This city’s experience is a rare housing success story in the global affordability crisis

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Photo by Phil Walter/Getty ImagesWhile cities worldwide struggle with housing affordability (with little to no success), Auckland, New Zealand, has implemented a supply-centric approach that increased housing availability, raised density and lowered prices. Can Canada learn from Auckland’s experience?THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLYSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman, and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESSubscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Exclusive articles from Barbara Shecter, Joe O'Connor, Gabriel Friedman and others.Daily content from Financial Times, the world's leading global business publication.Unlimited online access to read articles from Financial Post, National Post and 15 news sites across Canada with one account.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles, including the New York Times Crossword.REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLESCreate an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountThe city’s residents, like those living in similarly desirable metropolises, faced steep price increases as many competed for the limited supply of homes available to buy or rent. Yet housing affordability improved after a municipal policy shift allowed the conversion of single-family homes into multiplexes — a housing type often termed the “missing middle” — delivering thousands of new homes and helping moderate prices.New Zealand’s housing challenges stemmed from an accelerated rise in population, which, according to a recent Financial Times report, grew from 1.3 million in 2010 to 1.8 million in 2025, due to an earlier influx of new immigrants and repatriated wealthy citizens from Australia and elsewhere. The country’s largest city could not build housing in time to keep up with the growth.SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE: FP West: Energy Insider brings you behind the oilpatch’s closed doors with exclusive insights from insiders every Wednesday morning.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of FP West: Energy Insider will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againA paper in Policy Quarterly last year by Jones, Greenway-McGrevy and Crow proposed a new method to develop timely estimates of urban housing stock. In the course of their research, they looked at the impact of the Auckland Unitary Plan (or AUP, the municipal land-use plan), which allowed rezoning of 75 per cent of the city’s residential land from single-family homes to multiplexes and townhouses. From the time of the AUP’s inception in August 2016 until August 2024, housing stock grew by 91,000 units — an increase of 18 per cent. Interestingly, housing construction was dominated by townhouses or multiplexes built on the sites of former single detached homes.A comparison with data from the period before the AUP reveals a noticeable increase in housing stock growth, starting in 2018, when AUP-facilitated homes completed construction and entered the market. The authors estimate that, on average, nine new dwellings were added for each demolished one.Establishing causality here is hard. The increase in housing supply could have started before the policy change. The decline in average housing prices could have been the result of both increased supply and reduced demand, as high-income earners have been leaving New Zealand in large numbers. Case in point: New Zealand’s former prime minister recently house-hunted in Australia.Introducing gentle density through missing-middle initiatives has captured significant attention in Canada. In the past few years, city governments have allowed for blanket rezoning to replace single detached homes with multiplexes. However, the planning initiatives have not necessarily delivered sufficient new housing in areas previously zoned for low-density housing.A 2025 Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) report examined missing-middle housing construction in Canada’s six most populous cities: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, and Edmonton. The rezoning initiatives had moderate success from 2018 to 2023 before a huge uptake between 2023 and 2024, when missing-middle housing starts jumped 44 per cent. Surprisingly, the uptake was not particularly strong in Canada’s three largest cities: Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Instead, Calgary and Edmonton led the surge.This advertisement has not loaded yet.This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.The CMHC report defined missing-middle housing as ground-oriented housing comprising accessory suites, multiplexes, row homes, stacked townhouses and low-rise apartments. Interestingly, while missing-middle starts jumped from 2023 to 2024, total starts in the six cities declined, suggesting missing-middle construction may be substituting for other housing construction.Of the six cities, Calgary and Edmonton accounted for 67 per cent of missing-middle starts in 2024, representing 21,000 total units. Toronto and Vancouver, Canada’s priciest housing markets, together accounted for only 12 per cent of those starts — less than Ottawa at 13 per cent. Missing-middle starts in Vancouver declined from 2,300 dwellings in 2018 to just 1,002 in 2024.The missing-middle movement in Canada has several stated objectives, the most obvious being to provide higher-density housing. Another noteworthy goal is to convert low-density neighbourhoods dominated by single-family detached housing into relatively higher-density, ground-oriented multiplexes.The CMHC report noted that only Toronto achieved noticeable success with its conversions, which represented 42 per cent of its missing middle starts. Yet Toronto’s conversion success is based on a smaller number of starts relative to Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa, which together represented 80 per cent of missing-middle starts in 2024, despite a similar population size (in aggregate) to Toronto.Although Calgary has led missing-middle housing construction in Canada, it is not necessarily happening in existing low-density neighbourhoods with multiplexes replacing single-family homes. Alberta’s missing-middle construction is mostly greenfield development, with new suburban neighbourhoods being built at gentler densities, suggesting that the cities are responsibly accommodating new growth at relatively higher densities.Recent housing developments in Canada and New Zealand highlight a crucial distinction: Auckland’s infill projects demonstrate how increasing density can effectively boost supply, whereas in Canada, particularly in Alberta and Ottawa, new greenfield developments are responsible for the rise in missing-middle housing. These contrasting approaches suggest that rezoning alone is not sufficient for increasing infill. Market conditions and demographics have to be supportive.Murtaza Haider is a professor and the Radhe Krishna Gupta Executive Chair in Cities and Communities at the Alberta School of Business. Stephen Moranis is an industry veteran and former president of the Toronto Real Estate Board.We apologize, but this video has failed to load.Notice for the Postmedia NetworkThis website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.