Candidate Profile: Brad Bradford
Bio
- Brad Bradford has served Toronto residents City Councillor for the Beaches-East York Ward since 2018.
- Braford has been the Chair of the Planning and Housing Committee since 2022.
- Prior to his election, Bradford was an urban planner for the City of Toronto.
- Long-time cycling enthusiast and advocate.
- Brad Bradford’s mom is a Liberal MP for the riding of Kitchener South-Hespeler.
Key Themes
- Public Safety
- Increasing public safety measures and response to mental crises on the TTC.
- Creating a Bail Compliance Unit at every Toronto Police Service division to ensure repeat offenders aren’t being released into the community.
- Infrastructure
- Accelerating construction on the Gardiner Expressway through 24/7 work for the next two years.
- Transportation
- Following the announcement of Queen Street’s closure for the next 4-5 years, Bradford has requested that the head of Metrolinx be held to account and for a provincial guarantee that the Eglinton Crosstown chaos, dragging on with real costs to the people of this city, won’t repeat itself with the Ontario Line and kill a critical downtown artery and downtown vibrancy with it.
- Creation of a King Streetcar Express Zone, offering a practical and cost-effective solution to the major inconveniences caused by the construction of Metrolinx’s Ontario Line for at least the next 5 years.
- Putting People First
- Expand the Dufferin Grove pilot project city-wide, creating pathways out of homelessness.
- Establish a specialized Anti-Displacement and Evictions Prevention Unit with 30 staff within Municipal Licensing & Standards.
- Temporarily freezing new proposals that would demolish rental apartment buildings while undertaking a comprehensive city-wide review to provide greater predictability.
- Building Homes
- Ensuring that 20% of all new homes built by 2031 – a minimum of 57,000 homes – will be purpose-built rental homes.
- Investing in speeding up construction readiness for non-profit and co-op organizations’ pre-development activities.
- Making additional surplus municipal properties available for non-profit and co-operative housing available to build new affordable homes.
- Getting City Hall Moving
- Hold City Hall accountable and instruct the City Manager to publish semi-annual public updates on progress delivering our housing commitments.
- Champion reforms to planning regulations, zoning and land use to get homes built with a focus on “missing middle” housing, and housing of medium scale and density that meets the needs of residents between condos and single-family homes.
- Lead a Mayor’s initiative on residential intensification to develop incentives and launch new policies to support the delivery of 285,000 new homes by 2031.
This Housing Plan will build 285,000 new homes with a minimum of 57,000 being purpose-built rental homes, and will directly support at least 95,000 vulnerable residents. The total cost of this Plan’s new initiatives is $48.5 million which will come from the City Building Fund which is forecast to generate an additional $60 million this year.
Brad’s Housing Plan
- Increase Housing Supply
- Deliver the “missing middle” and make mid-rise possible: Building on Brad’s work as Chair of the Planning and Housing Committee, further simplify the city’s complex zoning bylaws and remove barriers to building mid-rise apartments on our main streets.
- Unlock government-owned lands: Realize a Public Land Strategy which considers building housing on under-utilized government land, with a requirement that 33% be classified as affordable housing. This includes rescuing and accelerating the City’s Housing Now program. Since being announced in 2018 and unveiled in 2019, more than 21 sites have been identified for Housing Now, proposing over 16,000 new homes, but for five years, not a single shovel has broken ground. This is a failure.
- Streamline Approvals
- Empower the Development and Growth Division: Originally proposed by former mayor John Tory, this division will have a single mandate to review and approve housing faster, breaking down bureaucratic silos that cause endless delays.
- Reduce delays, over-consultation and drawn-out appeals: Streamline approval pathways for affordable, workforce and city-led projects and end the endless debate, deferral and delay.
- Simplify the rules, eliminate red tape and hold staff accountable: Implement strict standards for the review and approval of building permits, because whether you’re a homeowner putting on a small addition or an experienced builder, you shouldn’t have to wait months for City Hall to give you the green light. Brad will review and revise guidelines that make it more difficult than needed to deliver housing.
- Bradford has committed to keeping property taxes at or below the rate of inflation.
- Bradford recently committed to converting empty office spaces into homes.
