Growth, guns, gridlock: London to face some key challenges in 2025
Mayor looks to ongoing senior government support on homelessness, housing
London is a city likely to be challenged by its own success in 2025.
The city continues to experience rapid growth, with a recent city staff report pointing to provincial estimates that predict 9,000 new people a year will come to London to live over the next 25 years.
That growth is good for land values and city coffers, but it also brings challenges on multiple fronts, from housing affordability, to road congestion, to crime and homelessness.
Here's an outline of some of the challenges London is sure to face in the year ahead.
Homelessness and housing
Managing the city's response to the the housing and homelessness crisis will continue to be a top-of-mind challenge in 2025. London has made significant efforts to respond, including agreeing to fund Ark Aid Mission shelter services through the year, although they'll have to shift some overnight resting beds off Dundas Street in Old East Village.
London expects to open 50 new highly supportive beds this year in a former seniors home on Elmwood Avenue. Also, Canadian Mental Health Association has an application to open one of 19 provincially funded heart hubs in London.
Two housing hubs created under the city's response to homelessness are now operating, one by Indigenous-operated Atlohsa Family Healing Services and another focused on helping youth run by Youth Opportunities Unlimited.
Last month, the federal government announced $5 million over two years for homeless relief.
While all this is positive news, in a recent Instagram video post Mayor Josh Morgan said the city and community donors alone can't meet the need. He said senior governments must continue to be part of the solution, something to watch for as both a provincial and federal election will happen this year.
"We know we need to scale this up," said Morgan of London's response to homelessness. "So we continue to advocate to the provincial government to make sure that the resources are available to municipalities to create spaces for people who are very high needs."
Addressing gun violence
In what some might think would only happen in a larger city, a shooting outside the doors of Victoria's Hospital ER room on Dec. 18 raised the issue of whether London is seeing an increase in gun violence.
Police Chief Thai Truong said the hospital shooting, while concerning, isn't an indicator gun violence in London is increasing. In fact, he said the number of shootings actually decreased in 2024.
"Right now we're sitting at 14 shootings for the year," he told CBC News. "Last year, in total, we had 27. That's a significant reduction in gun violence."
So what needs to happen to keep the number of shootings down as London grows? Truong said a big factor is "targeted enforcement efforts" directed at people involved in the drug trade.
"The drug distribution subculture and the trafficking of drugs and firearms go hand in hand with violence," Truong said.
Managing London's rapid growth
At its final meeting of the year, London city council voted to open up just under 1,500 hectares of previously protected land to development.
It passed by a whisper-thin 8-7 vote. Left-leaning councillors expressed concern the move will turn green space and farmland into high-end single-family homes that will be expensive for the city to service. Those voting in favour, however, pointed to a staff report that said the land is needed, even with densification in the core.
Another concern flagged by those who voted to make the land available: If London doesn't allow more growth near city limits, it will spill over to neighbouring communities, such as Ilderton, Komoka and Lucan. Growth outside the city doesn't add to London's tax base but it does put pressure on London's roads and services.
Managing all this will be an ongoing issue in 2025.
Construction, construction and more construction
Construction was a major source of frustration for Londoners in 2024. If there's an upside, it's that a handful of the projects that wrapped up in 2024 are now already helping traffic to move.
It would be hard to find a London driver who misses those long waits at the former Adelaide Street railway crossing while a freight train lumbers past. Also, after delays, the new and improved Victoria Bridge restored an important connection between downtown and Old South.
So what's ahead in 2025?
In addition to ongoing work on the BRT routes (Wellington Road South and Dundas/Highbury) the city will continue work on the new roundabout on Oxford Street West and Gideon Drive. Fixing drainage problems on Oxford Street West at Beaverbrook Avenue will also continue to slow drivers down this year.
As far as new road construction starting in 2025, the East London Link BRT work will move to Oxford Street East. Also intersection improvements will bring delays to the fast-growing area of Sunningdale Road and Richmond Street.
And while the new underpass means the train pain is over on Adelaide south of Oxford, in north London work will start this spring to refurbish the Adelaide Street North Bridge, which spans the Thames River south of Windemere Road. That work will lead to lane restrictions on one of the city's busiest north-south arterial roads.
Keeping momentum on office conversions
City incentives to encourage developers to convert empty office buildings into housing began last year, and there have been some successes. Some $3.3 million in city money will help turn 195 Dufferin Ave. into 94 rental units. Another project will bring 14 new apartments to an office building at the corner of Dundas and Richmond, above a former Rexall Pharmacy.
Keeping up the momentum on office conversions will be a big challenge this year, as city staff have flagged that many of the vacant buildings may be too expensive to retrofit, even with incentive money on the table.
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