Back in 2016, the New York Times published an article where it cited that at least 40% of the buildings in Manhattan could not be built today because they don't conform to the city's zoning code for one or more reasons. These reasons might include too much density (FSI / FAR), too many units, inadequate setback requirements, or something else.

This is a tricky number to estimate as most cities don't track it, but I asked Gemini and Claude to try for Toronto, and they returned 70-80% and 45-55%, respectively. Claude's estimate seems to be lower because it assumed that all of the subdivided single-family houses are now legal because of the new multiplex permissions.

I don't know about that, but the point is that there's a meaningful, non-zero quantity of buildings in our cities that we decided to make illegal, and generally difficult, or impossible to build again. The thing that I'm most interested in dissecting is: why?

Here's one way to look at it. My follow-up question to both AI models was: What percentage of buildings within a Heritage Conservation District would you say are illegal to build in Toronto today? And both models agreed that the number is 90%+, and probably very close to 100%.

Heritage Conservation Districts are a way of saying "these buildings and this urbanism is so good, that it's worth preserving through extra layers of planning protection." But at the same time, our other policies say, "you shall never build anything like this ever again." It's incoherent.

A more coherent approach might be to call them Heritage Renewal Districts where we instead codify the following: "this district is now illegal based on our current planning rules and so the objective is to tear it all down and replace it with new, approved buildings." Sounds like blasphemy, doesn't it? So then why block more of it?

If it's worth conserving, then it's worth building more of. What ought to be obvious is that we need more rather than less planning flexibility, and we need to legalize the things that have been proven to work, like traditional fine-grained patterns of city-building.

Cover photo by Ayman Hallak on Unsplash

Broadly speaking, the market no longer cares about NFT art. I love the collection that I have put together over the last five years and I continue to buy pieces from time to time. But it is becoming harder as fewer artists mint their work and as more marketplaces shut down. For instance, last month, Foundation announced that it would be closing up shop after a failed sale of the company. This was one of the most well-known marketplaces from the 2021 NFT era.

The other problem with marketplaces shutting down is that now many NFTs are at risk of getting lost forever. But how is that possible given that blockchains are supposed to decentralized and immune to this sort of thing? Here's my non-technical explanation, which you may want to pay attention to if you own any NFTs.

The actual images or graphics that make up NFT art can be stored on blockchains in generally one of two ways: either on-chain or off-chain (which is how most NFTs are stored). On-chain means that the code required to render the image (usually vector graphics) is stored directly on the blockchain itself.

One of the most notable examples is the CyberBrokers collection created by Chicago artist Josie Bellini. In this instance, everything is stored on the Ethereum blockchain. It's more expensive to do it this way, but it means that as long as Ethereum exists, CyberBrokers exist. So, pretty permanent!

The other way that NFT art can be stored is off-chain. What this means is that the NFT you are buying is essentially a pointer to an image stored somewhere else on the internet. Owning the pointer is a way of saying, "I own that thing over there!" And since the pointer exists on a blockchain, you should have it forever. The question is whether "over there" still exists or if it's pointing to nothing. This is the problem to be concerned about if you own any NFTs.

"Over there" can take many forms. The image could be stored on a centralized server like what Instagram would use when you upload a photo or story. In this case, there's a high degree of risk that your art could disappear forever and you'd be left with a pointer that points to nothing. The link would be broken.

Decentralized storage is better than centralized storage, but it's important to understand the differences. Some decentralized storage networks, like Arweave, are more or less permanent. Arweave works by collecting a fee upfront with the promise that it will be enough to cover the cost of storing the data for at least 200 years. So again, pretty permanent.

But the most common place for NFTs to be stored is on something called the InterPlanetary File System (or IPFS). IPFS is unique in that it is a peer-to-peer network that uses content-based addressing, instead of location-based addressing. What this means is that you don't ask the network "where is this file stored?"; you ask the network, "who has this file?"

This is a crucial difference because it means that as long as your NFT art is stored somewhere in the world, it will remain accessible. However, the challenge is that there isn't a permanent funding model, so if a marketplace like Foundation was paying to store your art on IPFS and has now shut down, then "stored over there" will disappear and the pointer will point to nothing.

The good news is that there's an easy solution if your pieces are on IPFS. All you have to do is store or back up your NFT art somewhere and then there will always be an "over there" to point to! The term used is "pinning" your NFTs and I've been in the market for a service for a while. I considered a bunch of companies, and then last week I signed up with Piñata. It's free for 1GB of storage or $20/month for 1TB of storage.

If you've collected any NFTs that you care about, I would strongly encourage you to make sure that you've pinned the ones you can. It doesn't matter what you use to do it. It doesn't have to be Piñata. This is not a sponsored post and I'm in no way affiliated with the company. I just care about the crypto and NFT space, and I would hate for any of you to lose any of the work that you've collected.

If you're a longtime reader of this blog, you might remember that back in 2021 we created the first-ever NFT collection tied to pre-construction condominiums (or at least we think we were the first to do it). It is called the Petra Cortright NFT Collection at One Delisle and you can read more about it here.

Cover photo by Peter Olexa on Unsplash

Multiplexes, as they are called around here, are one of the few housing types that kind of work in Toronto today. According to a recent Globe and Mail article by John Lorinc, the city has issued 2,629 building permits for multiplexes since 2023, representing 4,880 net new homes.

This is not very much for a city of our size, but this is a new type, and I would bet you two things: that this number will increase and that the city will continue to make it easier to build fine-grained, urban infill housing.

The great opportunity right now is exactly what architect Craig Race says in the article: “You can’t find 1,500-square-foot, three-bedroom units anywhere other than in multiplexes. The smaller units are the most affordable in the city because the typology costs so much less than mid-rise or high-rise buildings.”

However, the article also talks about the "festival of doors" that comes with this housing type. This is because each home typically has its own dedicated entry door from grade. Meaning, if you're building a sixplex, you're going to have at least six doors sprinkled across the various elevations.

In some ways, this is a desirable design outcome. Each home is now 100% efficient (rentable area divided by gross construction area), as there are no common areas. I think many residents also appreciate having their own dedicated entrances.

But on the flip side, an entry door generally equals another staircase. So, from an overall building efficiency standpoint, there are more effective ways to unlock more housing on every infill lot — namely through the adoption of single-egress stair buildings.

As soon as this becomes a feasible as-of-right option, expect to see an increase in both the quantity and quality of new small-scale infill housing in Toronto.

Cover photo by White.Rainforest ™️︎ ∙ 易雨白林. on Unsplash