GTA Tour: Richmond Hill

This week on our tour of the Greater Toronto Area, let’s keep our movement northward and talk about Richmond Hill, Ontario. Richmond Hill is another municipality located within the York regional municipality. The city is also located right between Vaughan and Markham.

According to their website, Richmond Hill is coincidentally also known for innovation and technology, like Markham. They say “a whole lot of really smart people work here.” They also state that “Richmond Hill has one of Canada’s most educated workforces, and York Region’s most educated workforce with 50% of residents holding a university degree and over 77% with post-secondary education.”

The city is also known as the “Rose Capital of Canada” according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. For some fun history background, some years ago Richmond Hill’s population was declining so in an effort to attract businesses and residents they opened two greenhouse businesses, coining the nickname for the city.

Another amazing fact about Richmond Hill is the story of the David Dunlap Observatory. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, this astronomical observatory was created for the University of Toronto in Richmond Hill in 1935 since it was “remote enough to avoid light pollution” and was where the black hole was first observed after Albert Einstein predicted them. Today, Observatory Hill is one of the city’s most sought after luxury neighborhoods featuring Planet Street and Milky Way Drive. Despite a little “light pollution”, the observatory is still open for tours.

Let’s now look at some Statistics Canada census data from 2021 to get a sense of the city’s demographics. As of 2021, the population of Richmond Hill is 202,022. This represents a 3.6% increase from the results of the 2016 census. Statistics Canada states that while the population of Richmond Hill is seeing increases, it is still not increasing at the level we see for other areas in the York Region, Metropolitan Toronto, Ontario, and Canada as a whole. Also, the number of dwellings in the city also increased by about 5.5 thousand from 2016. As of 2021, the number of private dwellings in Richmond Hill is 72,017. Statistics Canada also reports that the average number of people living in each dwelling is about 2.81 people.

Some other data includes linguistic data. As of 2021, 36.2% of the population report English as their mother tongue. Other popular first languages are Mandarin at 13.7%, Yue at 13.7%, and Persian at 10.3%. Only 7.3% of the population can speak both English and French.

Statistics Canada reports that the overall median household income for the city is increasing, now being at $102,000 in 2021. The report states that “Richmond Hill has a much higher proportion of low-income individuals in all age cohorts when compared to the average across York Region, Toronto CMA, Ontario, and Canada.” They report that 23,000 people, or 11.8% of the total population are considered low income. They also state that the proportion of low-income people in the city has decreased, indicating that people have been priced out of the city and sought more affordable housing outside of Richmond Hill.

As we have said previously, affordability is usually measured by how many people spend more than 30% of their total income on shelter costs. Statistics Canada reports that 47.2% of owners and 50.5% of renters are paying more than 30%, higher than York, Toronto, Ontario, and Canada. Average shelter costs are also reportedly higher in Richmond Hill than in those other demographics.

We can then look at data for housing and dwelling characteristics. Statistics Canada states that the most common housing types are 2, 3, and 4 people, making up 27.3%, 21.8%, and 21.3% of each household type respectively. The most common property type in Richmond Hill, as usual, is the single-family detached house, consisting of 56.7% of all property types. The next most common property type is an apartment building with five or more storeys, making up 18.7% property types. Close behind is a row house, consisting of 15.2% of the total housing types.

Single detached houses have been decreasing in popularity in the region; Statistics Canada reports that they consisted of 63.6% of the housing in 2006, 62.1% in 2011, 58.7% in 2016, and 56.7% in 2021. They also tell us that “the fastest growing form of dwellings are apartments in buildings that have five or more storeys” with an increase of 3.8% from the year 2006.

Finally, let’s consider housing prices. According to WOWA, the average sold price is $1.47 million, a 5.2% decrease annually and 2.5% decrease monthly. The number of sales has also decreased annually and monthly, by 18.3% and 20.7% respectively. The number of new listings, however, is 6.2%. Interestingly, it seems Richmond Hillians are worse off than other surrounding areas and larger areas they are a part of.