It should come as no surprise to readers of this column that development in the Greater Toronto Area is becoming much more intense, but a recent study has quantified the extent of densification that has been occurring.

The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing just completed a five-year review of the results of growth planning in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, in which it projects development patterns with or without the growth plan in place.

The review found that without the plan, there would be a 39 per cent increase in new urbanized land compared with 14 per cent under it. Without the growth plan, the share of growth represented by intensification would be 22 per cent, whereas with it, the intensification quotient is 54 per cent. Without the plan, average densities would actually decline by two per cent, whereas they will increase by 20 per cent thanks to the plan.

According to the review, the growth plan should help to conserve as much as 800 square kilometres of agricultural and rural land by 2031or the equivalent of 100,000 soccer fields.

I could have spared the province the trouble of doing the study by pointing out some of the major trends in GTA new home sales. For example, whereas a quarter of new home sales used to be in the City of Toronto, it’s now closer to half. Whereas high rise condominium construction used to represent a quarter to a third of production, it’s now well over 50 per cent (64 per cent last month and 60 per cent this year-to-date). Meanwhile, barely one quarter (27 per cent) of all new homes sold last year were single-detached.

For more information, visit placestogrow.ca.

Stephen Dupuis is President and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and can be found on Twitter (twitter.com/bildgta), Facebook (facebook.com/bildgta), YouTube (youtube.com/bildgta) and BILD’s official online blog (bildblogs.ca).