Japan has a building typology known as machiya. They are found throughout Japan, but my understanding is that they are most closely associated with downtown Kyoto. The typical machiya consists of a long wooden home with a narrow street frontage, and at least one interior courtyard garden.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of these townhouses is that, for the centuries that they have existed, they have always been mixed-used. The front of the building traditionally served as a kind of "shop space", and the private residential spaces were tucked behind it (though this line between public and private was fairly fluid).

And so for hundreds of years, the humble machiya became a flexible building typology that allowed shops, restaurants, and various other small businesses to flourish. This has changed over the years. People went off to work in offices and Western ideals around housing started to infiltrate Japan, among other reasons. But that doesn't mean that there aren't important lessons to be learned from Kyoto's machiya.

Here in Toronto, we remain deeply terrified of things like triplexes creeping into our single-family neighborhoods and we remain reticent to allow non-residential uses outside of their designated areas. Old habits die hard.

But take a walk, cycle, or drive across one of our non-Avenue-designated arterial roads (which I did yesterday), and it's hard not to imagine something much better. My mind immediately goes to an improved streetscape with (1) less on-street parking, (2) a lot more homes (as-of-right), and (3) flexible ground floor permissions that allow for crazy things like a "shop space".

And then, what kind of city might we have if we had fewer barriers in the way of infill housing and if we allowed for low-cost spaces that could flex up and down based on the needs of small entrepreneurs? I'm pretty sure it would be a better one. And of course, it's been done before.

Photo by Akira Deng on Unsplash

Here is a housing study that looked at housing supply -- in the US from 2000 to 2020 -- relative to median housing values. And here is the key takeaway:

What this chart is saying is that new housing is rarely added in cities with the lowest-value homes. The bar on the left represents municipalities whose median housing values are less than 50% of the metropolitan average. And this makes sense. If values are low there is likely little to no incentive to build. The math just doesn't work.

However, as home values increase, the incentive to build and the ability to finance new projects also increases, and that is what we see in the above chart. This also makes sense.

But something interesting happens in the highest-value cities -- housing supply once again starts to fall off. And it turns out that there is a bit of a sweet spot. Municipalities whose relative housing values are 110 to 130% of the metropolitan average actually produce the most overall housing. Any higher than that and things start to decline.

Why is that? The answer likely has to do with restrictive land-use regulations. The highest-value cities (and wealthiest suburbs) often have a lot of large single-family lots, as well as policies to ensure that this kind of built form doesn't change. This has the effect of both limiting supply and enshrining values.

So when it comes to housing supply, what you don't want are low-cost areas. But you also don't want the highest-value areas. What you want are areas that are doing well, but no so well that they start really restricting new entrants. This is what our industry often refers to as exclusionary zoning.

Now, one of the most common ways to respond to this problem is to develop an opposing policy, namely inclusionary zoning. But usually what this policy doesn't do is direct more supply to these high-value and low-density areas. Instead what it typically does is force the segment that is producing the most housing -- let's call it the 110 to 130% band -- to deliver more affordable housing.

It's a neat trick that sounds pretty cool, but it is not at no cost.

Some of you might remember that Toronto City Council approved new garden suite policies earlier this year. Garden suites (also known as accessory dwelling units) are kind of like laneway suites but without the adjacent lane.

Unfortunately, these new policies were subsequently appealed by a group of Resident's Associations, and so they haven't been in force. Thankfully, the Ontario Land Tribunal has just dismissed this appeal:

What this means is that, as of today, you're now free to build a garden suite in the City of Toronto. So hire an architect and file for a building permit -- it's go time. If you need any referrals, please feel free to reach out.

The Ontario Land Tribunal is often criticized for its ability to overrule local communities on land use matters such as these. But this is a good example of why it is needed and why it is important to have some kind of neutral arbitral.

Because these sorts of decisions should not be based on what any one individual or group thinks; these decisions should be based on what makes for good planning and what makes the most sense for the broader city and region.

Invariably, this is going to piss some people off. But in my mind, it's kind of like that asshole teacher you used to have. Sure, you hated him/her at the time, but in retrospect you end up appreciating what they were trying to do to help.

This could be a bad analogy.