"...he took the department through significant reforms: allowing new houses in back laneways, then garden suites; eliminating minimum parking requirements; even legalizing four-unit apartment buildings on any lot in the city."
All of this was not easy, as anyone in our industry will attest.
I also got to know Gregg, a little, by way of our development projects. And I can say that he (1) genuinely loved our great city and (2) was always looking for ways to make things better, whether that be through planning policy or through processes internal to City Hall.
"...he took the department through significant reforms: allowing new houses in back laneways, then garden suites; eliminating minimum parking requirements; even legalizing four-unit apartment buildings on any lot in the city."
All of this was not easy, as anyone in our industry will attest.
I also got to know Gregg, a little, by way of our development projects. And I can say that he (1) genuinely loved our great city and (2) was always looking for ways to make things better, whether that be through planning policy or through processes internal to City Hall.
Toronto's chief planner, Gregg Lintern, published this piece in the Toronto Star over the weekend where he argued that "expanding housing options in [Toronto's] neighbourhoods is the missing piece of the growth puzzle."
What he is saying is that if we're going to have any chance at reasonably accommodating the 700,000 or so people who are expected to move to this city over the next three decades, we're going to have to evolve our low-rise neighborhoods. That includes more retail, more amenities, more density, and yes, built form that houses multiple units.
I immediately thought that this was meaningful progress in the right direction. It is acknowledgement that things need to change and that our low-rise communities need to change.
But others felt that this was a case of soft-serve ice cream, arguing that there's "danger in praising incremental, belated change when dramatic change is what's needed." I also see this point.
To quote the late architect Daniel Burnham, "make no little plans." But this is arguably a little easier to subscribe to when you're rebuilding after a great fire has decimated your entire city (he was instrumental in the rebuild of Chicago following its fire of 1871).
The unfortunate reality today, at least in this environment, is that bold vision isn't often rewarded politically. The status quo bias is simply so great. Change is painfully slow. That's why we rely so heavily on pilot projects when it comes to city building.
So while I too am a fan of bold vision, I also see value in what Simon Sinek and others refer to as consistency over intensity. Small, repetitive, and compounding actions can have powerful long-term results. You just have to keep going in the right direction.
And I think that many of us, or perhaps most, will agree that the right direction is rethinking our low-rise neighborhoods.
Toronto's chief planner Gregg Lintern (who you can follow over here on Twitter) was recently in the Toronto Star talking about the city's plans to allow more multi-unit dwellings in our low-rise single-family neighborhoods.
I was careful to say "more" because they are already permissible in some areas. The challenge is that they're not happening at any sort of meaningful scale, which is an obvious signal that some key ingredients are still missing.
Or perhaps there are too many required ingredients. For example, right now the zoning by-law requires one car parking space for every dwelling in a multi-unit building. This is, of course, dumb and the requirement should be completely eliminated.
Changes like this, as well as many others, are long overdue. Not just in Toronto, but in many other cities. And it is partially what I was getting at when I wrote about laneway housing this past weekend and hinted at the need for other solutions to increase housing supply.
So when you have a few minutes, I would encourage you to complete the city's survey on expanding permissions for multiplexes across the city. I just did it and voted to bring on the multiplexes.
Toronto's chief planner, Gregg Lintern, published this piece in the Toronto Star over the weekend where he argued that "expanding housing options in [Toronto's] neighbourhoods is the missing piece of the growth puzzle."
What he is saying is that if we're going to have any chance at reasonably accommodating the 700,000 or so people who are expected to move to this city over the next three decades, we're going to have to evolve our low-rise neighborhoods. That includes more retail, more amenities, more density, and yes, built form that houses multiple units.
I immediately thought that this was meaningful progress in the right direction. It is acknowledgement that things need to change and that our low-rise communities need to change.
But others felt that this was a case of soft-serve ice cream, arguing that there's "danger in praising incremental, belated change when dramatic change is what's needed." I also see this point.
To quote the late architect Daniel Burnham, "make no little plans." But this is arguably a little easier to subscribe to when you're rebuilding after a great fire has decimated your entire city (he was instrumental in the rebuild of Chicago following its fire of 1871).
The unfortunate reality today, at least in this environment, is that bold vision isn't often rewarded politically. The status quo bias is simply so great. Change is painfully slow. That's why we rely so heavily on pilot projects when it comes to city building.
So while I too am a fan of bold vision, I also see value in what Simon Sinek and others refer to as consistency over intensity. Small, repetitive, and compounding actions can have powerful long-term results. You just have to keep going in the right direction.
And I think that many of us, or perhaps most, will agree that the right direction is rethinking our low-rise neighborhoods.
Toronto's chief planner Gregg Lintern (who you can follow over here on Twitter) was recently in the Toronto Star talking about the city's plans to allow more multi-unit dwellings in our low-rise single-family neighborhoods.
I was careful to say "more" because they are already permissible in some areas. The challenge is that they're not happening at any sort of meaningful scale, which is an obvious signal that some key ingredients are still missing.
Or perhaps there are too many required ingredients. For example, right now the zoning by-law requires one car parking space for every dwelling in a multi-unit building. This is, of course, dumb and the requirement should be completely eliminated.
Changes like this, as well as many others, are long overdue. Not just in Toronto, but in many other cities. And it is partially what I was getting at when I wrote about laneway housing this past weekend and hinted at the need for other solutions to increase housing supply.
So when you have a few minutes, I would encourage you to complete the city's survey on expanding permissions for multiplexes across the city. I just did it and voted to bring on the multiplexes.
