The City of Toronto requires amenity spaces to be provided in new housing developments of a certain size. Here, for example, is the relevant excerpt from the recommended zoning by-law amendment that is expected to allow small-scale apartments along all major streets:

The triggers are 20 and 30 dwelling units, which represents a housing scale that Toronto doesn't build a lot of. I mean there's a reason it's called the missing middle. That is, of course, the point of the major streets study. It's to build more of it. But for that to happen, these amenity requirements have got to go.
Firstly, because it's not feasible at this scale. Think of it this way: two square meters of indoor amenity space x 20 dwelling units = 40 square meters of indoor amenity space or ~430 square feet. Multiply this by an average rent of $5 psf (and then 12 months) and that's nearly $26k of foregone revenue for the project.
This may not seem like a big number for a development project, but consider that at an NOI margin of 77% (i.e. if you deduct operating expenses), this revenue number works out to a net operating income of just over $20k. Capitalize this at 4% and you've just removed $500k of value from the project.
Another way to look at this would be to divide the $26k of foregone rental revenue by the 20 dwelling units. This works out to nearly $1,300 of annual revenue per suite — revenue that will then need to be made up by everyone who lives in the building.
The second reason why I think this requirement needs to go is because it's a suburban way of thinking. In the suburbs, people tend have their own backyards. And so the logic goes that in multi-family buildings, people should also have their own private (albeit shared) amenities.
That's fine if it makes sense for the project. But we shouldn't forget that the reason cities are so wonderful is that they are rich in amenities, culture, and the myriad of other things made possible by collective contribution. World-class museums and galleries, for instance, almost always require big city resources to be viable.
On some level, I think you could argue that there's an irony to this planning requirement. We mandate amenity spaces because amenities are of course good. But it hurts project feasibility, especially at smaller scales, which then limits the amount of new homes, density, and people we have in our existing neighborhoods.
And because we are limiting density, we are indirectly limiting the kind of private and public amenities that might otherwise be feasible if only there were more humans to support them. So I would strongly encourage the city to rethink its position on required amenity areas. At the very least, the triggering unit counts should be raised.
For more on this topic, here's a recent article from the Globe and Mail by John Lorinc.
Photo by Filip Mishevski on Unsplash

One of the things I included in my list of "how to improve the feasibility of infill housing" was the adoption of single-stair buildings. So today I'm happy to share that next week the Canadian Urban Institute — in collaboration with LGA Architectural Partners — will be hosting a series of online micro-conferences covering this topic. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that LGA is one of the leading voices, if not the leading voice, advocating for this important building code change.
Here are the event posters:

The City of Toronto requires amenity spaces to be provided in new housing developments of a certain size. Here, for example, is the relevant excerpt from the recommended zoning by-law amendment that is expected to allow small-scale apartments along all major streets:

The triggers are 20 and 30 dwelling units, which represents a housing scale that Toronto doesn't build a lot of. I mean there's a reason it's called the missing middle. That is, of course, the point of the major streets study. It's to build more of it. But for that to happen, these amenity requirements have got to go.
Firstly, because it's not feasible at this scale. Think of it this way: two square meters of indoor amenity space x 20 dwelling units = 40 square meters of indoor amenity space or ~430 square feet. Multiply this by an average rent of $5 psf (and then 12 months) and that's nearly $26k of foregone revenue for the project.
This may not seem like a big number for a development project, but consider that at an NOI margin of 77% (i.e. if you deduct operating expenses), this revenue number works out to a net operating income of just over $20k. Capitalize this at 4% and you've just removed $500k of value from the project.
Another way to look at this would be to divide the $26k of foregone rental revenue by the 20 dwelling units. This works out to nearly $1,300 of annual revenue per suite — revenue that will then need to be made up by everyone who lives in the building.
The second reason why I think this requirement needs to go is because it's a suburban way of thinking. In the suburbs, people tend have their own backyards. And so the logic goes that in multi-family buildings, people should also have their own private (albeit shared) amenities.
That's fine if it makes sense for the project. But we shouldn't forget that the reason cities are so wonderful is that they are rich in amenities, culture, and the myriad of other things made possible by collective contribution. World-class museums and galleries, for instance, almost always require big city resources to be viable.
On some level, I think you could argue that there's an irony to this planning requirement. We mandate amenity spaces because amenities are of course good. But it hurts project feasibility, especially at smaller scales, which then limits the amount of new homes, density, and people we have in our existing neighborhoods.
And because we are limiting density, we are indirectly limiting the kind of private and public amenities that might otherwise be feasible if only there were more humans to support them. So I would strongly encourage the city to rethink its position on required amenity areas. At the very least, the triggering unit counts should be raised.
For more on this topic, here's a recent article from the Globe and Mail by John Lorinc.
Photo by Filip Mishevski on Unsplash

One of the things I included in my list of "how to improve the feasibility of infill housing" was the adoption of single-stair buildings. So today I'm happy to share that next week the Canadian Urban Institute — in collaboration with LGA Architectural Partners — will be hosting a series of online micro-conferences covering this topic. If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know that LGA is one of the leading voices, if not the leading voice, advocating for this important building code change.
Here are the event posters:


And here are the links if you'd like to register for any of the sessions:
Single Stair Sessions Day 1 — "The 3 Ps: Pilot Projects and Prototypes"
Single Stair Sessions Day 2 — "The 2 Ss: Safety and Sustainability"
CityTalk | Live — "Addressing Canada's Housing Supply: Can Regulations Drive Housing Innovation?"
We are actively underwriting new missing middle housing across central Toronto. And I can tell you that project feasibility would benefit enormously from this code change. Single-stair buildings are also allowed in many/most other parts of the world, and so we already know that it can make for better homes and that it doesn't need to compromise life safety. It's great that the city-building community is now increasingly focused on this opportunity.
Cover photo by Mika Wegelius on Unsplash
Ontario's goal is to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031. It is widely understood that we need a lot more housing. But it's a bit of a curious thing, because we do actually have homes available right now. There are developers with standing condominium inventory; landlords with vacant apartments; and many other options. So what is it that we need exactly? A more precise description would be that we need a diverse mixture of more attainable housing.
For this to happen, we're going to need to make some structural changes to the way we deliver new homes. The above image is taken from a recent report by Environmental Defence and Robert Eisenberg (in collaboration with LGA Architectural Partners and SvN Architects + Planners). The report is called the Mid-Rise Manual and it's a comprehensive look at we can and should be doing to unlock more of this housing type.
What I love about this image (and the report) is that it speaks to a very different kind of city than the one we have grown accustomed to in North America. Instead of towers in a sea of low-rise houses, it shows a diversity of building types -- in a way where you could also imagine a diversity of individual home types. This is unequivocally where cities like Toronto and others are headed. It's just a question of how soon we follow the manual.
Click here to download a copy of the report. (There's also a summary report of key takeaways if you're looking for something quick to read.)

And here are the links if you'd like to register for any of the sessions:
Single Stair Sessions Day 1 — "The 3 Ps: Pilot Projects and Prototypes"
Single Stair Sessions Day 2 — "The 2 Ss: Safety and Sustainability"
CityTalk | Live — "Addressing Canada's Housing Supply: Can Regulations Drive Housing Innovation?"
We are actively underwriting new missing middle housing across central Toronto. And I can tell you that project feasibility would benefit enormously from this code change. Single-stair buildings are also allowed in many/most other parts of the world, and so we already know that it can make for better homes and that it doesn't need to compromise life safety. It's great that the city-building community is now increasingly focused on this opportunity.
Cover photo by Mika Wegelius on Unsplash
Ontario's goal is to build 1.5 million new homes by 2031. It is widely understood that we need a lot more housing. But it's a bit of a curious thing, because we do actually have homes available right now. There are developers with standing condominium inventory; landlords with vacant apartments; and many other options. So what is it that we need exactly? A more precise description would be that we need a diverse mixture of more attainable housing.
For this to happen, we're going to need to make some structural changes to the way we deliver new homes. The above image is taken from a recent report by Environmental Defence and Robert Eisenberg (in collaboration with LGA Architectural Partners and SvN Architects + Planners). The report is called the Mid-Rise Manual and it's a comprehensive look at we can and should be doing to unlock more of this housing type.
What I love about this image (and the report) is that it speaks to a very different kind of city than the one we have grown accustomed to in North America. Instead of towers in a sea of low-rise houses, it shows a diversity of building types -- in a way where you could also imagine a diversity of individual home types. This is unequivocally where cities like Toronto and others are headed. It's just a question of how soon we follow the manual.
Click here to download a copy of the report. (There's also a summary report of key takeaways if you're looking for something quick to read.)
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