Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam recently put forward a request for a report on the implementation of a 1-year moratorium (let’s ”hit the pause button”) on new tall building rezoning applications in the downtown core of Toronto. You can read the full letter here.

Not surprisingly, the building industry doesn’t like this.

But besides that obvious point, I did want to draw attention to the following comment made by Quadrangle Architects partner, Richard Witt (taken from this BuzzBuzzNews article):

“The city has, for years, used the development charges that should have been used to upgrade infrastructure to artificially lower property taxes by putting the development charges into general revenue,” he says.

The intent of development charges is that they fund the infrastructure required as a result of new development – everything from transit to water. In the US, they are (I think) more commonly called impact fees. In this case the name makes the intent quite clear.

I am curious to what extent we are relying on development growth to fund the status quo. Because growth may not always be there. History has shown us that.

I toured 56 Leonard Street in New York today. The only picture I have on my phone is the above photo of the lobby. The rest of the photos are on my Fuji and so they’ll make their way to my Instagram over the coming days. 

There’s lots that has already been said about the architecture of 56 Leonard, but one thing I wanted to point out was this idea of a “total work of art.” The German word for this: Gesamtkunstwerk. I’ve written about this before, here.

With many/most development projects, there will be a separate architect and a separate interiors firm. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this approach, but it could lead to a disconnect between the exterior and interior. Or at least, some architects will tell you that.

In the case of 56 Leonard, the architect (Herzog & de Meuron) also designed all of the interiors – right down to the kitchens, the sinks and tubs, the light fixtures, and likely a few other things. Hence the “total work of art.”

It’s incredible to see what happens when you have one design sensibility brought to an entire project. 56 Leonard is beautiful. For the rest of the photos, make sure to follow me on Instagram.

In case you’re wondering, the condo prices in the building run between $3,500 and $5,000 psf. One of the penthouses recently sold for USD$47 million.

Yesterday evening I was in Hamilton, Ontario for an adaptive reuse building tour that was put on for the 2016 OPPI Symposium (Ontario Provincial Planners Institute). 

Hamilton has lots of these sorts of projects underway. The city has a rich history and, because it never saw the development pressures that cities like Toronto saw from the 70s to 90s, many of these buildings now remain ready to be reused. That’s my theory at least.

I was told that last year downtown Hamilton delivered about 600 residential units. This may not seem like a lot, but keep in mind that the number was zero for a very long time. In fact, just seeing a crane up in the air is exciting for those who lived through that period of inactivity. I can’t fully relate to that.

But it’s not just development that is going on. It’s city building. 

The city is creating new cultural spaces and developers such as Core Urban have carved out niches working on boutique-scaled “pain in the ass” heritage projects. How’s this for commitment: Core Urban has been awarded heritage builder of the year 3 times, but they have yet to work on a designated heritage property.

I’ve said before that I think there’s a new breed of developer emerging in cities today. Hamilton is no exception. And that’s very exciting for this region.

If you’re interested in Hamilton, check out the blog Rebuild Hamilton. It’s written by Thomas Allen who I think of as Mr. Hamilton. It’s a phenomenal resource for architecture and city enthusiasts.

The photo at the top of this post was taken by me within the proposed Beasley Park Lofts by Stinson Developments.