​While finding an affordable rental apartment is harder than ever, the city owns many empty or underutilized spots all across the city. How do we unlock them for affordable homes?

​Join us for the next Making Room speaker series featuring Mark Richardson of HousingNowTO. Governments have already begun looking to public land as part of the solution, and in some cases that work is already underway. But it has not been straightforward. Efforts to turn parking lots, surplus land, and other public sites into housing have run into delays, complications, and tough questions about delivery.

​Mark has spent years following and analyzing the city’s efforts to turn public land into housing. In this conversation, he will unpack the hiccups that have slowed progress, what they reveal about the city’s current approach, and what Toronto needs to do to unlock more affordable homes.

​Mark Richardson Biography

​Mark J. Richardson is the Chief Technology Officer at Rich Analytics. He has 25+ Years of consulting- experience with public-sector clients at all-levels of Government in Canada, and was part of the City of

​Toronto's Open Data Advisory Group which helped define the City's first official Open Data Master Plan in 2018, and was a citizen-member of the City of Toronto's Planning Review Panel (2015-2017). Mark is the Founder and Technical-Lead of the HousingNowTO.com affordable-housing tracking and transparency project since 2019. Using common tools such as Google maps, photographs, videos and data-visualization, HousingNowTO.com removes industry jargon, thereby minimizing misinformation and enhancing transparency and opportunities for genuine civic engagement. The HousingNowTO.com project was given an Innovation Spotlight by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation in 2021, and was the only Canadian finalist for the World Smart Cities Awards in 2024. He is an active Urban Land Institute (ULI) volunteer with the Terwilliger Center for Housing in Washington, DC – and a regular collaborator on urban affordable housing innovation projects with University of Toronto’s School of Cities, and Toronto Metropolitan Universities’ School of Urban and Regional Planning.

​Tickets & Pricing

​​This is a Pay What You Can event. We suggest a $5 contribution to help us cover the space, but please choose the amount that works best for you. We'd love to have you there.

​​The Itinerary

​​7:30 PM | Welcome – Get settled and grab a seat.

​​7:45 PM | Mark Richardson Speaks – Delivering Affordable Rental on Toronto’s surplus lands

​​8:15 PM | Q&A

​​8:30 PM | Networking – Connect with fellow urbanists