On Friday, Craig Race Architecture hosted its annual holiday dinner at Barberian's Steak House. It was a great evening and I really appreciate the invite, especially considering that we're not yet clients. Thank you, Craig. I'm also not sure I had ever been to Barberian's before. That probably makes me a bad Torontonian.

Because of their work and because of the current market, the dinner has also become a kind of gathering for missing middle developers. I felt like the odd one out not having a sixplex + laneway suite built or under construction.

What's interesting about the current environment is that it's pushing developers — both big and small — towards missing middle housing. Smaller developers are doing it because the barriers to entry are lower, and meaningful progress has been made on improving the development economics (the no HST and development charges are crucial). And bigger developers are doing it because larger projects simply don't work right now, or the absorption risk is perceived as too great.

But here's the thing: as soon as the market turns, there's once again going to be a natural inclination to scale up. On Friday, I heard many developers say, "I'm dealing with the same amount of bullshit that I used to deal with on my larger projects."

For example, I was told of an instance where a client wanted to keep the facade of their house and build a sixplex behind it. The facade had heritage and sentimental value. But because the removal of HST on rental housing only applies to new construction, keeping the facade would have made it a renovation. And so they had no choice but to demolish everything. (Of course, developers will also play the opposite game and keep one wall so as to not be deemed new construction in other instances.)

What all of this stuff means is that as soon as the conditions allow for it, developers are going to want to increase their return on bullshit. In the meantime, though, this city has an industry chomping at the bit to build more missing middle housing. We should do everything we can to harness that.

Neat B and I had a very good friend's 40th birthday dinner in the Junction this evening.

So naturally, we walked over to the UP Express station from our offices in the Financial District and took the train one stop to Bloor Street. When we got off -- along with everyone else who uses our airport link as a regional express train -- we then walked the West Toronto Railpath up to the restaurant on Dupont Street. All in all, it took us about 35 minutes. We hopped on the 5:30PM train and we arrived at Lucia around 5:50PM.

I know that a lot of people use this particular train to get to and from work, but I'm always so happy whenever I do it. I will take this over being stuck in traffic every day of the week. And for me, it is a powerful reminder of just how critical "two-way, all-day regional rail service" is to this urban region. We can talk all we want about better traffic signals, ramping up enforcement, or whatever, but the real solution to solving traffic congestion is getting people moving in other ways.

Anyway, I digress. Here's a photo of the delicious pasta we had:

Happy birthday Philip!

Today was the first day of the year that truly felt like summer here in Toronto. It also happens to be my birthday. 

So I did the only sensible thing one should do on a day like this. I went to a rooftop patio after work, with my family, for two of my favorites: a bowl of spaghetti al limone and a negroni. Simple.

In other news, Fred Wilson wrote a great post on his blog today about why he loves Canada and why it is an increasingly important place for the tech sector. 

For those of us who already know that Canada is the greatest country on earth, it’s a noteworthy post not because it is likely to tell you a lot of new things, but because it was written by Fred fucking Wilson.

On Friday, Craig Race Architecture hosted its annual holiday dinner at Barberian's Steak House. It was a great evening and I really appreciate the invite, especially considering that we're not yet clients. Thank you, Craig. I'm also not sure I had ever been to Barberian's before. That probably makes me a bad Torontonian.

Because of their work and because of the current market, the dinner has also become a kind of gathering for missing middle developers. I felt like the odd one out not having a sixplex + laneway suite built or under construction.

What's interesting about the current environment is that it's pushing developers — both big and small — towards missing middle housing. Smaller developers are doing it because the barriers to entry are lower, and meaningful progress has been made on improving the development economics (the no HST and development charges are crucial). And bigger developers are doing it because larger projects simply don't work right now, or the absorption risk is perceived as too great.

But here's the thing: as soon as the market turns, there's once again going to be a natural inclination to scale up. On Friday, I heard many developers say, "I'm dealing with the same amount of bullshit that I used to deal with on my larger projects."

For example, I was told of an instance where a client wanted to keep the facade of their house and build a sixplex behind it. The facade had heritage and sentimental value. But because the removal of HST on rental housing only applies to new construction, keeping the facade would have made it a renovation. And so they had no choice but to demolish everything. (Of course, developers will also play the opposite game and keep one wall so as to not be deemed new construction in other instances.)

What all of this stuff means is that as soon as the conditions allow for it, developers are going to want to increase their return on bullshit. In the meantime, though, this city has an industry chomping at the bit to build more missing middle housing. We should do everything we can to harness that.

Neat B and I had a very good friend's 40th birthday dinner in the Junction this evening.

So naturally, we walked over to the UP Express station from our offices in the Financial District and took the train one stop to Bloor Street. When we got off -- along with everyone else who uses our airport link as a regional express train -- we then walked the West Toronto Railpath up to the restaurant on Dupont Street. All in all, it took us about 35 minutes. We hopped on the 5:30PM train and we arrived at Lucia around 5:50PM.

I know that a lot of people use this particular train to get to and from work, but I'm always so happy whenever I do it. I will take this over being stuck in traffic every day of the week. And for me, it is a powerful reminder of just how critical "two-way, all-day regional rail service" is to this urban region. We can talk all we want about better traffic signals, ramping up enforcement, or whatever, but the real solution to solving traffic congestion is getting people moving in other ways.

Anyway, I digress. Here's a photo of the delicious pasta we had:

Happy birthday Philip!

Today was the first day of the year that truly felt like summer here in Toronto. It also happens to be my birthday. 

So I did the only sensible thing one should do on a day like this. I went to a rooftop patio after work, with my family, for two of my favorites: a bowl of spaghetti al limone and a negroni. Simple.

In other news, Fred Wilson wrote a great post on his blog today about why he loves Canada and why it is an increasingly important place for the tech sector. 

For those of us who already know that Canada is the greatest country on earth, it’s a noteworthy post not because it is likely to tell you a lot of new things, but because it was written by Fred fucking Wilson.