In April of 2025, a bill was introduced in Washington, DC, called the One Front Door Amendment Act. It aims to do what many cities are now working on or considering, which is to allow single-stair/egress buildings up to six storeys. This, as most of you know, is very common throughout the world. It's a key ingredient in fine-grained infill housing, but it is generally not permissible in Canada and the US above certain build heights. In DC, I understand the current limit is 3 storeys.
The bill had its first Council reading last month and it passed unanimously (13-0). There is the small problem of there being no funding to enact the bill (it was passed "subject to appropriations'), but I call that a minor detail. The deadline for the Department of Buildings to issue new rules is July 1, 2027, which means this is how long they have to find the money and then do the technical work required to allow these new single-stair buildings. It's not done yet, but from the outside, it appears to be progressing.
Now the obvious question becomes: what the hell is taking Toronto so long? What is our deadline for implementation? As far as I know, there isn't one. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) We now permit 6-storey apartments along all "Major Streets" in the city — from a planning perspective, at least — except the economics do not work at scale, and the requirement for two exit stairs remains one of the major obstacles. Enough with the navel-gazing. Let's get building, Toronto!
Cover photo by Andy Feliciotti on Unsplash
I recently came across this for-sale listing from Fantastic Frank for a 3-room apartment in Berlin's new Am Tacheles district. Naturally, I thought to myself, "Hey, this is a beautiful apartment — now let me go all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century and better understand the history of the development site."
Am Tacheles has been called the most controversial real estate project in Berlin's modern history. Previously developed in 1908 as a high-end shopping arcade intended to rival the great galleries of Paris, the Friedrichstraßenpassage, as it was known, was an ambitious undertaking located in the city's historic Jewish quarter.
But only about six months after opening, the project went bankrupt. The existing building then went on to live numerous lives, ranging from an AEG showroom to a building used to house French war prisoners, before ultimately being co-opted by artists in 1990 as a way to save it from demolition.
It was at this point that it was given the name Tacheles, which is a Yiddish word meaning "to speak straight." Supposedly, this was a reference to the area's history as a thriving Jewish quarter and a message about political honesty (it is located in the former East Berlin, where that wasn't a thing).
For the next two decades, the site became a global symbol of Berlin's "poor but sexy" identity. The ownership vacuum created by the fall of the Berlin Wall meant that nobody really knew who owned what. This was a disaster for clear property rights and capital investment, but fortuitous for squatters who needed cheap (okay, free) space to experiment with art and techno music.
In my view, this was ultimately a net positive for the city. It created an urban vitality that nobody could have predicted, demonstrating the potential of people and cities when allowed to experiment and take risks.
But then, basically, two things happened: (1) people eventually figured out who owned what, and (2) the development potential of the site became increasingly valuable. This is the quintessential urban cycle. First, the artists and creatives come in to take advantage of cheap space. They then make the area cool. And then developers like me come in to monetize it, completing the cycle.
Fast forward to today, and Am Tacheles (they kept the name) is a new master-planned community designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and one of the most desirable (and thus expensive) areas in Berlin. It's also quite a bit tidier there these days, though they did preserve some of the graffiti.
Returning to our 3-room apartment listing, the asking price is €1,825,000 + €90,000 (for what I believe is a parking space). At 113 sqm, this works out to ~€16,947 per sqm or about C$2,529 per sqft (for comparison to Toronto prices). As I understand it, this is well above the average new construction home prices in the area and city.
What is clear is that Berlin is no longer poor. It's global-city rich. But is it still sexy?
Cover photo and floor from Fantastic Frank
Historic Tacheles photo via Wikipedia
Am Tacheless photo and stairwell section from H&dM
One of the reasons why we are seeing more multiplexes in Toronto (smaller infill buildings with less than seven homes) is that the city has waived development charges and parkland dedication fees on this scale of new housing.
This has helped enormously; without these changes, we'd be seeing far fewer of these housing projects being built.
But here's the odd thing about this exemption: if you build even one more home in the same building, the project is now subject to development charges on all of the homes (minus any credits you might receive for existing homes on the site).
Adding a seventh unit shouldn't suddenly trigger hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees for the first six. This makes zero sense:
It creates a disincentive to build incrementally more homes on sites that can accommodate them.
It creates a bias toward multiplexes (also known as "houseplexes") and away from apartments. The housing type shouldn't matter. We're talking about homes.
It perpetuates the "missing middle" problem. Build small or build big enough to shoulder the additional costs and regulatory burden.
If we're waiving DCs on sixplexes, why not at least waive them for the first six homes on every site? Better yet, waive them on even more homes. This is just one specific example of the hurdles I was talking about yesterday.
Note: My understanding is that the City of Toronto is currently looking to remove this DC cliff and implement a universal first-six-free rule.