This is not a post about laneway housing. Okay, it sort of is. But there's a broader point to discuss. Recently, a local Toronto newspaper ran this article talking about how a bunch of people are upset that their neighbor is building an as-of-right garden suite. Here's an excerpt:
“The members of the community know that they can’t stop the building of this ‘garden suite’. However, they want to change the bylaw to ensure that future ‘garden suites’ can’t be built without community consultation and an environmental assessment,” said a news release from a number of residents in the area that was sent to Toronto media outlets including Beach Metro Community News last week.
This raises some interesting questions.
For one, what would be the purpose of this community consultation? Is it just a "Hey, I'm going to be building a garden suite" and then homeowners go do it exactly how they want anyway? Or, would it be an extensive community engagement process where homeowners would be expected to gather feedback, submit a report to the city, and consider design changes?
And, would this apply to all low-rise housing? In other words, would all homeowners need to consultant their neighbors and do an environmental assessment before pulling a building permit? What if someone just wants to build a small extension or a shed? Or, are we only talking about laneway and garden suites?
This is not a post about laneway housing. Okay, it sort of is. But there's a broader point to discuss. Recently, a local Toronto newspaper ran this article talking about how a bunch of people are upset that their neighbor is building an as-of-right garden suite. Here's an excerpt:
“The members of the community know that they can’t stop the building of this ‘garden suite’. However, they want to change the bylaw to ensure that future ‘garden suites’ can’t be built without community consultation and an environmental assessment,” said a news release from a number of residents in the area that was sent to Toronto media outlets including Beach Metro Community News last week.
This raises some interesting questions.
For one, what would be the purpose of this community consultation? Is it just a "Hey, I'm going to be building a garden suite" and then homeowners go do it exactly how they want anyway? Or, would it be an extensive community engagement process where homeowners would be expected to gather feedback, submit a report to the city, and consider design changes?
And, would this apply to all low-rise housing? In other words, would all homeowners need to consultant their neighbors and do an environmental assessment before pulling a building permit? What if someone just wants to build a small extension or a shed? Or, are we only talking about laneway and garden suites?
I'm not really sure what the exact intentions are here -- besides delaying new housing -- but I can tell you that it's a terrible idea.
Laneway and garden suites should never require community consultation and/or an environmental assessment. I mean, this is the whole point of allowing them as-of-right. It's so you don't have to do these things and you can go straight to a building permit. This is way too small of a housing type to burden with obstacles.
In fact, the same is true of larger housing types. In my opinion, conventional mid-rise buildings should not have to go through a full rezoning and they should not have to consult with the community. We already know what these buildings look like. We know that they make for great homes. And yet they're our most expensive housing type to build.
Removing barriers (and reducing project durations) is a sure-fire way to make them cheaper. Especially in a higher interest rate environment.
We have spoken about this topic -- of larger family-sized suites -- many times before on the blog. And my argument then, as it is now, is that the largest barrier is cost. We can talk about cultural biases (which I do think exist in North America) and, sure, we can talk about how to better design for families. But until we solve the problem of costs or until low-rise housing gets so prohibitively expensive that it tips the scales in favor of multi-family buildings, I'm not sure we're going to see a meaningful shift.
To be fair, it does appear that the number of families living in apartments and condominiums is increasing here in Toronto. My neighbor is one data point. However, broadly speaking, I don't think it's happening with the "larger family-sized suites" that most people imagine in their minds when they talk about this opportunity.
So how do we address this? There are a number of interesting ideas in the above Twitter thread that I would encourage you to check out. Ratcheting down or eliminating development charges (and other government levies) on larger suites is one of them. But what is obvious is that this is a challenging problem to solve. So the brutally honest answer is that I don't really know what will be most effective. But here are three potential places to start.
As-of-right mid-rise buildings
Remove the barriers to building more mid-rise. One irony of mid-rise buildings is that they are probably the most desirable form of multi-family housing and yet they're the most expensive to build. A lot of this has to do with construction costs and other unavoidable diseconomies of scale, but there are other things we can do. In my view, we should target to make all mid-rise buildings fully as-of-right. This means no rezoning costs, no community meetings, and overall simpler designs. Instead, the rough process should be: buy site, work on permit drawings, and start marketing new homes.
This is also something that we talk a lot about on this blog. But most people outside of the industry don't think of it in this way, or they don't care. The mantra is that "growth pays for growth", which obviously sounds good. Tax new housing based on its impacts. But in reality this is not what's happening. What is happening is that "growth pays for as much as possible as long as new home prices keep rising." And it persists partially because nobody except evil developers see these large bills. But if we really want to make new housing more affordable and if we really want to encourage more families in new multi-family buildings, then we need a more equitable solution.
Financing new family-sized homes
The way we finance new homes impacts the kind of housing that gets built. Here in Toronto, new condominium projects generally require a certain percentage of pre-sales, because construction lenders want as much certainty as possible that they will get their money back upon completion. In theory, it also reduces the chance of overbuilding because you've pre-sold most/all of the homes. So there are obvious benefits to this approach. However, the problem is that you need people to now buy in advance. And oftentimes, the people buying early aren't families who expect to need 3 bedrooms in 5.2 years. Should there be another financing solution for larger homes?
Once again, these are just three potential places to start. But I think they're all critically important. If you have any other suggestions or ideas, please leave them in comment section below.
I'm not really sure what the exact intentions are here -- besides delaying new housing -- but I can tell you that it's a terrible idea.
Laneway and garden suites should never require community consultation and/or an environmental assessment. I mean, this is the whole point of allowing them as-of-right. It's so you don't have to do these things and you can go straight to a building permit. This is way too small of a housing type to burden with obstacles.
In fact, the same is true of larger housing types. In my opinion, conventional mid-rise buildings should not have to go through a full rezoning and they should not have to consult with the community. We already know what these buildings look like. We know that they make for great homes. And yet they're our most expensive housing type to build.
Removing barriers (and reducing project durations) is a sure-fire way to make them cheaper. Especially in a higher interest rate environment.
We have spoken about this topic -- of larger family-sized suites -- many times before on the blog. And my argument then, as it is now, is that the largest barrier is cost. We can talk about cultural biases (which I do think exist in North America) and, sure, we can talk about how to better design for families. But until we solve the problem of costs or until low-rise housing gets so prohibitively expensive that it tips the scales in favor of multi-family buildings, I'm not sure we're going to see a meaningful shift.
To be fair, it does appear that the number of families living in apartments and condominiums is increasing here in Toronto. My neighbor is one data point. However, broadly speaking, I don't think it's happening with the "larger family-sized suites" that most people imagine in their minds when they talk about this opportunity.
So how do we address this? There are a number of interesting ideas in the above Twitter thread that I would encourage you to check out. Ratcheting down or eliminating development charges (and other government levies) on larger suites is one of them. But what is obvious is that this is a challenging problem to solve. So the brutally honest answer is that I don't really know what will be most effective. But here are three potential places to start.
As-of-right mid-rise buildings
Remove the barriers to building more mid-rise. One irony of mid-rise buildings is that they are probably the most desirable form of multi-family housing and yet they're the most expensive to build. A lot of this has to do with construction costs and other unavoidable diseconomies of scale, but there are other things we can do. In my view, we should target to make all mid-rise buildings fully as-of-right. This means no rezoning costs, no community meetings, and overall simpler designs. Instead, the rough process should be: buy site, work on permit drawings, and start marketing new homes.
This is also something that we talk a lot about on this blog. But most people outside of the industry don't think of it in this way, or they don't care. The mantra is that "growth pays for growth", which obviously sounds good. Tax new housing based on its impacts. But in reality this is not what's happening. What is happening is that "growth pays for as much as possible as long as new home prices keep rising." And it persists partially because nobody except evil developers see these large bills. But if we really want to make new housing more affordable and if we really want to encourage more families in new multi-family buildings, then we need a more equitable solution.
Financing new family-sized homes
The way we finance new homes impacts the kind of housing that gets built. Here in Toronto, new condominium projects generally require a certain percentage of pre-sales, because construction lenders want as much certainty as possible that they will get their money back upon completion. In theory, it also reduces the chance of overbuilding because you've pre-sold most/all of the homes. So there are obvious benefits to this approach. However, the problem is that you need people to now buy in advance. And oftentimes, the people buying early aren't families who expect to need 3 bedrooms in 5.2 years. Should there be another financing solution for larger homes?
Once again, these are just three potential places to start. But I think they're all critically important. If you have any other suggestions or ideas, please leave them in comment section below.
This might seem like a fairly benign tweet by Clive Doucet, a former Ottawa City Councillor. I mean, Paris is wonderful. It is livable, walkable, and my favorite city in the world after Toronto. But as I have argued many times before on the blog, there is a tendency to look at Paris' uniform mid-rise buildings and then incorrectly try and translate it over to a North American (or other) context with opinions that we should simply cap building heights. Because if only we were to do that, then we would be left with our own version of beautiful Paris.
This is false. And you should immediately call bullshit on anyone who suggests this might be the case. It ignores most of what Napoleon III and Haussmann did to Paris in the 19th century, and instead just cherry picks height so that it can be exported back home to oppose tall buildings. If we really and truly want Paris, then it is important to be reminded that, among many other things, the Paris we all love today is the result of:
The annexation of eleven surrounding communities (in order to form the city's current boundaries)
Mass urban renewal, involving the displacement of some 350,000 people (according to some estimates at the time)
Nearly two decades of large-scale disruptive construction
The demolition of hundreds of old dilapidated buildings (some of which may have even been in a Heritage Conservation District -- bad planning joke)
The cutting through of nearly 80 kilometers of new avenues all across the city
The building of high-density courtyard buildings and blocks
As you might suspect, Parisians at the time were upset with this kind of large-scale change. The now famous Impressionist painters lamented the new monotony of Paris' regular mid-rise blocks. Where had the unique and quirky Paris of past gone? It was, of course, being systematically erased in the name of modernization and urban renewal, which by the way, included a new and important water and sanitation network. What Napoleon III and Haussmann did was transform Paris from a crumbling medieval city into a modern metropolis.
I am not suggesting that any of this is bad and shouldn't have happened. Today, Paris is deeply loved the world over. But what I am suggesting is that if we truly want to create our own version of Paris, then we are going to need to be realistic with ourselves on what it is going to take to get there. It will require nothing short of massive change.
If we want Paris and Paris-like densities (despite what Clive posits in his tweet, Paris is not the densest city in the world), we are going to need to be fully prepared to rip up and rethink our entire approach to zoning. Taller buildings are partially (largely?) a result of our cultural obsession with single-family houses. We restrict supply, codify low-densities, and then wonder why the remaining areas need to be so tall. We then grasp at out-of-context examples in order to justify our own selfish interests.
If Paris is really what we want, then we must be prepared for everything that comes along with its pretty mid-rise buildings. Are you ready?
This might seem like a fairly benign tweet by Clive Doucet, a former Ottawa City Councillor. I mean, Paris is wonderful. It is livable, walkable, and my favorite city in the world after Toronto. But as I have argued many times before on the blog, there is a tendency to look at Paris' uniform mid-rise buildings and then incorrectly try and translate it over to a North American (or other) context with opinions that we should simply cap building heights. Because if only we were to do that, then we would be left with our own version of beautiful Paris.
This is false. And you should immediately call bullshit on anyone who suggests this might be the case. It ignores most of what Napoleon III and Haussmann did to Paris in the 19th century, and instead just cherry picks height so that it can be exported back home to oppose tall buildings. If we really and truly want Paris, then it is important to be reminded that, among many other things, the Paris we all love today is the result of:
The annexation of eleven surrounding communities (in order to form the city's current boundaries)
Mass urban renewal, involving the displacement of some 350,000 people (according to some estimates at the time)
Nearly two decades of large-scale disruptive construction
The demolition of hundreds of old dilapidated buildings (some of which may have even been in a Heritage Conservation District -- bad planning joke)
The cutting through of nearly 80 kilometers of new avenues all across the city
The building of high-density courtyard buildings and blocks
As you might suspect, Parisians at the time were upset with this kind of large-scale change. The now famous Impressionist painters lamented the new monotony of Paris' regular mid-rise blocks. Where had the unique and quirky Paris of past gone? It was, of course, being systematically erased in the name of modernization and urban renewal, which by the way, included a new and important water and sanitation network. What Napoleon III and Haussmann did was transform Paris from a crumbling medieval city into a modern metropolis.
I am not suggesting that any of this is bad and shouldn't have happened. Today, Paris is deeply loved the world over. But what I am suggesting is that if we truly want to create our own version of Paris, then we are going to need to be realistic with ourselves on what it is going to take to get there. It will require nothing short of massive change.
If we want Paris and Paris-like densities (despite what Clive posits in his tweet, Paris is not the densest city in the world), we are going to need to be fully prepared to rip up and rethink our entire approach to zoning. Taller buildings are partially (largely?) a result of our cultural obsession with single-family houses. We restrict supply, codify low-densities, and then wonder why the remaining areas need to be so tall. We then grasp at out-of-context examples in order to justify our own selfish interests.
If Paris is really what we want, then we must be prepared for everything that comes along with its pretty mid-rise buildings. Are you ready?
