A beautiful new 43-storey rental building was just approved in Toronto's Liberty Village neighborhood. More info about the project can be found, here. Not surprisingly, some people in the community were against it. Here is a recent article that blogTO published talking about people who live in high-rises not wanting a new high-rise next to them.

One argument that is being made is that the neighborhood is already full. It has reached its density limit. We also hear this about the City of Toronto as a whole. But we know this isn't true. Architect Naama Blonder recently did a study that found we could fit another 12 million people within our boundaries with more efficient land use policies.

This particular site in Liberty Village is also about 400 meters from a future subway stop on the Ontario Line. So it is exactly where we should be putting more density. The problem today is that the area is suffering from a massive infrastructure deficit. The road network is inadequate and the King streetcar hasn't been prioritized.

It's no wonder the area feels full. But the reality is that there are lots of examples of highly livable neighborhoods from around the world with much higher population densities. The difference is that they have the right infrastructure, the right public realms, and the right modal splits.

Liberty Village will get there as well and it's already underway. For a preview of the future, check out the City of Toronto's Public Realm Strategy for the area. It was published in April 2024 and it includes things like new streets, new mid-block connections, and new parks. It is what the area needs and it's exciting to see it happening.

This is the battle that is now playing out across Toronto — and many other cities — as we look to intensify our existing communities; even in the ones sitting on higher-order transit. Cities rightly want to see it happen. But local ratepayers do not.

From the Globe and Mail:

“This project is in no way gentle intensification,” said the architect Terry Montgomery, representing the powerful local group the Annex Residents Association. “It will set a dangerous precedent for all areas in the city which currently [are zoned for] low-scale residential-buildings.”

It’s not clear whether that legal argument is true. At the meeting, City of Toronto planning manager David Driedger and director Oren Tamir – who, to their great credit, were supporting the development – said it would not set a precedent.

But if it did, why would that be “dangerous”? It is commonsensical. The Lowther site has two subway stations within an eight-minute walk. Toronto’s Line 1 and Line 2 intersect right here. This is one of the best-located, best-connected places in all of Canada.

Alex Bozikovic is, of course, right. This is commonsensical. 

If our goals are to create more homes, improve housing affordability, reduce traffic congestion, and make us overall a more sustainable city, then there’s no better place to build than on top of transit within our already built-up areas.

If you are the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and you own excess land next to a transit line that you've just recently built, one possible option could be to give this land to a non-profit housing developer so that they can build some affordable housing. And this is exactly what was agreed to in 2007 with the Lorena Plaza site in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of LA. The proposal: 49 affordable units geared toward people making 50% of the AMI.

However, like all things in development, things do take time. And when building new 4-storey housing complexes, there is always the real possibility that you might face several years (or longer) of fierce opposition. In the case of Lorena Plaza, it apparently took the developers from 2013 to 2020 to reach a settlement with the local councilman and their immediate neighbor (a commercial plaza). In the end, this project is now expected to occupy next summer (2024), which brings the total project timeline to 17 years.

This is probably an extreme example and, thankfully, some of the rules have since been changed to help speed up projects like this one. Still, it is no wonder we can't build enough new housing. (Los Angeles wants to build some 450,000 new homes by 2029.) Time isn't free. And according to the WSJ, this relatively small project ended up costing US$34.2 million to build. That's nearly US$700k per suite. A number that will buy you a lot of home in many cities across the US.

A beautiful new 43-storey rental building was just approved in Toronto's Liberty Village neighborhood. More info about the project can be found, here. Not surprisingly, some people in the community were against it. Here is a recent article that blogTO published talking about people who live in high-rises not wanting a new high-rise next to them.

One argument that is being made is that the neighborhood is already full. It has reached its density limit. We also hear this about the City of Toronto as a whole. But we know this isn't true. Architect Naama Blonder recently did a study that found we could fit another 12 million people within our boundaries with more efficient land use policies.

This particular site in Liberty Village is also about 400 meters from a future subway stop on the Ontario Line. So it is exactly where we should be putting more density. The problem today is that the area is suffering from a massive infrastructure deficit. The road network is inadequate and the King streetcar hasn't been prioritized.

It's no wonder the area feels full. But the reality is that there are lots of examples of highly livable neighborhoods from around the world with much higher population densities. The difference is that they have the right infrastructure, the right public realms, and the right modal splits.

Liberty Village will get there as well and it's already underway. For a preview of the future, check out the City of Toronto's Public Realm Strategy for the area. It was published in April 2024 and it includes things like new streets, new mid-block connections, and new parks. It is what the area needs and it's exciting to see it happening.

This is the battle that is now playing out across Toronto — and many other cities — as we look to intensify our existing communities; even in the ones sitting on higher-order transit. Cities rightly want to see it happen. But local ratepayers do not.

From the Globe and Mail:

“This project is in no way gentle intensification,” said the architect Terry Montgomery, representing the powerful local group the Annex Residents Association. “It will set a dangerous precedent for all areas in the city which currently [are zoned for] low-scale residential-buildings.”

It’s not clear whether that legal argument is true. At the meeting, City of Toronto planning manager David Driedger and director Oren Tamir – who, to their great credit, were supporting the development – said it would not set a precedent.

But if it did, why would that be “dangerous”? It is commonsensical. The Lowther site has two subway stations within an eight-minute walk. Toronto’s Line 1 and Line 2 intersect right here. This is one of the best-located, best-connected places in all of Canada.

Alex Bozikovic is, of course, right. This is commonsensical. 

If our goals are to create more homes, improve housing affordability, reduce traffic congestion, and make us overall a more sustainable city, then there’s no better place to build than on top of transit within our already built-up areas.

If you are the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and you own excess land next to a transit line that you've just recently built, one possible option could be to give this land to a non-profit housing developer so that they can build some affordable housing. And this is exactly what was agreed to in 2007 with the Lorena Plaza site in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of LA. The proposal: 49 affordable units geared toward people making 50% of the AMI.

However, like all things in development, things do take time. And when building new 4-storey housing complexes, there is always the real possibility that you might face several years (or longer) of fierce opposition. In the case of Lorena Plaza, it apparently took the developers from 2013 to 2020 to reach a settlement with the local councilman and their immediate neighbor (a commercial plaza). In the end, this project is now expected to occupy next summer (2024), which brings the total project timeline to 17 years.

This is probably an extreme example and, thankfully, some of the rules have since been changed to help speed up projects like this one. Still, it is no wonder we can't build enough new housing. (Los Angeles wants to build some 450,000 new homes by 2029.) Time isn't free. And according to the WSJ, this relatively small project ended up costing US$34.2 million to build. That's nearly US$700k per suite. A number that will buy you a lot of home in many cities across the US.