Today I have two things to share.

One, I'm not very good at following proper protocols during council meetings. You know, where you're supposed to direct communication via the chair person and say things like, "Through you, Mr./Madam Chair." I will work on improving this.

Two, I'm thrilled to report that, last evening, the proposed zoning and Official Plan amendments for Project Bench were approved by the Town of Lincoln Councillors in an 8-1 vote. This is following the positive planning staff report that I wrote about last month. Once again, this is an important milestone for the project and we're excited for the next steps.

At the same time, we recognize that change can be difficult. And this development represents change for the community. Three people from the community spoke last night in opposition of the project.

I spoke to one of them after the meeting and he was very respectful and said, "congratulations." But he also went on to say, "I hope that you and the team will continue to work with the community as you have been doing." My response was, "absolutely we will."

Onward.

Update: Just to be clearer on the planning process details, last night was the Town of Lincoln's Committee of the Whole meeting. The Committee of the Whole has three areas of focus: community services & infrastructure, general business & finance, and planning & economic development. All Town of Lincoln Councillors, including the mayor, voted on the project at this meeting. The next step is for the Committee's recommendation to go to Council for final approval, and this meeting is scheduled for December 16, 2024. Following this, a formal Notice of Decision will be issued.

I have a very close friend (Peter Vogel) who is in the solar business. He runs business development for a company called Otter Energy. And by volume, I believe they are the largest in Ontario. Since 2009, they have installed over 350,000 panels.

So when Peter and I hang out, I get the benefit of learning about solar. And he is great at reminding me that installing panels on the roof of buildings in Ontario makes a ton of sense from both an environmental and financial standpoint.

Generally speaking, the amount of benefit you will see depends on the building's ratio of roof area to overall building area. Low-rise buildings with a lot of roof area (think industrial assets), are absolute no brainers. But it can also work very well on many other asset classes, including mid-rise multi-family.

Here are some high-level figures that he recently walked me through:

• As a rule of thumb, solar in Ontario typically generates between 12-14 kWh's per year per square foot of roof area (usable flat roof).

• The average payback period for an install is usually somewhere between 4.5 to 7 years.

• However, on income producing properties, the permanent decrease in operating expenses and the corresponding increase in net operating income (NOI) will increase your asset value on day one.

• Consider spending $100k on solar panels to increase your NOI -- through lower electricity costs -- by $10k. If you were to then capitalize this increase in NOI by 5%, it would mean your asset value has right away increased by $200k. If the cap rate for this asset is even lower, say 4%, the increase goes up to $250k.

• These multiples can get even better with larger installs. Here are some numbers from a real-world 100,000 sf commercial building in Ontario. In this case, the solar system cost about $800k (net) and resulted in annual operating cost savings of about $140k. This means, that at a 5% cap rate, the owner spent $800k to increase the value of their asset by $2.8 million on day one.

• Of course, in addition to all of this, you get long-term energy cost certainty. That's worth something too.

The business case is compelling. So I think more building owners should be looking at solar. We are certainly looking at it from a development perspective. If you're interested in learning more, feel free to reach out to my friend. There are a lot of details that help strengthen the case for solar, including depreciation allowances and tax credits.

I am not a transportation engineer, but sometimes I like to, you know, pretend. And lately, I've been thinking about how to better design the Toronto intersection of Dundas, Dupont, Annette, and Old Weston (which I touched on briefly over here). It's a weird 5-point intersection that is often cited as one of the most confusing in the city. And so there's a lot that could be done.

Here's what it looks like today:

The centerpiece is the Dundas-Dupont Traffic Island, which is actually a city-owned park. It's not the most generous green space, but the real problem with this park is that it's very much an island. There's really only one pedestrian access point -- its north end. For the most part, you need to be unlawful in your movements on and off it.

This is a fairly common occurrence in cities. The island is, almost certainly, a remnant space. It was never explicitly designed; it is just what was left over after they figured out how to connect all of these streets and negotiate the intersection's grade changes.

The other signal, that these are remnant spaces, is the paint markings on the street. Their main job is to tell cars where to go. But they're also unproductive spaces. Nobody is intended to actually occupy them. So what they really say is, "we have too much road and we didn't know what to do; so we just painted them."

If you watch the below video of Claire Weisz (founder of WXY Studio) explaining the work that she has done in New York City, you'll see remarkable similarities to what I'm talking about here. This sort of thing happens all the time, especially at messy intersections where multiple streets converge. The objective was to connect the streets and the rest became a byproduct.

But when properly designed, these spaces actually become better for everyone: drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians. And this Toronto intersection strikes me as a perfect candidate. So if my local Councillor Gord Perks is reading this post, I would ask him to do what he can within the city to encourage this kind of positive change.

And not just here, but wherever there is a street that sucks.