This week, Urban Toronto reported a record number of residential development applications submitted in the City of Toronto over the last quarter. A total of 25,598 residential homes were proposed across 12 condominium projects, 16 rental projects, and two projects that also include an office component.

The total area was around 20 million square feet. The total number of buildings was 66. The median height was somewhere around 23 storeys (~86 meters), with the tallest being 67 storeys. And the average parking ratio was around 0.3 spaces per home. (The below chart seems to suggest that parking minimums were previously constraining the market.)

This is, according to UT, the highest number of proposed new homes in a single quarter over the last five years:

So, should this be taken as some sort of leading indicator that the market is set to rebound? My view is no. It certainly shows some degree of optimism for the future of our market, but there are lots of reasons why a developer might submit a development application in a down market.

Developers could be seeking more density as a way to reduce their land basis. If you bought a site for $25 million and you have approval to build 250,000 sf, your land basis is $100 per buildable square foot. If you can now build 350,000 sf, you've just reduced your land basis to $71 pbsf. That effectively means it's cheaper, which is good; but importantly, it now means have more space to absorb. So there's a trade off.

Another reason could be that developers are reworking their sites for purpose-built rental (from for-sale condominiums). The figures provided by Urban Toronto show that the majority of the applications were for rental projects. I suspect that this could be a big driver. Converting a project from condominium to rental isn't as simple as just flipping the legal tenure.

Lastly, I will say that developers could be pulling the trigger on new development applications simply because they need or want to do something. We all have sites, and we're programmed to move and get stuff done. Sitting around doesn't accomplish anything and it frankly doesn't feel good. Question now becomes: who will be in a position to be patient once they get their approvals?

It's hard to pinpoint exactly what drove this surge, but it should not be assumed that it will translate into more new housing in the short term. The real indicator is market absorption. Without it, development density has very little value.

Cover photo by Bennie Bates on Unsplash

A few weeks ago, I tweeted that I was creating a simple email newsletter that would notify you of new planning/development applications (and updates) near where you live (in Toronto). About 100 people subscribed following that tweet and we then spent the following few weeks getting the service ready.

The first email was sent out today and, if you haven’t already, you can subscribe for free, here. The way it works is pretty simple. You enter your postal code. We draw a 1000m radius around that postal code (we’ll monitor this number going forward to see if it continues to make sense). And we then send you any new applications/updates that fall within that radius.

So depending on where you live, the first email you receive could contain a long list of projects. They’re all assumed to be new initially. But going forward, the list will become much shorter and you’ll only receive an email if/when there’s something new to report.

The ultimate goal is to come up with a better way to engage people around new development projects. This is a first step. Regardless, our guts tell us that many people would appreciate a quick way to see what is happening around them. If you have any initial thoughts, please leave a comment below or send me an email.

You can email subscribe for free by visiting unlyst.com.