The strong tax claim
If tax was the problem, cutting it this much should visibly restart housing starts and pull new-home prices down by mid-2027.
Open Nshipyard Canada · The tax stack
Toronto: affordability problem, or tax problem?
A tax problem inside an affordability problem. Government charges were about 25 to 30 percent of a new Toronto home's price at the 2024/2025 peak. Remove every one of them and a new detached house still costs about 9 times a median household income, against an affordable range of 3 to 4 times.
30%
of a new two-bedroom condo's price is government charges at full 2024/2025 rates: municipal charges, HST, and land transfer tax
29x
growth in Toronto's development charge on a detached house, from $4,795 in 1999 to $137,846 in 2024
8.9x
price-to-income of a new detached house in Toronto even after every government charge is removed; affordable is 3 to 4x
$55,138
Toronto's development charge on a detached house after the 60 percent cut in 2026, for permits issued on or after March 30, 2026
The stack
Where the money goes on one new Toronto home.
Two worked examples, built line by line from public schedules. Prices are before HST. The municipal basket already contains the development charge, so the layers are never added twice.
New two-bedroom condo, Toronto
Price before HST: $800,000
$134,900
$80,000
$24,950
$560,150
- $134,900 · Municipal charges (CHBA high-rise basket, incl. community benefits and parkland)
- $80,000 · HST 13 percent, net of the legacy Ontario rebate of $24,000
- $24,950 · Land transfer tax, Ontario plus Toronto
- $560,150 · The rest of the price: land, building, and other costs
Total government charges: $239,850
30% of the price
Source: worked examples in the project data file (tax_stack_prototypes), built from the City of Toronto DC schedule, the CHBA Municipal Benchmarking Study 2024 (Altus Group), CRA HST rebate rules, Ontario Budget 2026, and Ontario and Toronto land transfer tax brackets. Worked examples built line by line from the City of Toronto DC schedule, the CHBA Municipal Benchmarking Study 2024 (Altus Group) municipal basket for Toronto, CRA HST rebate rules and Ontario Budget 2026, and Ontario plus Toronto land transfer tax brackets. Prices are pre-HST. Percentages are of the pre-HST price. Municipal basket already contains the DC; do not add them together.
The development charge
One charge, 27 years: $4,795, then $12,910, then $137,846, then cut to $55,138.
The City of Toronto development charge on a single or semi-detached home, at four points in time. The 2026 point is a cut, not growth: it applies only to projects whose first building permit is issued on or after March 30, 2026.
What was actually paid
$61,477
Weighted-average DC actually paid per residential unit in 2024, City of Toronto Annual Development Charges Statement (Treasurer). The headline rate is for a detached house; most units are apartments, and multiplexes up to six units pay $0.
Toronto DCs rose 592 percent from 2011 to 2023 while consumer prices rose 31.7 percent (BILD/OHBA State of DCs in Ontario, via Missing Middle Initiative).
The price series that rose for 45 years is measured before sales tax. Development charges were $12,910 per single-family home in 2010, too small to explain the growth from 1981 to 2010.
City of Toronto development charge per single or semi-detached home, CAD. Statistics Canada table 18-10-0205-01, New Housing Price Index, Toronto. Selling prices exclude GST/HST by StatCan's methodology. Each point's source document is recorded in the data file.
The wedge
The same kind of home is taxed about 30 percent new and about 3 percent on resale.
New home: government charges as a share of the price
30%
Resale home: government charges as a share of the price
3%
Toronto condo at $640,248 (City of Toronto average condo price, September 2026, TRREB): combined land transfer tax $18,560, or 2.9 percent.
Same city, same kind of home. A resale home pays no HST (resale is HST-exempt) and no development charges at purchase. Its only transaction tax is land transfer tax.
The counterfactual
Even with every government charge removed, prices stay above the affordable range.
Each bar is a price divided by the median household income of $121,200 (Toronto CMA, 2020, Statistics Canada 2021 Census). The resale benchmark carries about 3 percent tax and still sits at 7.5 times income.
New detached, with all government charges
$1,500,000 · 12.4x
New detached, every government charge removed
$1,080,750 · 8.9x
New condo, with all government charges
$800,000 · 6.6x
New condo, every government charge removed
$560,150 · 4.6x
Resale benchmark, City of Toronto (about 3 percent tax)
$908,200 · 7.5x
Affordable range: 3 to 4 times income
Median household income, Toronto CMA, 2020: $121,200 (Statistics Canada, 2021 Census). TRREB MLS Home Price Index, City of Toronto composite benchmark, September 2026: $908,200. Detached benchmark $1,417,600 (11.7 times median income).
City comparison
Several GTA suburbs now charge more than Toronto on a detached house.
Total development charges per unit, including education and regional charges where they apply. Toronto froze its rates in 2024. Suburbs stack a regional charge on top of the local charge, which is how Markham ends up above Toronto.
Markham
$179,391 per unit
Brampton
$154,121 per unit
Oakville (greenfield)
$150,374 per unit
Newmarket
$145,587 per unit
Toronto
$141,739 per unit
Mississauga
$137,725 per unit
Ajax
$126,892 per unit
Ottawa (inside Greenbelt)
$57,827 per unit
London (inside urban growth area)
$50,564 per unit
Montreal has no general per-unit development charge in these tables. CMHC's December 2025 survey put Montreal's total developer fees at $30,597 for a detached home, against $180,600 in Toronto on the same all-in basis.
CMHC Development Charges data tables, June 3, 2026. Total development charges per unit including education and regional charges where they apply. Extracted by this project into dc-comparison-cmhc2026.csv.
Where the charge goes
Transit is the largest piece of Toronto's detached charge.
Breakdown of the City of Toronto development charge on a single or semi-detached home, by service, from the CMHC tables. The six largest services are shown; the rest make up the balance.
Transit (incl. Spadina subway extension)
$57,565
Parks and recreation
$20,250
Roads and related
$29,278
Sanitary sewer
$11,193
Storm water management
$5,335
Water
$4,549
Toronto totals per unit, municipal plus education
| Unit type | Municipal | Education | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single or semi-detached | $137,846 | $3,893 | $141,739 |
| Apartment, 2+ bedrooms | $80,690 | $3,893 | $84,583 |
| Apartment, 1 bedroom | $52,676 | $3,893 | $56,569 |
CMHC Development Charges data tables, June 3, 2026, Table 7.0 City of Toronto. Data collected April 27 to May 8, 2026. Municipal DC plus education DC (Toronto Catholic District School Board only; the Toronto District School Board levies $0). Community benefits charges and parkland are extra and depend on land value.
The 2026 test
The 2026 test: governments cut the tax. Watch what happens.
What changed
March 30, 2026
Toronto development charges cut 40 to 60 percent for projects whose first building permit is issued on or after this date, under the $1.5B Canada-Ontario Partnership to Build. Detached rate falls from $137,846 to $55,138. Indexing paused through 2029. Parkland and community benefits charges not cut.
April 1, 2026 to March 31, 2027
Ontario enhanced HST rebate for all buyers of new homes (not only first-time buyers): full 13 percent removed under $1M, flat $130,000 of relief from $1M to $1.5M. Construction must begin by December 31, 2028.
March 13, 2026
Federal first-time home buyers GST/HST rebate becomes law (Bill C-4, royal assent): 100 percent of the 5 percent federal part up to $1M.
Predictions on record
CMHC Housing Development Viability Analyzer (data as of January 2026)
Cutting DCs 50 to 60 percent makes about 5 percent more Toronto projects viable. Eliminating them entirely: about 10.7 percent more viable projects and 10,000 to 16,250 extra homes a year, against a gap of 31,511 homes a year to restore 2019 affordability.
What to measure
- Housing starts in Toronto (CMHC, monthly)
- New-home prices (StatCan NHPI, Toronto)
- Building permits issued after March 30, 2026 at the discounted DC rate (City of Toronto)
Data gaps
What the data could not say.
Five gaps found while building this page, and the fix for each.
01
Gap
Toronto's Open Data dataset for development charge revenues is retired. Last refreshed May 17, 2024.
Fix
This project republishes the charge schedules as data. The revenue series still needs rebuilding from the City's annual treasurer statements, which are PDFs.
02
Gap
Toronto's DC rates exist only in bylaw PDFs and rate notices. No CSV, no API, no history.
Fix
The history table on this page is the start of that series: every rate with its source document.
03
Gap
CMHC had to build the first national DC dataset by scraping municipal websites with a 50-person team. Its all-in Toronto total ($180,600, December 2025) and its bylaw-only total ($141,739, June 2026) differ by about $39,000 with no published reconciliation.
Fix
Publish the stack in layers: bylaw charges, then land-value charges (parkland, community benefits), then fees, then transaction taxes. This site uses that order everywhere.
04
Gap
Toronto building permits data lists estimated construction value but not the charges paid, so no permit can be matched to its government bill.
Fix
Estimate each project's bill from the rate in force at its permit date and its unit mix, and publish the estimate with the method. Not yet built.
05
Gap
What a buyer actually paid in charges sits in the builder's purchase agreement and closing statement. None of it is public.
Fix
Every total on this page is a model built from public schedules, labelled with its sources. It is not a measurement of any single home.
Sources
Every number has a source.
The documents behind this page, verified in October 2026.
- 01
City of Toronto, Implementation of the Development Charges Reduction Program, July 22, 2026 (current and discounted rates, Table 2)
- 02
City of Toronto rate notice, Development Charge Rates Effective June 6, 2024 (By-law 1137-2022)
- 03
CMHC, Development Charges data tables, June 3, 2026 (Excel, 35 municipalities)
- 04
CMHC, We built this city on development charges, December 4, 2025, and CMHC, Development charges: cities aren't created equally, June 3, 2026
- 05
CHBA Municipal Benchmarking Study 2024 (Altus Group): Toronto municipal charges $195,300 low-rise blended, $134,900 high-rise, highest of 23 cities
- 06
CRA, Excise and GST/HST News No. 122, April 2026; Ontario Budget 2026 (enhanced HST rebate)
- 07
Statistics Canada, table 18-10-0205-01 (NHPI Toronto) and 2021 Census (median household income, Toronto CMA)
- 08
TRREB MLS Home Price Index public tables, September 2026
- 09
City of Toronto Open Data, Development Charge Revenues (retired dataset page)
Data
Take the files.
The verified dataset behind this page, the two extracted CMHC tables, and the build note, as JSON, CSV, and Markdown.
stack.jsonEvery figure on this page, with its source: tax stacks, DC history, counterfactual, city comparison, 2026 test
dc-comparison-cmhc2026.csvDetached and 2-bed apartment DC totals for nine municipalities, extracted from the CMHC June 2026 tables
cmhc-toronto-dc-2026.csvToronto's full service-by-service DC breakdown, non-rental and rental, from CMHC Table 7.0
BUILD_NOTE.mdHow the stack was built, what could not be built, and the caveats