Most of the companies building homes and developing land in the GTA are businesses that are locally owned and operated. They are based here and have their head offices here.
The owners not only invest in the GTA and employ people who live, work and play here, but they themselves live here and call this region home.
This is true not only for small- and medium-sized firms but it is also the case for the larger development companies that you may recognize, like Tridel, Great Gulf, Mattamy Homes and others.
Many of our industry’s companies are multi-generational, family-owned enterprises that have been helping to build cities in the GTA for five or six decades. They have deep roots in the community: For instance, a glance at the names on donor walls in local hospitals and universities will show you that these companies — and the people who lead them — have long-standing commitments to giving back.
Having so many industry leaders based here is different from most industries — think food, pharmaceutical, natural resources and even beer — where the largest companies and brands that come to mind are multinational corporations with headquarters outside of Canada. Some of them started out as Canadian companies but over the years have been bought out by others outside of our borders.
Our industry has remained rooted in the GTA and is, in fact, expanding elsewhere. Some of the region’s top builders and developers are now building in other Canadian provinces and even south of the border, but they are still based here.
For instance, Great Gulf Homes, named one of BILD’s Home Builders of the Year just a few months ago for building more than 40,000 new homes across Ontario since its inception in 1975, has taken its expertise across the nation and into the U.S. The company has projects ranging from master-planned communities to highrise condominiums underway in nine major U.S. cities from Atlanta to Denver.
Another example is Mattamy Homes, a past BILD Home Builder of the Year with its head office in downtown Toronto. Mattamy has been constructing homes in the GTA and across Canada for close to 40 years and has now set out to build communities in Arizona, North Carolina and Florida. The company built 1,500 homes in the U.S. last year and, over the next five to seven years, it plans to double that number.
There are also many other builders like BILD members RioCan and Dream Unlimited Corporation that have head offices in the GTA but have development projects in various provinces across the country.
We are fortunate that the homebuilding and land development industry is firmly rooted in the GTA. Our region also benefits from the firms who work elsewhere and keep their head office jobs here. This keeps the local, provincial and national economy strong at home.
Bryan Tuckey is president and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD) and is a land-use planner who has worked for municipal, regional and provincial governments. Find him at twitter.com/bildgta , facebook.com/bildgta and bildblogs.ca.
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