The City of Toronto Planning Division is working on an initiative called, Growing Up: Planning for Children in New Vertical Communities. 

The objective is to better understand how new multi-unit housing can better accommodate families within the city. Supposedly as of 2011, 32% of families within Toronto lived in mid and high-rise buildings. At first I thought this number seemed high, but then I rationalized it to myself by thinking of all the post-war apartment buildings we built.

As part of their study, the city published a number of case studies from Toronto and from around the world. These are projects that have successfully planned for families. For some of the projects they have floor plan and sections showing how the individual suites were designed and positioned within the building. One feature that they consider desirable is to cluster the family suites on the lower floors of the building.

But perhaps even more interesting is the section called CondoHacks. Here, the study team interviewed 9 families already living in vertical communities to learn about how they have “hacked” their spaces to meets their needs. It’s valuable to see how end-users actually live in specific floor plans. Lots of shared bedrooms and spaces. Here (pictured below) is an example of 2 parents and 2 children living in a 650 square foot one 1 bedroom plus den.

This a topic that I’m personally very interested in. I’m thinking a lot about how some of the projects I’m working on could better accommodate families. So it’s great to see this initiative underway. If you’d like to receive email updates from the city about this study, sign up here on the bottom right of the page. I did that this morning.

This morning BILD released its November new home data for the Greater Toronto Area. 

The story is one we’ve been hearing for a while. Supply is trending downward. It’s becoming harder to build. And prices are up. The average new detached house in this region is now C$1,230,961 and the average new condo is now C$493,137 (~$601 psf). Overall, average pricing is up 20% for low-rise houses and up 10% for condos, compared to this time last year.

One of the things that I find interesting about the data is how unit sizes have recently started trending upward on the high-rise (condo) side. Below is a chart from Altus Group that shows what I’m talking about. Look at the increase from the middle of 2015 to today. The average is now 820 sf, compared to what looks to be around 770 sf at its lowest point.

Now, there are a number of possible explanations for this. One is that boomers are starting to sell their houses and move into condos in larger numbers, and 500 sf just don’t do. The market is starting to cater to them. Another possible explanation is that low-rise pricing has become so out of reach for many people and families, that they are now looking to condos to fill that need.

I see both scenarios playing out in new projects today. But this second scenario, in particular, is one that I’ve been thinking about for a few years now. It’s less obvious than the boomer play. But I think of it as the market maturing. I like seeing families living right in the city and I am sure we will see more of that in the future.

I was looking through real estate listings this morning (which I do quite often out of sheer interest), and I started noticing a number of 3 bedroom condos (here in Toronto) that were priced under $1 million.

Now, this is a lot of money now matter how you slice it. But given that the average price of a detached home in the city is now well over $1 million, I can’t help but wonder if condos will become more accepted as the family home.

I’ve written about this topic a lot, because it’s something I’m interested in and I like living in a condo. But I’m seeing far more of my network looking for a low-rise house upon marriage/kids than for a bigger apartment/condo.

So today I thought I would run a very quick survey. There are only 3-4 questions depending on how you answer and it basically revolves around housing type and whether or not you have or plan to have a family. I also ask what city you live in because I think this will have an impact on preferences.

If you have 30 seconds, I would love to get your input and I’m sure the ATC community would be interested as well. The responses are anonymous, but I’ve made them public. Click here if you can’t see the survey below.

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