One of the really positive things that is happening in the world of Toronto land use planning is that the minimum scale of development that is permitted as-of-right continues to grow. We've gone from fourplexes to 6-storey apartments, and now we're talking about mid-rise buildings (6-11 storeys) and even some tall buildings (12 storeys or more).

What this ultimately means is being able to build without a rezoning application. That means no site specific negotiation, and no fighting over whether the building should be 32 meters tall or 30.5 meters tall with a 2.4 meter stepback because of shadowing concerns on someone's heritage-designated garden gnome. It means getting under construction sooner.

Here are some of the specific ideas being reviewed:

• Expand the number of streets designated as "Avenues" throughout Toronto (Avenues are a defined term and where we have decided that mid-rise buildings should go)

• New Official Plan policies that would encourage more mid-rise buildings on Avenues

• Eliminate the rear angular plane requirement (currently a mid-rise performance standard); this is expected to produce ~30% more homes in your typical mid-rise development

• Increase as-of-right permitted heights to 6-11 storeys (the city estimates that this will unlock ~61,000 additional homes)

• Introduce "transition zones" between Avenues and low-rise neighborhoods, which could then accommodate things like low-rise towns and apartments up to 4 storeys (it's worth noting that transition zones were initially part of Toronto's mid-rise performance standards but then got removed for some reason)

This is meaningful progress. Let's enact and keep going.

Here's some positive news. This past week, the Government of Canada announced additional details around its $6 billion Canada Housing Infrastructure Fund (CHIF). The goal of the fund is to accelerate the construction of housing-supportive infrastructure (water, wastewater, stormwater, and solid waste), and the plan is to deliver it through two distinct funding streams.

The first is what they are calling a "direct delivery stream", and this is how the first $1 billion is going to be allocated. Municipalities and Indigenous communities will need to apply, and the funds are expected to be distributed over the next 8 years. But to be eligible -- and this is the positive news -- municipalities will need to have done the following:

• Adopt zoning permitting "four units as-of-right" per lot in all low-density residential areas that have municipal servicing

• Implement a three-year freeze on development charge increases beyond whatever rates were in place on April 2, 2024 (which is when the initial CHIF announcement was made)

Yesterday Lloyd Alter of Treehugger wrote a great rebuttal to my post about homes for families. His argument was that I missed a whole world of building typologies between single family homes and apartments. (Something that architect and urban planner Daniel Parolek calls “The Missing Middle”.)

Now he’s absolutely right. I didn’t mention it – other than provide an option in the survey for townhomes. And he’s right that it’s a tremendous opportunity for cities looking to increase housing supply and improve affordability.

But the reason I didn’t mention it in my survey is because, here in Toronto, we’re not very good at that middle scale.

I previously wrote a post talking about Toronto’s 3 stages of intensification. It went from high-rise to mid-rise, and then to low-rise intensification. And my argument was that we’re still in and figuring out the mid-rise scale. (There are challenges at this scale, but that deserves a separate post.)