When former civic planner Bryan Tuckey strolls through North York’s Avondale Park, he sees what so many neighbourhoods across the GTA could — and should — look like two decades from now.

Surrounding its grass and kids’ playground are three-storey townhouses backstopped by mid- and highrise condo buildings.

Tucked behind all those tightly packed new homes are the big lots and postwar Willowdale homes that defined North York during the decades when the car was king.

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“This is a very complete community,” says Tuckey of the pleasant South Downtown neighbourhood which has sprung up just in the last decade at Highway 401 and Yonge St. on land that used to house a Maclean-Hunter printing plant.

“People can live, work and play their whole life here, just a few hundred metres from their home and within easy walking distance of transit.”

After decades spent helping plan, on paper, the creation of new-age neighbourhoods like South Downtown, Tuckey, 56, now finds himself on the building side of business.

Last May he took over as president of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD.) Its 1,375 members include developers and homebuilders who are now revolutionizing the way we live and how the GTA will look by 2031 as our population climbs from 6.3 million to an anticipated 8 million people.

They are restricted by provincial demands under the 2006 Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe to create new developments that accommodate at least 50 people and jobs per hectare and constrained by a greenbelt that has achieved its critical goal, to put the brakes on sprawl.

But even builders are concerned about the stunning pace with which cities across the GTA have stretched up — instead of out — just in the last few years.

Since 2008, some 370 new highrise condo buildings have been built or are now under construction in the City of Toronto alone, according to real estate market research firm Urbanation.

Even the Mississauga skyline is looking far more urban than suburban these days with 30 new condo towers up or underway, including the landmark Marilyn Monroe towers.

Where 10 years ago some 75 per cent of all new homes sold in the GTA were single-family houses and just 25 per cent condominiums, last year “the shift hit the fan,” in the words of BILD.

Condos accounted for a record 63 per cent of new home sales and single-family homes had dropped to just 38 per cent. That exceeds even the province’s own goals of having 40 per cent higher density development.

While BILD is raising the alarm about the decline of the single-family home, others point beyond the provincial growth plan to a major shift in demographics and demand — aging boomers and people tired of hour-long commutes who want to live close to work.

But the fact remains, while condo inventories have been climbing and prices softening, the cost of the Holy Grail of housing — be it a detached, semi, row or townhouse — continues to climb.

In August, resale house prices were up 6.5 per cent across the GTA despite a 12.5 per cent drop in sales.

“That tells you that supply is severely, severely constrained,” says development consultant and land economist Mark Conway, citing a looming lack of enough land to build houses.

“It’s really incredible the pressure it’s putting on prices.”

Groups like Friends of the Greenbelt say land prices are just one factor, citing Calgary where there is no greenbelt limiting development but house prices have climbed double the rate of Toronto’s — 52 per cent — since 2005.

BILD’s members support the notion of the greenbelt: Sprawl is costly and only adds to congestion on the roads. But there are growing fears that what they considered a safety valve for future growth, some 68,000 hectares of so-called whitebelt lands between the GTA borders and the greenbelt, is now also becoming a no-go zone for development.

That’s putting intense pressure on municipalities like York Region, which in some high-demand areas has just seven years worth of serviced land left for new development.

Almost 70 per cent of York region is in the greenbelt, yet it’s proving to be difficult to get approvals to build into the whitebelt, says Tuckey. That’s despite the fact many of the 100,000 new people moving into the GTA from other cities, provinces and countries each year end up in that suburban municipality.

BILD blames “regulatory inertia” — lack of roads and other infrastructure improvements, approvals of official plans and delays in getting project approvals — for actually hampering intensification in the outlying regions.

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Regional and local official plans that would lay out how intensified neighbourhoods would look on the ground were supposed to be approved by June 2009. Most are now under appeal before the Ontario Municipal Board and BILD fears it could be 2015 before they are okayed, which is stalling some projects.

There could be even more delays as local councils finalize second-tier plans and ratepayers inevitably rail against developments in their own backyards that look more big city than suburban.

“It’s a challenge to have people understand that these communities are going to work for them as well,” says Tuckey, stressing that a range of housing in a confined area allows folks to move from condos into townhomes and houses as they marry and have families and then back down as they age.

“They are well designed,” he says, pointing to South Downtown with its charming townhomes, walkways and bike racks all just steps from the Sheppard Subway station. “It’s the change that is difficult to accept. But once you are through the change, you find these communities really work.”

Vaughan Mayor Maurizio Bevilacqua has missionary zeal for intensification, despite the fact his municipality is better known for its megamalls and countless single-family homes on 50-foot lots.

He see the jobs and economic growth that intensification will bring to four so-called “urban growth centres” planned for Vaughan — neighbourhoods much like South Downtown that will surround new subway connections and help house a population that’s expected to grow under the provincial plan from the current 300,000 residents to some 416,000 by 2031.

The old-style suburban subdivisions can’t continue, he agrees, but there still has to be room for single family homes.

“I don’t feel a true city can be homogenous. People need a choice of places to live,” he stresses.

“You will not sell a condo to someone who wants to live in a single family dwelling. The beauty in the city is not to stifle the kind of growth that provides democratic choice for people.”

Provincial housing official Larry Clay acknowledges that some elements of intensification have run into opposition, especially in smaller municipalities on the fringes of the GTA not keen on more urban-style development.

But he points to Mississauga, Markham, and Vaughan, among others: “There are tremendous successes out there, a lot of positives that the growth plan has achieved — downtown revitalization, more transit supportive growth. But it’s still in its early stages and implementation does present some challenges because you do bump into competing interests.”

Clay, who as director of the Municipal Services Office of the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, is charged with overseeing implementation of the growth plan notes that progress is being reviewed every five years.

There is enough land in the whitebelt for “generations” of growth, says Clay, citing a report by Friends of the Greenbelt. But he acknowledges there are active farms and environmentally sensitive areas that may be off limits and that municipalities have to meet very stringent conditions for justifying expansion outside their existing borders.

“No one is going to say that it’s totally going to be urban some day, but there is a considerable amount of land (in the whitebelt) that might potentially be available for generations of use if needed.”

Friends of the Greenbelt believe there’s so much, in fact, that some should be added to the greenbelt. That just adds to BILD’s concerns that no one is thinking of the growth to come even beyond 2031.

“We have a city roughly the size of Kingston moving into the GTA each year,” says Tuckey of the estimated 100,000 people who continue to move here from other cities, provinces or countries. “I don’t think people get the pace of growth we’re facing here.”