Six housing ideas Toronto could borrow from other cities, from container homes to co-ops

Capsule houses, container housing, open auctions, converted industrial buildings, co-op housing, city-led builds and island neighbourhoods: this is a list of six housing approaches, each drawn from another city or from a Toronto project.

Capsule homes are prefabricated micro-units that have taken off in several Asian cities, priced between $20,000 and $100,000. Toronto has a surplus of vacant lots, the piece argues, and the units could also suit the hotel and tourism industries, including in Prince Edward County.

Amsterdam's Keetwonen, built in 2006 for university students, is described as the world's first mass residence made from shipping containers, going up at 40 units a week. A Toronto Metropolitan University study is cited as finding that more on-campus housing would dramatically improve students' academic performance.

In Australia, public auctions, often held on lawns and sidewalks, have mostly eradicated bidding wars, the piece says. The highest bidder buys with no cooling-off period, a mechanism it argues mitigates price inflation. Regulators are the intended audience.

Copenhagen's Copenhill, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, converted a conventional incineration plant into a waste-to-energy plant with a ski hill, hiking trail and education hub, with new homes built around it. The piece suggests the Hearn could get the same treatment.

Closer to home, the Birch House and Indigenous Hub in Corktown combines condos, affordable and market-rate rentals, health care, a community centre and a restored heritage building, developed with Anishnawbe Health Toronto, Dream, Kilmer and Tricon. It is completed.

Kennedy Green Co-ops at Eglinton and Kennedy are under construction and expected to be finished by 2029, with hundreds of affordable units. Co-op housing, which stalled after federal and provincial funding cuts in the 1970s and '80s, is making a return.

A city-led project at 1113-1125 Dundas Street West, a former Green P lot, is under construction and due in 2028. It will bring 10 storeys of rental units with mass timber framing and geothermal heating, a result of a policy Olivia Chow promised as a mayoral candidate in 2023.

Ookwemin Minising, a new island in the Port Lands, is planned for more than 20,000 residents, with a car-free main street, lake transit and a Waterfront East rapid transit line funded by all three levels of government. Construction is set to begin in 2027, with completion in 2031.

The piece does not provide cost figures for the Toronto projects or say whether the ideas transfer to local regulatory conditions.