This week, ULI Toronto visited One Delisle for a behind-the-scenes look at what we believe is this city's next global landmark. The tour sold out in under 24 hours, and it was great to see so much interest from our industry peers. For those of you who made it out, thanks for taking the time! Here are some photos from the event, all courtesy of Multiplex Construction Canada.
The Missing Middle Initiative just released its latest Greater Toronto Area and Greater Golden Horseshoe Housing Report Card. If you'd like to download a copy and see the generally abysmal grades, there's a link at the bottom of this page. But here are the high-level findings (based on Q4-2025 data):
Housing starts are down 34% year-over-year across the 34 municipalities covered in the report.
Condominium starts, in particular, are down over 50% year-over-year.
Pre-construction sales, which are a precursor to housing starts, are down 89% for condominiums and 58% for ground-oriented houses.
The only exception to the above is purpose-built rental starts, which increased 39% year-over-year. But this increase doesn't come close to offsetting the declines seen in both condominiums and low-rise housing.
Once again, we are reminded of the looming housing shortage that, I think, could be felt as soon as next year. New construction is inherently slow to respond to market changes, and, as of right now, the ship is clearly headed toward almost no new supply. For that to change, we will almost certainly need to see pre-construction sales return.
Cover photo by Dmitry Gerasimenko on Unsplash
Fast, high-quality decisions and approvals are the lifeblood of organizations. And if you've ever worked in development or construction, you know that there are a lot of decisions and approvals — some small, some big — but all of which can delay and hurt a project. Ultimately, the objective is to achieve both high-quality and high-velocity decisions. But how?
Very broadly speaking, you want a bias toward action and progress. How this plays out might depend on the specific situation at hand, but here's one technique that we try to use whenever possible. I call it (as of 30 seconds ago) the "default-to-yes" principle. It works well for approvals and reviews, and it is very common in construction.
All you need are two things: (1) a date by which something needs to be reviewed or approved and (2) a default yes. A default yes means that if I don't hear from you by the deadline established by (1), I'm simply going to assume your answer is yes and move on. Consent is implied unless you object.
The opposite of this is a "default-to-no" approach, which means things get stuck until someone gets around to reviewing or approving the thing. That's far less optimal because there's no outer limit to how long something might take. With the default-to-yes approach, I know progress will happen no later than X days from now.
This is just one specific technique, and I'm not suggesting it will work for all decisions and approvals, but there's significant value in high velocity. And to achieve that, you want a deeply ingrained cultural bias toward action.
Cover photo by Rubén Bagüés on Unsplash