{"id":328,"date":"2026-01-06T17:25:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T22:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/?p=328"},"modified":"2026-04-29T15:49:34","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:49:34","slug":"affordable-housing-vs-housing-thats-affordable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/?p=328","title":{"rendered":"The City&#8217;s Definition of &#8220;Affordable Housing&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These developments are not &#8220;affordable housing&#8221;. The City&#8217;s Call for Proposals <strong>only requires<\/strong> that the developer demonstrate &#8220;how the proposal <strong>includes <\/strong>housing units that meet the <strong>City&#8217;s definition for affordable housing<\/strong>&#8221; (emphasis added). City Administration has recently stated 10% of the units will meet this definition. They fail to mention that these units will only need to meet this definition for 10 years. After that, the rents will be increased to whatever the landlord deems appropriate at that time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The affordable housing definition is found on page 75 of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thunderbay.ca\/en\/business\/resources\/Documents\/Building-and-Planning\/Official-Plan\/Official-Plan---Amended-August-26-2024.pdf\">Official Plan.<\/a> In the case of rental housing this means:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;a unit for which the rent does not exceed 30% of gross annual household income for low-and-moderate income households; or<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>a unit for which the rent is at or below the average market rent of a unit in the regional market area.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">City Administration&#8217;s report #139-2024 dated April 15, 2024, references data available from the Ontario government. That data provides CMHC&#8217;s <strong>2023 <\/strong>average rents of $823\/mth for a bachelor and $1054 for a 1-bedroom, and identifies low-to-moderate-income as $18,300 to $52,100. The report finds that 30 percent of renter households earn less than the income needed to rent a bachelor, and 40 percent cannot afford a 1-bedroom. All low-to-moderate-income renter households are completely priced out of a<strong> 3+ bedroom units <\/strong>averaging $1678\/mth. Remember, these are <strong>2023 <\/strong>prices and rents have gone up significantly since then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A review of CMHC&#8217;s Primary Rental Market Statistics for Thunder Bay tells a more realistic rental price story. The latest data is available from October 2025, so we looked up the prices for private apartments and it showed the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Studio Apartment                $976<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>1 Bedoom                              $1173<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>2 Bedroom                            $1495<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>3 Bedroom                            $1864<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even the City&#8217;s January 2026 &#8220;Multi-Unit Residential Grant Program Evaluation Scorecard&#8221;, reflects the reality of these private apartment rents. That scorecard is used to evaluate multi-residential build projects that are applying for the various grants and incentives created to &#8220;boost affordable housing&#8221;. The maximum rent allowed as per the Scorecard is $1660\/month but, interestingly, does not stipulate the apartment size. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A quick Google of rental units in recent new builds inThunder Bay show they <strong>start <\/strong>at <strong>$1700 + utilities <\/strong>for a <strong>1-bedroom<\/strong>. At that price, the minimum household income required is $75,100.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Rent Increases<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although building new apartments will increase supply, it doesn&#8217;t necessarily follow that rental costs will magically reduce across the city. Costs are determined by supply and demand. Where demand continues to exists, rental costs will continue to rise. Ontario does not have a comprehensive rent control system. As such, all new rental units built <strong>after <\/strong>November 15, 2018, may be increased at whatever rate a landlord deems appropirate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-uagb-advanced-heading uagb-block-6bfc634a\"><h4 class=\"uagb-heading-text\">Vacancy Decontrol<\/h4><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">City Councillors and City Administration like to tell us that these new developments will lower rental prices in our city. Unfortunately, the theory of too much supply and little demand doesn&#8217;t always come into practice in real life, just ask anyone looking for a place to rent these days. It&#8217;s highly unlikely our city&#8217;s supply of housing will ever outpace demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They also tell us that people in existing, less expensive rental units, will jump at the chance to move into these new developments, freeing-up those less expensive units for new tenants. Unfortunately, our Councillors and our City Administration are wilfully ignorant of a little thing called &#8220;vacancy decontrol&#8221;. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ontario has a rent control system which allows annual rent increases based on the Ontario Consumer Price Index (CPI). For 2026, that increase is set at 2.1%. However, <strong>this system only applies to buildings built before November 15, 2018<\/strong> <strong>AND only applies to &#8220;sitting&#8221; tenants in those buildings. <\/strong>Very few people realize that once a unit becomes vacant, the landlord can increase the rent to match current market rates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For example, Jane Doe lived in a small apartment building dating from 2016. Her 1-bedroom unit rented for $1200\/mth including utilities. Jane had been in that building since it was first built so her rent inreased annually, but only by the Ontario CPI amount. Jane recently vacated her apartment and moved into one of the new developments in town for $1700\/month + utilities. Jane&#8217;s vacant apartment was quickly rented out, but at the new rate of $1700\/month including utilities, a $500 increase, which aligns with current market rates. The new tenant will pay that new amount, but future increases will be subject to Ontario&#8217;s rent control system. That&#8217;s &#8220;vacancy decontrol&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For more information and articles on vacancy decontrol, rental control, and other issues facing tenants in Ontario, check out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.policyalternatives.ca\/news-research\/rent-control-in-ontario-is-full-of-loopholes\/\">Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.acto.ca\/vacancy-decontrol-what-is-it-and-why-does-it-matter\/\">Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These developments are not &#8220;affordable housing&#8221;. The City&#8217;s Call for Proposals only requires that the developer demonstrate &#8220;how the proposal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reference-documents"],"gutentor_comment":0,"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"EditorialTeam","author_link":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"These developments are not &#8220;affordable housing&#8221;. The City&#8217;s Call for Proposals only requires that the developer demonstrate &#8220;how the proposal [&hellip;]","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=328"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328\/revisions\/948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tbaygreenspacepreservation.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}