Publications

This is the fourth in a series of Briefs on the land supply for future urban development designated by municipalities across the Greater Golden Horseshoe to accommodate growth to 2031 and beyond. This Brief examines the land supply represented by Undelineated Built-up Areas (UBUAs) – rural settlements identified by the Province as being without full municipal water and wastewater servicing. Although the Growth Plan states that these small towns, villages, and hamlets should not be a focus of growth, a contradiction between the Growth Plan and a supplementary provincial document allows municipalities to count subdivisions on the edges of UBUAs as “intensification.”

This is the second in a series of Briefs on the land supply for future urban development designated by municipalities across the Greater Golden Horseshoe to accommodate growth to 2031. This Brief examines the question of serviced land in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA). The first looked at how much land has been built on in the past decade in the GTHA and concluded that only 20% of the total greenfield land supply until 2031 has been built on. Future Briefs will look at the rate of consumption of greenfield lands in Outer Ring municipalities beyond the Greenbelt and other lands that are part of future settlement areas, even though they are not part of the Designated Greenfield Area.

In August 2014, newspaper headlines trumpeted the “Manhattanization” of Toronto. City Council, in the span of two days, approved 18 new high-rise apartment and office buildings in downtown Toronto, on top of 70,000 residential units already approved for construction. But what happens in downtown Toronto is only a small part of a much larger story of growth across the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

Neptis analysis show that of the 56,200 hectares designated for urbanization between 2006 and 2031 in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, only 9% was actually built on between 2006 and 2011. This finding suggests that the remainder of the land supply is likely to last well beyond 2031.

There are important questions that need to be asked, including what each provincial leader or mayoral candidate will do to bring the 416 and 905 together as one region to make transportation decisions that will benefit us all.

This report analyses the business cost for each major component of Metrolinx's Big Move, the transit plan for the Toronto Region.

The Neptis Foundation has collaborated with Edward J. Levy to publish this history of rapid transit proposals for the City of Toronto.

This paper analyzes and describes the Province's intensification target both in principle and in practice.

This study investigates how density impacts the way an area functions by studying various parameters.

The book traces the evolution of Ontario government responses to rapid population growth and outward expansion in the Toronto metropolitan region over an 80-year period.

Urban Growth Centres and transit corridors are central to the Places to Grow plan, this report traces the importance of these two concepts historically while highlighting facets that contribute to the making of successful nodes and corridors.

The commentary recommends stronger regulations to control the outward expansion of urban areas, better protection for greenlands and agricultural lands, and a monitoring program to track progress towards the government's goals for growth and urbanization.

Why Simcoe County plays an important role in the urban future of the region.

This is the second in a series of nine issue papers commissioned by the Neptis Foundation for consideration by the Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel established by the Government of Ontario.

This is the fifth in a series of nine issue papers commissioned by the Neptis Foundation for consideration by the Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel established by the Government of Ontario.

This is the eighth in a series of nine issue papers commissioned by the Neptis Foundation for consideration by the Central Ontario Smart Growth Panel established by the Government of Ontario.

Merely directing growth to established to outlying centres in the region, without implementing other changes, does not lead to significant improvements in traffic congestion of environmental quality.

As part of the Portriat of a Region series, this study provides an overview of the physical geography of the Toronto region, including geological regions, watercourses and watersheds, environmentally significant areas, and agricultural land. The report includes a detailed study of six areas, each 2 kilometres by 2 kilometres, in different parts of the region, each developed during a different time period. These case studies show how typical road patterns, development densities, and arrangements of land uses have changed from the early 20th century to the late 1990s.