A long-time condominium developer in south Mississauga and the city’s government may have found a way to resuscitate part of Greater Toronto’s condo market after several years in the doldrums.
Brixen Developments recently completed Exhale Residences, an 11-storey, 280-unit condominium with 12 townhouses in the former industrial area of Lakeview. The neighbourhood has undergone a major transformation in recent years, emerging as a transit-oriented community with GO Train stops at Long Branch Station and in neighbouring Port Credit.
Buyers at the Brixen project were able to secure financial help as the a result of a Peel Region development charge rebate from the city of Mississauga that amounted to $4.5 million, all of which will be returned to the people who buy the units. The city's development charge reductions are 50% for all residential unit types and 100% for purpose-built apartment rental units.
Even though Brixen had missed the July 1, 2025, deadline to apply for the rebate, Ward 1 Councillor Stephen Dasko intervened on the developer’s behalf and helped it attain an exemption.
“The councillor put forward a motion that effectively altered the dates to make us fall within, and it was approved unanimously at city council,” Alexander D’Orazio, Brixen’s co-founder, told CoStar News.
D'Orazio added that “the reason is that it was appreciated by everybody involved that new housing is very much needed in Lakeview, but the only way to achieve that is by making it affordable for purchasers. We wrote letters to all of our purchasers as soon as we got approval from council to let them know we were successful in obtaining a substantial rebate from the region that we’re delivering, dollar for dollar, to existing purchasers."
In an interview, Dasko said the rebate program is already paying dividends with a slew of applications, including for townhouses and purpose-built rental buildings, in the pipeline just in Lakeview alone.
“On the condo side, it’s still a little quiet, but when it comes to townhomes, those are starting to move, and when you’re talking about purpose-built rentals, we’re starting to see more of those,” he said. “The biggest thing that we can send out is the message that, if you're looking to invest your dollars wisely, then Mississauga is one of those places that wants to work with everybody."
Just down the street from Exhale, Dasko said, "we’ve got Lakeview Village, and these guys are pulling a bunch of permits to put in close to 1,000 homes. They have told me that they would not have been pulling permits had they not received that type of relief, so the program is a resounding success."
Collaboration, not loggerheads
Dasko also said a collaborative relationship between developers and City Council is proving pivotal to delivering new housing.
“Let's work together, and if we collaborate, we can get things moving and get people housed, which is really what we need to do,” he said.
The rebate is significant, Brixen’s D’Orazio said, because building economics in the Toronto region have for years been tough on homebuilders. And while the development charge rebate alone isn’t the panacea, it nevertheless helped Brixen deliver homes at Exhale that buyers could afford, he said.
“I don’t know that the development charge rebate program alone would move the needle enough to increase development, but it’s extremely helpful,” he said.
The biggest issue with homeownership, D’Orazio said, is affordability. "In order for us to provide a home at a certain price point, construction costs need to stabilize and come down, and development charges need to be reduced even more because they’re so expensive that, even at a 50% rebate, the stars still need to somehow align," he said.
Making things tougher, Pekoe Mortgages founder Daniel Johanis said he's never seen so many prospective buyers fail to qualify for mortgages as he has in the past few years.
“Home prices are still too high,” he said in an interview. “And people are being stretched way too thin today because of economic pressures, and if home prices don’t come down, nothing will change.”
There’s been a notable surge in purpose-built rental construction, but with the region’s growing population, supply in the development pipeline will still be insufficient.
“Owner-occupied housing is still the biggest part of the market,” Richard Lyall, president of the Residential Construction Council of Ontario, said in an interview. “There’s nothing wrong with apartments, but most people still want [to own] a home.”
Lyall said that’s especially true for imported skilled workers. “You're not going to attract talent if your housing costs are too high.”