In the next few years, there will be 612 new homes available in Toronto, Canada, making it one of the biggest-ever cooperative housing properties.  The 1.16-hectare project is located in Scarborough, a suburb east of Toronto. It will feature rent-geared-to-income, affordable, and market rental housing. The Co-operative Housing Federation of Toronto (CHFT) will operate the property and was selected by CreateTO, the agency responsible for managing the City of Toronto’s $27-billion real estate portfolio.

The Housing Now program is providing about $40 million in land value and financial incentives for the project. This includes a waiver of charges and an exemption from property taxes.  The project is a testament to how coop housing is being built in today’s market, which private-sector developers control for the most part. In Toronto’s coop housing heyday from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s,  federal funding programs created almost 6,000 homes. However, since then, the total number of units in the Greater Toronto Area has barely changed due to extensive federal and provincial funding cuts. The project is slated to begin construction in 2026.

Read the full story here.