London housing approvals skyrocket in 2024 to nearly 23,000 units

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London city council had a banner year for housing approvals in 2024, green-lighting nearly 23,000 units – four times as many as the year before.  

The final tally for 2024 was a whooping 22,890, after council approved projects with 406 housing units in December. That’s up from 5,337 approvals in 2023 and 4,430 in 2022. 

That puts London on a path to meeting the city’s provincially set target of building 47,000 homes by 2031, with the overall number of approved units sitting at 32,679, deputy mayor Shawn Lewis said.  

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“That doesn’t mean these are all going to be built today or tomorrow,” he said. “Some of them are going to be a long time coming . . . but we are making very good progress on that target.”

That reality was reflected in a staff report that showed the number of housing starts for 2024 at 4,064, underscoring the lag between approval and construction.  

Lewis chalked up the approvals jump in part to changes that have streamlined city hall’s project review process. Eliminating the urban design review panel, for example, reduces application times by 90 days, he said.  

“That was a third check on urban design. Not a first, but a third check,” he said.  

“So, a lot of elbow grease has gone into making the process run smoother, so that things come before council, and they’re ready for us to make a decision and approve them and move them ahead.”  

Lewis also noted Ottawa and Queen’s Park’s removal of the harmonized sales tax on purpose-built rental projects seems to have spurred construction of such projects, which make up the bulk of units approved by council.  

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“I think all of those factors combined played a role in things,” he said.  

Though housing construction remains a priority for council, Lewis said he didn’t expect similar numbers in 2025.  

That’s in part because last year’s tally included some big projects that will be tough to match.

Key among them is developer Old Oak’s massive proposal to build about 8,400 units – apartments, townhouses and single-family homes – at Oxford Street and Highbury Avenue, site of the former London Psychiatric Hospital. The entire subdivision, the largest residential development in London’s history, will take about 10 to 15 years to build.  

“Those kinds of opportunities for 8,400 units all at once don’t come along very often, so I would say that last year is an outlier,” Lewis said.  

“I think what we saw was a bit of the floodgates really being opened so that we could really make some progress towards that provincial pledge and towards the need that’s in the community . . . but I think it would be unrealistic to expect that we’ll be able to do the same number again this year.”  

jjuha@postmedia.com

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