Toronto Life recently published an interesting article called Stuck in Condoland. A lot of people have mentioned it to me, so there seems to be a lot of interest in the topic. It basically profiles the lives of a few young families who live downtown and are trying to raise young children in relatively small condos (think 700 square feet).

I thought it was interesting because I like the idea of small and efficient living. The average post-war bungalow in Toronto was probably less than 1,000 square feet. And so this modern notion that you need a big house in order to properly raise a family is a relatively recent phenomenon. Although we’re a richer city today and that’s what happens when people become wealthier: they consume more.

But the article also makes it seem that developers only want to build small condos and that larger condos and single-family homes just aren’t profitable enough. Thus the reason all these families are being forced to into tiny shoeboxes in the sky. But that’s not really true.

Look, just like every other for-profit business on the planet, developers are concerned with making money. And so they will always look for ways to increase efficiency, drive down costs, and so on. But there are certain realities of the market that developers don’t have control over.

First, developers aren’t building new single family homes in the city (at any sort of meaningful scale) because there’s no land to do so. And because the land use policies in place and the current thinking around how we can more sustainably build our cities for the future dictate that we should be building more intensely. In other words, building up. So it’s not a question of developers not wanting to build single family homes; it’s a question of not being able to.

Second, trust me when I say that if the market wanted large 3 bedroom family units, developers would build them. Mandating them is a useless exercise if people don’t want them or are unable to afford them.

The challenge we face is that a reinforced concrete condo tower is more expensive to build than a wood-framed single family house. So until land values get to a point where single family homes become the more expensive option (compared to condos), I don’t think we’ll see a huge rush towards 3+ bedroom suites.

This is my hypothesis at least. Because when you buy house, you’re really buying two things: the house itself and the land. If the house itself (wood) is cheaper to build on a per square foot basis than a condo (concrete), then the variable that will make a difference is the land. And as people like to say: “buy land, they ain’t making any more of it.”

So what I’m saying is that I just don’t think the situation is as simple as: “developers are bad, all they want to do is build tiny condos and make lots of money.” It’s more complicated than that. But I do believe the question of how families are going to live in the city is an important one.

This past week we opened the doors to the presentation center for Kingston&Co Condominiums. It was pretty chaotic leading up to the opening, but everything worked out and I think our party was a great success. 

These early events are an opportunity for the media to see the project and the presentation center, and for the project team to enjoy some of the fruits of their hard work. I think those times are important. When everyone is moving quickly to meet deadlines, sometimes it’s easy for things to get impersonal. So it’s nice to be able to sit back, have a glass of wine, and tell someone that you appreciate all of their hard work.

Below is another photo from the event. I’m the second from the right, wearing a sweaty pink shirt. I had planned to go home and change before the event, but I instead got wrapped up moving things around and getting the presentation center ready. On a related note, there’s a tree trunk beside the sofa in the reception area that weighs almost 400 pounds. If you can lift it on your own, or even just move it on your own, I’ll buy you a round of drinks.

If you’d like to learn more about Kingston&Co, click here. And if you get a chance to check out the presentation center, make sure you tweet me and let me know what you think.

Images: BuzzBuzzHome

I’m on the Board for my condo in the St. Lawrence Market. I am one of three Directors. Although, the building is split up into 2 phases and so, in reality, there are other Directors involved. Sometimes developers phase their buildings (even if it’s physically one structure) in order to mitigate risk. That’s what was done here.

As a result of sitting on the Board, I get to see every single resident complaint. They all go to the management office, but then they get circulated to all of the Directors so that we can address them at our next monthly meeting. We try our hardest to address all complaints but some, quite honestly, can be really hard to resolve.

The most difficult to address are the ones that stem from people being inconsiderate. They’re related to noise, garbage being thrown off balconies and so on. These are tough because they have nothing to do with the building or the management. They have to do with the people. And it’s bound to happen in any environment where you have a lots of people living in close proximity to one another. In a low-rise neighborhood, it’s dogs pooping on your front lawn.

We’re constantly trying to come up with different solutions that go beyond just sending out letters–including knocking on doors. But none of them are ideal. It’s often hard to pinpoint who’s doing what and letters are slow. 

But here’s another idea.

I think, the answer could be in some sort of private social network for apartment and condo buildings. Think Nextdoor.com for multi-family dwellings. This would personalize the complaints (as opposed to just using management letters) and it could create some societal pressure to better behave. If you threw garbage off your balcony you would then run the risk of getting called out, on the network, in front of the entire building.

Nextdoor.com says it needs at least 50 households to make a neighborhood viable. That would be easily achievable in a lot of the condo buildings in Toronto. Neighborhoods probably scale better in general, but maybe it would also work for buildings. There’s certainly a need.