Retrofitting modern housing for today’s standards of comfort, health, safety and dignity. Designed using modern principles of housing equity – light, air, and space for all – our legacy of apartment towers was built with solid foundations to meet tomorrow’s housing needs. Today this housing infrastructure is aging. Providing homes to millions, often those of lower income, the state of repair of some of this housing is becoming a challenge. Future viability requires overcoming two challenges: modernization to meet today’s…

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, Canada supported the construction of high-rise rental housing across the country – creating affordable homes for millions. As this crucial housing supply ages, a set of quality standards must now be set in place to ensure the health, comfort, and safety of the millions who call these apartments home. As a renewed federal focus is placed on housing through the National Housing Strategy, there is now a window of opportunity to revisit housing quality…

  Dec 1, 2017 –   The National Housing Strategy (NHS) is a once-in-a-generation commitment to building and renewing affordable housing in Canada. Released in November 2017, the strategy supports and enables many of the key goals of Tower Renewal, with a focus on housing rehabilitation toward healthy, high-quality, low-carbon outcomes across both publicly- and privately-owned buildings.     Specifically, the NHS aims to rehabilitate 240,000 existing affordable rental units, which in turn will meet energy and performance targets set by…

As part of the ongoing work related to Tower Renewal, ERA and the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal are consulting with the federal government on the emerging National Housing Strategy. See Graeme Stewart in Ottawa summarizing strategies to ensure the preservation of Canada’s aging apartment housing stock, and to support its rehabilitation through Tower Renewal. A consultation and solutions workshop held in Ottawa focused on the key issue of ‘Maintaining and Preserving Existing Rental.’ Home to millions across Canada,…

The Tower Renewal strategy has had significant impact over the past year. Across all levels of government, there is a growing consensus: Tower Renewal can have a scalable impact nation-wide as a means to meet climate change, affordable housing, poverty reduction, smart growth, and economic development objectives. Some highlights include:   1. Announcement of $15.9B Co-Investment Fund, committing to the rehabilitation of 240,000 units of existing affordable housing as part of Canada’s landmark National Housing Strategy.   2. $350M allocated towards apartment…

The Intermunicipal Tower Platform brings together Ontario’s four largest cities, including Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga, and Hamilton, to secure the future resilience of Ontario’s tower neighbourhoods.

Ontario’s post-war apartment towers provide affordable rental housing to more than one million people. These buildings are aging and urgently require rehabilitation, as well as stronger connections to goods, services and transit networks. The renewal of Ontario’s sizable stock of post-war apartment towers represents an opportunity to advance both provincial and municipal goals related to housing quality, affordability, complete communities and greenhouse gas emission reduction. Improving the resilience of apartment tower housing will provide tremendous social and environmental gains across Ontario’s…

There are global efforts underway to quantifiably reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 2050. The Paris Agreement, and subsequent national strategies, have catalyzed policies such as the Ontario Climate Change Action Plan, which provides targets for reducing GHG emissions over the next five years in pursuit of a low carbon economy. Post-war apartment towers have been found to be among Ontario’s most energy intensive buildings, with data suggesting they require as much as 25% more energy per square metre than…

What is Tower Renewal? Tower Renewal is a strategy that promotes, supports and directs enhancement and reinvestment in Canada’s affordable apartment tower stock. During the boom years of the 1960s and 70s, Canada built a significant volume of modern apartment towers in response to rapid urbanization. Predominantly privately developed, but supported by public planning policy and incentives, these towers shape the urban and suburban landscape cross county – with at least 750,000 Canadian households calling them home.  Half a century…

Vertical Legacy: The case for revitalizing the GTA’s aging rental tower communities As a follow up to Vertical Poverty, United Way has released Vertical Legacy, in collaboration with the Tower Renewal Partnership and University of Toronto, outlining the actions needed now to ensure our legacy towers remain not only standing and affordable, but are also modernized to meet the health, community resilience and climate challenges of our collective future. Legacy towers are home to hundreds of thousands throughout the GTA, and represent the bulk of our purpose-built rental housing.…

This instrument could be a key tool for private, public and non-profit owners to improve the quality and energy performance of their buildings, while maintaining the long-term affordability of this housing supply.

Maintain the affordability and supply of Canada’s affordable rental supply. Post-war Apartment Towers provide affordable, purpose-built rental housing to millions of Canadians. Somewhat unique to Canada, the majority of our tower blocks are not social housing but were privately developed under Federal incentive programs, providing a flood of moderately priced rental accommodation through the 1960s and 70s. Over the decades much of this private housing has emerged as our most affordable housing stock, providing key housing to the most vulnerable.…

  On Thursday, June 21, ERA’s Graeme Stewart addresses a crowd of 400 community leaders as keynote speaker at the United Way’s 2012 AGM. In 2010, ERA and CUG+R published Tower Neighbourhood Renewal in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, which looks at a broad range of historical trends, planning issues, sustainability concerns, social needs, and opportunity for renewal in and around Toronto’s tower block neighbourhoods. In 2011, United Way published Vertical Poverty, which focuses much-needed attention on poverty, equity, and quality-of-life…

Map displaying location of infill development within Apartment Tower properties (red); additional Apartment Tower properties (blue); existing and planned rapid transit; and CMHC rent zones (shades of grey).   In March 2012, the City of Toronto released the report Apartment Infill in Toronto: A Ten Year Review. This study examines Apartment Tower sites where new residential and mixed-use development has taken place, or is planned to take place, within their properties. The report has found 39 such examples across the…

The second Tower Neighbourhood Renewal symposium, presented by ERA Architects, the University of Toronto Cities Centre, and the Tower Renewal Office, was held in May 2011, in conjunction with the annual Toronto the Good party. The symposium featured a broad range of international and local speakers, a panel discussion and a poster expo that continued into the party. The following post outlines the day’s events, and provides links to download much of the presented material. The aim of the symposium…

This Option Studio focused on a site at Sheppard and Don Mills, typical of Toronto’s inner suburbs, with its distinctive clusters of high-rise residential buildings erected in the period of the 1950’s through the 1970’s. The goal of this studio was to investigate the potential of apartment tower sites to emerge as more liveable and sustainable communities, with a specific emphasis on built form. For more information on the site please see our previous post on the studio. The studio…

The Greater Toronto Area contains a heritage of nearly 2,000 post-war concrete residential tower blocks located throughout the region.  The presence of this remarkable collection of modern housing represents an architectural, planning and construction legacy unique to North America. (For more on the history, visit here). This inheritance of high density neighbourhoods provide significant opportunities to create a sustainable, prosperous and connected region, able to meet the challenges of the 21st Century; accommodate growth, alleviate poverty and help grow the…

  The Bijlmermeer under construction, late 1960’s / Ongoing renewal, since early 2000s Toronto can learn how its apartment neighbourhoods could evolve by looking at the successes of other cities. Take the Bijlmermeer for instance, a large tower block district outside of Amsterdam, reminiscent in certain respects to modern communities in Toronto. Begun in 1966, the Bijlmermeer was an ambitious housing experiment built in vacant farmland south-east of the city. It was envisioned as a secondary centre for the region,…

  In the 1960’s, high-rise towers were thought to be the best solution to meet the growing need for rental units, while efficiently organizing new housing with services. The resulting apartment neighbourhoods help us recognize how quickly the city evolves, and how each generation tries in different ways to address the challenges of growth, social and community needs. Take Crescent Town near Dawes Road and the Danforth. In 1900, this was the site of Walter Massey’s experimental farm which he…