toronto mayoral candidate Chris Alexander pledged on Friday to accelerate affordable housing construction, setting a goal of breaking ground on at least 3,000 new affordable or rent-geared-to-income units in 2027 and reaching 10,000 starts per year by 2029.
Alexander made the promise during a press conference on Friday, October 2, 2026. The City of Toronto has approved more than 33,000 new affordable housing units, but construction starts have lagged far behind. In 2025, only 1,598 construction starts involving affordable housing were recorded in Toronto. In 2024, the city recorded fewer than 1,000 affordable housing starts.
Toronto Affordable Housing Construction Plan
Toronto currently aims to approve 65,000 rent-controlled homes, including at least 41,000 affordable rentals, by 2030. However, the city's affordable housing strategy largely depends on partnering with developers to build on city-owned land. Alexander said his plan would shift focus from counting promised or approved homes to units actually moving into construction. He criticized what he called phantom homes and misleading arithmetic.
We need to get away from these phantom homes, Alexander said. We need to get away from this misleading arithmetic and put forward plans that really serve Torontonians. Under the proposal, Toronto would act as a public builder and master developer. The city would assemble 30 to 50 potential sites by leveraging the Toronto Builds Policy Framework.
Buildings would generally be four to eight storeys with standardized designs and lower-cost construction techniques such as mass timber and modular construction. We are going to use designs that are already approved off the shelf, Alexander said. The plan also calls for fast-tracked approvals with dedicated teams in each of the city's planning offices.
Any 100 per cent affordable rental project built by the city or led by a non-profit or co-op partner would bypass public consultation and the Committee of Adjustment entirely. Eligible projects would receive zoning and site-plan approvals within 30 days. Completed buildings would remain on publicly owned land, operated by Toronto Community Housing or non-profit providers under 99-year leases.
Financing and Fee Relief
The proposal relies primarily on existing federal financing programs, including the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.'s Apartment Construction Loan Program and Build Canada Homes programs. Alexander also proposed eliminating development charges and parkland levies for qualifying purpose-built rental projects. My announcement today is about building affordable and rent-geared-to-income homes on the scale Toronto needs, Alexander told reporters. We need scale to address these issues.
We need scale to give people dignity. Elsewhere on the campaign trail, mayoral candidate Brad Bradford spent Friday morning putting up a campaign sign at Cafe Juventus along Bloor Street West. He faced questions about releasing his fiscal plan three weeks before the election rather than during last year's budget process as a city councillor.
Bradford said he has been looking at best practices in other jurisdictions and levels of government, pointing to the way Prime Minister Mark Carney has reformed the federal budget. That is having a very clear demarcation between capital expenses and operating expenses, keeping those things separate, and using smart and thoughtful financing to pay for the long-term infrastructure that the city needs to grow, he said.
Bradford Fiscal and Transit Priorities
Bradford also pointed to his record of advocating to reduce or remove the municipal land transfer tax. He said he raised the issue on four separate budgets. If you follow my files, if you follow my record, you will see that I have advocated to reduce or remove the land transfer tax on no less than four separate budgets, four separate occasions, Bradford said. And I would note, Mayor Chow has voted against it every single time.
On transit, Bradford criticized the newly opened Scarborough busway, calling it another band aid and another half baked temporary measure. He argued Scarborough has long been overlooked in the city's transit planning. He also defended his position on proposed water utility changes, saying the utility would remain publicly owned and that an estimated $125-million dividend was based on results in other jurisdictions. Earlier in the morning, Mayor Olivia Chow campaigned and spoke to riders outside the recently opened Scarborough Busway.
Since Wednesday when it opened, all these riders are having a much better ride right here in Scarborough because of the busway, Chow said. We estimate that there will be 100,000 riders taking the busway, saving more than an hour every week. Other campaign developments included municipal election campaign signs being set up across the city as voting day nears. The race continues to focus on housing, fiscal policy and transit as candidates make their final pitches to Toronto voters.
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CP24:Toronto mayoral candidate wants to start construction on 3,000 new affordable homes next yearThis story was compiled and edited by the HeadTopics newsroom and HT AI from the reports above.
Chris Alexander Toronto Housing Affordable Housing Brad Bradford Olivia Chow Scarborough Busway Toronto Mayoral Election
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