Accelerating Transit-Oriented Communities

Recently, the province of Ontario announced a $28 billion regional transit plan and introduced a suite of land use policy changes designed to encourage significant density around transit. Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, recently announced a new “market-driven strategy” to facilitate cooperation with private developers to help finance construction of new transit infrastructure with profits from adjacent commercial and residential development. Overall, the provincial government is seeking to capture a significant amount of the land value created by its massive infrastructure investments and has signaled to the development industry that an unprecedented opportunity for transit-oriented development exists in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area.