Research Project Amborski

An Analysis of Section 37 Agreements in the City of Toronto

PI: David Amborski
 (opens in new window) Professor & Director of CUR
School of Urban and Regional Planning
Faculty of Community Services
Toronto Metropolitan University 

Based on the availability of a unique data set of the application of Section 37 agreements for the City of Toronto, the research will examine the content of these agreements, their economic implications, and make recommendations for how to improve the process of undertaking these agreements.

The data includes the details of all Section 37 agreements in the City of Toronto from the early 1990’s (1994) to 2012. The data is organized by ward and includes the details of the projects and the agreements. These include financial data such as cash and in-kind payments; as well as project details such as site size, building size and the number of units in the project.

The research will assess the trends and costs of these agreements by examining a number of variables such as; the cash payment per square foot, by location, type of development and increased density received.

There will also be an attempt to classify and estimate the in-kind contributions that were included in the various agreements. For some representative case studies an attempt will be made to quantify the value of the in kind contributions in an attempt to estimate the total Section 37 payments (costs) for some key projects.

The trends in these payments will be analyzed in the context of the policy or process changes that have been undertaken in the Toronto over the time frame of the data. Based on the analysis of the application of this policy in terms of economic impact and fairness recommendations will be made on how the process can be improved.