**4.3 Planning-policy-partnership nexus**

An important strategy for change that might be successful in the sustainable regeneration of inner-city neighbourhoods in Canadian cities builds on the planning-policy-partnership nexus [25, 26]. Nexus thinking transcends traditional policy and decision-making silos and develops approaches that build synergies across these sectors. Partnerships for affordable housing in cities and neighbourhood revitalisation are indeed very diverse multi-sectoral collaborations that leverage real estate market pressures to promote affordability goals and social mix. Cities often take the lead in managing the planning-design-policy nexus as neighbourhood rebuilding takes decades and shifting the responsibility to private developers might not work, particularly in the context of gentrification and displacement of lower-income residents. Partnerships need robust and sustained financial support, alignment of planning policies and institutional commitment to increase the supply of affordable rental housing. Such complexity by design makes statements on 'what works' and 'what does not' challenging and illustrates the interdependent nature of resilience at the nexus, raising the fundamental questions of how policy might enable systemic resilience [1]. Each city will need to develop its own successful model, based on the resilience of the planning-design-policy nexus for affordable housing to respond to growing affordability pressures while emphasising diversity and social mix [3, 28].

The experience of major Canadian cities in the context of urban regeneration illustrates opportunities for synergies of different policy frameworks guiding heritage conservation and provision of affordable housing. This research has demonstrated the potential of integrated approaches to adaptive reuse at the project/ building scale as well as more strategic area-based action planning to generate a wider range of positive outcomes associated with such projects. Ultimately, the efficiency and effectiveness of heritage conservation through adaptive reuse and alignment of neighbourhood sustainability goals is enhanced as the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Affordable housing partnership models in Canadian cities offer one possible solution to a growing affordability crisis adding

*Perspective Chapter: Reimaging Affordable Housing through Adaptive Reuse of Built Heritage DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110072*

adaptive reuse of heritage to their planning-policy-design strategy toolbox repertoire. Such synergy allows the scaling up of limited project/building-based experiences to a more strategic level, emphasising the importance of socially diverse communities with jobs, opportunities and services that have a unique historic identity and sense of place [30].
