I tweeted the above photo on Saturday morning with the following text: "No sidewalks. Towers in the distance. Welcome to the inner suburbs of Toronto." What I, of course, wanted to highlight is the contrast between the rural-like street with no sidewalks in the foreground, and the high-density towers built on top of Kipling subway station in the background. It is a perfect example of the kind of Toronto we are building, by design, all across the city. And it also exemplifies one of our great philosophical divides.

If you look at the responses on Twitter, you'll see that there are a few opinions. Generally speaking, though, there are probably two main ways to think about this scene. One way is to look at the transit-oriented housing and think of it as urban progress. We are adding new housing and we are doing it in a way that hopefully results in more walkable communities. With this in mind, you might now see the three humans on the street (one of which is in a stroller) and think it's a shame that they have been forced to walk on the road.

The other main way to look at this is that not having sidewalks is actually a feature and not a bug (indeed, a lack of sidewalks can be a pretty good indicator for rich people/wealthy households). From this lens, not having sidewalks means uninterrupted driveways (more parking), less through foot traffic, and a more quaint small-town feel. Also with this lens might be a view that the rural-like street was there first, before the transit-oriented towers. And it was doing just fine before people like me drove through their neighborhood and pointed out the lack of sidewalks.

How do you see this scene?

Well, it only took 11 years.

I still remember the first time I walked into Etobicoke Civic Centre and showed the lady at the counter my design for a laneway house. She didn't know what a laneway house was and she couldn't figure out where it fronted. "Wait, it's behind the main house? It has no frontage. Where's the street? Huh?" A lot has changed over the past decade, as I knew it would. All of the building permits are now in and Mackay Laneway House is under construction in Toronto's Corso Italia neighborhood.

Kilbarry Hill is overseeing the construction process. (Construction was supposed to start earlier this summer, but COVID-19 had something to say about that.) Regular updates will be posted on the Globizen blog and on the socials, with the goal of creating a kind of "how-to guide" for laneway suites. Expect detailed construction updates, a list of the individual trades that are being used, post-completion costing information, and probably a bunch more.

The first order of business is the site servicing work, all of which has to be done via the existing house. No connections off the mains because, remember, these are intended to be secondary suites, similar to basement apartments. This raises the question of how best to submeter the utilities. Thankfully, the good folks over at Lanescape were kind enough to share how they have done it.

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Real estate development has historically been, and unfortunately still is, a male dominated business. (The story of Florence Casler is, however, a great outlier.) If you want some empirical evidence for this, pay attention to the length of the line for the men's bathroom the next time you're at a real estate conference or event.

This needs to change. Which is why my good friend Taya Cook (of Urban Capital) has just announced, in partnership with Sherry Larjani (of Spotlight Development), the first all-female development project in Canada. It's called Reina and it's planned for a vacant site at 689 The Queensway, Toronto. Here is an excerpt from a recent RENX article:

“We’re embarking on this project to create more visibility for women in real estate development, and to inspire younger women to see career possibilities,” said Cook, the director of development at Urban Capital, in a release announcing the project. “It’s a huge industry and a massive economic driver for the region. For some reason it has been seriously lagging behind in gender equity.”

Two things are probably important to mention about the team and project.

Firstly, the women developing Reina are all leaders and key decision makers. This is important for the project's broader mission, but also because it will likely remove male biases from the design process. Everything from architecture to construction will be led by women and will incorporate a "female perspective." Secondly -- and this just makes the narrative even better -- the site used to house a strip club.

Congratulations Taya, Sherry, and the rest of the project team on a terrific development and initiative: "Condominiums designed by women. Developed by women. Built for everyone." Follow Reina on Instagram, here.

Image: Reina Condos