The pace of change in Canada’s housing landscape is accelerating, but the systems that shape how housing gets built often fall behind. Approvals take years. Cost climbing. Entire segments of housing, especially family-sized, attainable ownership options, are increasingly absent from the market. Against this backdrop, the Future Cities Institute convened the Land Development Bootcamp as both a learning space and a signal: preparing the next generation of planners and practitioners requires confronting these realities head-on.
Over two energetic days, participants stepped into the complexities of land development not as abstract theory, but as lived practice. The Bootcamp moved deliberately from fundamentals to friction points, municipal finance basics, land development processes from concept to approval, infrastructure capacity constraints, AutoCAD essentials, and the mechanics of development pro formas and cashflow statements. Each topic revealed how deeply interconnected planning decisions are with financial viability, regulatory frameworks, and long-term community outcomes. For many students, it was the first time seeing how values like affordability, livability, and sustainability collide with the practical limits of budgets, timelines, and infrastructure.
What made the Bootcamp distinct was not just the content, but the way it was delivered. Industry practitioners, municipal leaders, and academic experts shared the room, offering students a candid look at where intentions meet reality. Rather than presenting a single “right” way forward, the sessions surfaced trade-offs of what gets prioritized, what gets delayed, and who bears the cost when systems fail to align. This is where FCI’s approach is most evident: preparing students not just to design cities, but to navigate the systems that govern how cities actually get built.
That systems lens came into sharper focus during the evening panel, BUILD NOW, in conversation with the team leading Canada’s largest affordable homeownership initiative. The discussion moved beyond the familiar call for “more housing” and into a more uncomfortable truth: the market is not delivering the kinds of homes many Canadians need. Panelists pointed to the persistent absence of missing middle-and-family-sized homes, as well as permanently attainable ownership options. These forms of housing often sit outside conventional development models, not because they lack demand, but because they require a different kind of coordination.
Panelists spoke openly about what it takes to move fast without cutting corners. BUILD NOW is progressing rapidly, not because one sector has cracked the code alone, but because public, private, and nonprofit partners are working in concert. The message was clear: delivering affordable homeownership at scale is a partnership project, or it doesn’t happen at all. Municipal policy, development expertise, financing models, and community trust must move together. When one lags, the entire system stalls.
For FCI, the Bootcamp and panel were not standalone events. They are part of a broader commitment to bridging learning, practice, and impact. By placing students alongside practitioners and inviting honest conversations about what works and what doesn’t, FCI is helping build a shared understanding of the constraints shaping Canadian housing today. Just as importantly, it is creating space to unlearn outdated assumptions about how housing “should” be built, and to test new approaches grounded in collaboration and evidence.
The conversations that unfolded over those two days were not framed as silver-bullet solutions. They were grounded, sometimes uncomfortable, and ultimately energizing. They reflected a growing recognition that Canada’s housing challenges are not just technical problems, but systemic ones. Solving them requires people who can move between disciplines, translate across sectors, and stay focused on long-term outcomes even as pressures mount.
As BUILD NOW continues to advance and the next cohort of planners enters the field, the lessons from the Land Development Bootcamp carry forward. Cities are not built by ideas alone. They are built by people willing to work across boundaries, engage with complexity, and keep asking better questions about what and who we are building for.