Location: Niagara Falls Convention Centre, Theatre/Junior Ballroom A

1.5 ConEd Learning Hours

8:30 a.m – 10:15 am

A Housing Plenary to Push the Envelope

In cities, suburbs, and rural areas across the province, housing affordability is a multi-faceted issue requiring coordinated approaches from across the architectural design, real estate development, and planning realms. Millions of current and future Ontarians are affected by a lack of affordability across all income levels of homes—rented or owned, single-family or high-rise, subsidized or not.

As part of its mandate to regulate the practice of architecture to protect the public interest, the OAA has spent more than a decade exploring architectural and land use methods to increase housing supply, while encouraging thoughtful planning approval process changes to deliver homes of all typologies more quickly and cost-effectively. At the same time, the urgent need for climate action means there can be no compromise in safeguarding green spaces or ensuring the environmental sustainability of both new and existing housing.

A few years ago, the OAA commissioned an independent report to examine design and regulatory opportunities to address housing affordability. (You can read that report on the OAA Website.) At a high level, the findings were simple: increase supply, make homes financially attainable, and address the current urgency now. The question is: how? And what roadblocks are currently in the way?

The architecture profession has an important role to play, and must work with the other groups responsible for the development, design, construction, and zoning of our built environments. To kick off the Association’s 2024 Conference—Housing: Pushing the Envelope—this special plenary panel brings together perspectives from the architecture, planning, and development spheres. It explores the current state of housing as experts come together for practical, real-world solutions from new building materials and assemblies to site plan approval and red tape to transit-oriented developments and missing-middle infill zoning.

Be part of the discussion! You can send questions or comments to communications@oaa.on.ca ahead of the event, with "plenary" in the subject header. The event will be recorded for eventual on-demand viewing on the OAA YouTube Channel, so even if you can’t make it to Niagara Falls, you can still submit!

Shawn Micallef (Moderator)

Shawn Micallef is the author of Frontier City: Toronto on the Verge of Greatness, Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto, and The Trouble with Brunch: Work, Class, and the Pursuit of Leisure. He’s a weekly columnist at the Toronto Star, and a senior editor and co-owner of the independent, Jane Jacobs Prize–winning magazine Spacing. Shawn teaches at the University of Toronto and was a 2011–2012 Canadian Journalism Fellow at Massey College. In 2002, while a resident at theCanadian Film Centre’s Media Lab, he co-founded [murmur], the location-based mobile phone documentary project that spread to over 25 cities globally.

John van Nostrand, OAA, FRAIC, FCIP (panellist)

John van Nostrand is the director of Two Steps Home, CEO of Parcel Developments, and the founding partner of SvN Architects + Planners. Since 1978, he has been the driving force behind the firm’s integrated architectural, planning, landscape, and urban design practice. He served as Chair of the Boards of the Home First Society and Houselink Community Homes in their early days. In 2018, he created Parcel Developments to focus on evolutionary housing and its application to entry‐level housing for all incomes. Most recently, John created Two Steps Home to address homelessness more directly. John’s work and writings have been well‐recognized at home and abroad, and his awards include the World Leadership Award for Town Planning (1992), the Daniel Burnham Award from the American Planning Association (2008), and numerous local and national Awards of Excellence in Architecture, Planning, and Urban Design. John was awarded the Jane Jacobs Award for “Ideas That Matter” and the OAA’s Order of da Vinci in recognition of his exceptional leadership in the profession, and the education of, and service to, its communities.

Naama Blonder, B.Arch, OAA, RPP, MCIP (panellist)

Naama Blonder is an architect, urban designer and planner. Her professional practice at Smart Density combines the disciplines of architecture, urban planning, and urban design to bring a deeper, more realistic understanding of how cities can address housing affordability and champion inclusive neighbourhoods with more equitable access to housing. A frequent lecturer, she is known for her work in transit-oriented, missing middle, and liveable communities. Naama and her team has earned multiple awards, including the prestigious Best Emerging Practice Award from the Ontario Association of Architects in 2022, as well as being a SHIFT Challenge three years running in every iteration of the design concept competition.

Robert Boyd, B.A. (Hon.), M.Arch, OAA (panellist)

Robert Boyd is an architect and the senior construction manager, development, for Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC). His role there sees him leading TCHC’s design and construction interests in the revitalization of Regent Park in downtown Toronto, including procuring all design consultants. Prior to joining TCHC in 2019, Robert worked for 23 years at a number of architecture firms, including IBI Group, Diamond Schmitt Architects Inc., and Kohn Shnier Architects. Most recently, Robert was responsible for spearheading TCHC’s corporate-wide adoption of a Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS) process for engaging all of the company’s consulting architects and engineers.

Christian Huggett, MCIP, RPP (panellist)

Christian Huggett is managing director and head of development at Podium Developments, and the company’s leader in all things design. He steers the firm through site acquisition to project stabilization, development and design trends, site and building layout, municipal approvals, and sales and marketing. Prior to joining Podium, Christian was a planning, urban design, and architecture consultant for several Toronto-based firms. He has a master’s degree in urban design from the University of Toronto, and an honours bachelor’s degree in environmental studies (Planning) with an economics minor from University of Waterloo. Currently a voluntary member of the Habitat for Humanity Land Committee, he was heavily involved in Ontario Professional Planners Institute (OPPI) leadership committees and retains his Registered Professional Planner designation.