Category: Toronto

• When does the market wake up to underbuilding?

  In 2025, I wrote a post titled “Why 2029 will be the bottom for Toronto housing supply.” This was a fairly easy prediction to make, even four years out, because of how long it takes to build new housing.

  If the pre-sales and housing starts aren’t there (the leading indicators), then we know what supply will look like in the coming years. This remains true even if the market were to quickly rebound tomorrow; new supply simply can’t turn on that fast.

  But as clear as this future may be for those looking at the data, I don’t think the general market is looking toward 2029 and saying, “Damn, I better rent or buy now because in a few years housing is going to be scarcer.” And that’s because we’re still building and absorbing inventory from the end of the last cycle. That’s our current reality.

  If we assume 2029 will mark the supply bottom, the more important question for city builders is, “When will the market recognize this?”

  I have tended to be overly optimistic in my prognostications on this topic. At the beginning of this year, I said that things would feel much better in the second half of 2026 and into 2027. I’m not sure that’s true. Excess inventory is still being absorbed.

  At this point, I think we need at least another year for the market to really recognize that we’re underbuilding, which, by the way, is typically what happens at market bottoms. The hard part is nailing the timing.

  2026.11.05

• Toronto’s grand bargain gave us nodes instead of neighbourhoods

  

  Stephen Velasco maintains a wonderful set of models for Toronto showing existing, under-construction, and proposed/approved developments. Here’s his website and here’s an aerial he recently shared showing a large section of the city overlaid with subway and LRT stations.

  What is abundantly clear from this visualization is the “grand bargain” that has guided development in Toronto for over two decades: we won’t touch most of the low-rise residential land in the city, and instead we will create high-rise pockets next to transit.

  This was the path of least political resistance, and while building on top of and next to transit is obviously sound, the extreme density cliff we encouraged created several urban economic and city-building distortions.

  Land became artificially scarce, even though there’s lots of room within the boundaries of Toronto. And high density became our only option, eliminating many other housing typologies for Torontonians. But perhaps most importantly, it created an urban fabric of dense nodes that in many cases aren’t actually urban.

  What this means is that most of the city remains unwalkable, without urban amenities, and clogged with car traffic. The way to better use our existing transit infrastructure, create more amenity-rich communities, and reduce Toronto’s dependency on the car is to flank these isolated tower clusters with more evenly distributed density.

  Towers on top of stations are, of course, good, but there then needs to be a gradient of 4-12 storey buildings across the surrounding avenues, major streets, and interior residential streets.

  The good news is that we’re moving in this direction. It’s just going to take time for us to firmly strike a new grand bargain. But in my view, this city-building approach is going to guide the next two decades of development in Toronto.

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  Aerial visualization by Stephen Velasco

  2026.10.25

• The penthouse loggias of One Delisle

  

  

  

  In the Penthouse Collection at One Delisle, which spans the top three floors of the building, the homes all have a fully covered loggia as one of their outdoor spaces. I say “one of” because these suites all have multiple outdoor spaces. If you’re buying a penthouse, I would imagine you want to own several different pieces of the sky.

  Here’s a plan (this particular suite also has curved walls because it’s, you know, sexier):

  

  I was on site this morning as the team was installing the curtain wall and panels for the southwest-facing loggia on the very top floor, and let me tell you that it is wildly impressive in person.

  The idea behind these loggias was to create outdoor rooms, protected from the elements both above and on the sides so that they could be used for as long as possible throughout the year. We also provided the option of a hot tub for year-round use, which some purchasers did opt for.

  The space was certainly showing off today on what was a beautiful fall day.

  2026.10.22

• The geometric impossibility of the car-centric metropolis

  

  The Katy Freeway in Houston has 26 lanes at its widest, and after a $2.8 billion expansion between 2003 and 2008, commute times reportedly increased by 30-50%.

  Highway 401 in Toronto has 22 lanes at its widest and is ranked as the busiest highway in North America with an average of ~500,000 vehicles per day. It does not flow freely at most times throughout the day.

  Avenida 9 de Julio in Buenos Aires is one of the widest surface avenues in the world, but traffic congestion didn’t improve until lanes were converted into a bus rapid transit line.

  Sheikh Zayed Road in Dubai ranges from 12-16 lanes and acts as the main high-capacity spine for what is a linear, car-dependent global city. It too is known for its traffic congestion.

  The common thread among all of these examples is that, irrespective of the width and number of lanes, none of these cities have solved the problem of traffic congestion. I challenge you to think of a counterexample. And that is because it is impossible to build a large, economically vibrant global city centered primarily around private automobiles without suffering severe traffic congestion.

  The car is the most spatially inefficient mode of transport for cities, and this doesn’t change with tunnels or with autonomous vehicles (at least sufficiently to make this statement wrong). The fundamental issue is one of space: too many cars for a finite amount of road capacity.

  People who live in car-dependent communities are reluctant to accept this reality, but the only proven solution to congestion is to reorient away from the car toward more efficient modes of transport, namely mass transit. And one of the most effective ways to make this switch is to price roads and congestion.

  This is not to say that individual cars don’t have a place in global cities; they of course do. It is to say that it’s impossible to rely on them as the primary means of mobility without there being negative consequences.

  It’s also worth pointing out that one of the core features of cities is agglomeration economies, which is to say that the spatial concentration of activities leads to cost savings, productivity gains, and greater innovation. Cars demand the exact opposite: spatial dispersion.

  Which would you rather optimize for?

  2026.10.18

• Why Waymo’s arrival in Toronto is our chance to price the roads

  Today, Waymo announced that it has started training its vehicles on the streets of Toronto, with the goal of welcoming riders in 2028. This is exciting. I wish the timeline were shorter, but whatever, I’ll take it.

  “Expanding into Canada marks an important milestone in Waymo’s global journey,” said Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana. “Toronto is one of the world’s great cities — innovative, diverse, and forward-looking. We’re proud to bring the Waymo Driver to Canada’s largest city and to partner with the vibrant business, arts and cultural communities that share our commitment to safer streets and more accessible mobility.”

  But I also agree with Matt Spoke of Toronto Standard that this is a perfect opportunity to start talking seriously about congestion pricing. As we all know, road pricing is generally unpopular until it’s implemented and people see the benefits. To date, this obstacle has blocked Toronto from taking serious action around traffic congestion.

  Autonomous vehicles are different. I think it would be politically pretty easy to levy congestion charges strictly on autonomous vehicles. Most people aren’t going to care about “the machines.” And it would be the proactive thing to do.

  Based on the safety data we have on AVs, none of us should be driving cars anymore. This means it’s only a matter of time before AVs become the majority of vehicles on the road. I will bet you that my daughter will never drive her own car (unless she becomes an old-school motorcar enthusiast).

  Implement road pricing for AVs today and nobody will notice. But in 10 years, it will be viewed as positively clairvoyant.

  2026.10.16

• Toronto’s bike lane pendulum

  This week, the Province of Ontario started work on its plan to remove about 19 kilometres of bike lanes in Toronto on major streets such as Bloor Street, Yonge Street, and others. The plan is to restore motor vehicle lanes, push bike lanes to secondary streets, and “keep drivers moving.” However, work did not start without protest. Hundreds of cyclists have been protesting this week, and a handful of arrests have been made.

  The thing about bike lanes in Toronto, and other places, is that they tend to follow a political pendulum. We have a history of building bike lanes, and then paying lots of money to rip them out. It’s of course wasteful, but bike lanes are divisive and they can make for good politics. Recent polls suggest that the majority of Torontonians support removing them on major streets. And I can understand why. We’re all frustrated with traffic congestion!

  But here’s what I would say in response to what’s happening this week:

  • The city should be making the decision, not the province.
  • A street like Bloor serves as an important east-west artery in our cycling network. Toronto’s grid does not have a secondary street equivalent.
  • Toronto needs more major streets like Bloor. It needs a bold 21st-century masterplan.
  • It is true that some sections, such as in Etobicoke, do have lower cycling ridership, but every lane needs to be evaluated in terms of the broader network.
  • Built form dictates behaviour.
  • Successful cities must be multi-modal.

  Traffic congestion is no doubt a major problem in Toronto, but we’re nipping around the edges and unwilling to make big, bold changes. The keys to solving traffic congestion are appropriate land-use policies, road pricing, and investment in non-car forms of urban mobility. Pretending otherwise is just fooling ourselves. To solve congestion, Toronto needs to reduce automobile dependency.

  2026.10.15

• How cities change their minds

  Toronto, like all great cities, is in constant change and transition. I did a search through my blog archive this morning (okay, AI did) and I found it telling to see the things I was writing about and advocating for in the early days, some 10 years ago.

  We used to talk about eradicating parking minimums, and it was a novelty whenever a new project was built with zero spaces. But now we don’t talk about that. Parking requirements? What are those? We let the market determine how much might be needed, if any at all.

  We also used to talk a lot about laneway housing — a lot. For decades, daring architects and urbanists were navigating labyrinthian land-use approvals to build the odd one for themselves. Oftentimes they were only permitted if a pre-existing coach house was already on the site. But as a rule, laneway houses were bad and not permitted.

  Critics were concerned that they would erode the fabric of our low-rise communities and overrun them with renters. I remember people telling me this to my face at committee meetings, and reading comments from folks who believed that laneways were unsavoury places, and so surely only questionable people would want to live in one.

  Fast forward to today, and laneway and garden suites are standard practice across Toronto. They are no longer novel. They’re just part of the housing supply that Toronto now builds. In fact, in many new housing projects, they are the most desirable suite on the property.

  Shifting scales, I also remember the challenges that the team initially faced in getting One Delisle approved at the intersection of Yonge & St. Clair. At 155m, it was the tallest development approval at the time, and it’s currently the tallest constructed building in the submarket.

  One of the criticisms was that it was not in keeping with the scale of the office buildings constructed at and around the intersection between the 1960s and the early 1980s. But is that where the line should be drawn? Let’s not forget that before its post-war development boom, Yonge & St. Clair was a predominantly low-rise area. Surely this jump in scale provoked similar concerns.

  The planning deal that was struck over the last development cycle was that low-rise neighbourhoods would go largely untouched and that density would be concentrated around transit stations and in specific nodes. These nodes were the housing supply outlets. The inverse would have been to redevelop our low-rise neighbourhoods.

  Today, the only comments I hear about One Delisle’s height are that it’s not tall enough given its beautiful architecture. Opinions clearly evolve, and sometimes the things we’re unsure about aren’t so bad after all. In fact, sometimes they can become a defining characteristic of a place.

  2026.10.10

• A stack of single-family houses on Avenue Road

  I just stumbled across this proposal for 996-995 Avenue Road. I love it.
  
  It is however absolutely ridiculous that the City requires side yard setbacks on Major Streets. @CityPlanTO pic.twitter.com/5yaBZ3TIVU

  — Chris Spoke (@ChrisSpoke) October 6, 2026

  I stumbled upon this proposal for 996-998 Avenue Road after Chris Spoke stumbled upon it. It immediately stood out to me because it’s a site we looked at when it was for sale, and because it’s a handsome-looking proposal designed by Richard Wengle.

  The minor variance application is for a new eight-storey building with 6 residential units, 1 surface visitor parking space, 6 long-term bicycle spaces, and 12 parking spaces in two underground levels (accessed via a parking elevator). This description alone should tell you the target audience, but here’s the typical floor plan:

  

  The fact that this 2,790-square-foot plan only has two bedrooms tells you that this is geared toward wealthy empty-nesters (although the family room could very easily be converted to a third bedroom). So the project is effectively a stack of single-family houses, each with two parking spaces.

  This is a segment of the Toronto condominium market that has proven to be the most resilient in the current environment, but who knows how deep that demand goes. Whatever the case, it does feel appropriate for this submarket.

  I’m not suggesting that this kind of unit mix should be aspired to everywhere, but this overall scale of housing is something we should be replicating all across Toronto’s major streets and avenues.

  That we’re starting to see more of it feels like a maturation of the Toronto market, or perhaps it’s just a sign that larger projects are significantly harder to underwrite today.

  2026.10.07

• The $1.3M house built on a leftover triangle

  blogTO just wrote about 61 Seaton Street, which is a house on an atypical triangular lot in downtown Toronto and is on the market right now for $1,329,000. The story goes that this lot sat vacant for decades before architect Paul Reuber bought it in the late 1990s and took on Toronto’s zoning by-law to build what you see here. My rough estimate is that the lot is around 115 square metres, which isn’t that small, but it is a triangle:

  

  I love these kinds of irregular sites because they force creativity and offer a way to unlock hidden value. Our cities are full of neglected micro-parcels, but they often go undeveloped because of land-use policies or because the economics don’t work. Yet small or irregular sites are part of what gives cities their character. If any of you have an oddball parcel of land that has been sitting vacant for decades, drop me an email.

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  Parcel map from the City of Toronto

  2026.10.05

• Housing on the Line

  

  

  

  

  One of the fundamental truths about cities is that transportation and land-use planning are integral to one another. The most successful cities understand this and build density on top of transit, and build transit where density can and will go. See, once again, the Tokyo model. It’s for this reason that I think the Superkül-led conceptual project called Housing on the Line is an important one for Toronto. While the projects are speculative, they remind us that many of our transit stations are severely undeveloped, including ones we’ve only recently built. Why?

  Description:

  Housing on the Line, a conceptual project and architectural exhibition conceived and initiated by Superkül, will open to the public next Thursday, September 24th in Liberty Village. Developed in collaboration with six other firms – COMN Architects, Dubbeldam Architecture + Design, Gabriel Fain Architects, StudioAC, Studio VAARO, and Suulin – the project proposes speculative designs that integrate multi-unit residential buildings with smaller existing subway station sites along TTC Line 2 Bloor-Danforth. Each firm’s proposal treats a different subway station along Line 2 as a creative canvas for imagining innovative typologies and context-appropriate design that delivers human-scale character, enhanced amenities, and community connectivity.

  Details:

  Housing on the Line | Opening Reception
  Date: Thursday, September 24, 2026
  Time: 6:00–9:30 pm
  Location: The Bakery, 2 Fraser Ave, Toronto
  RSVP: adele@superkul.ca

  If you can’t make the opening reception next Thursday, you can also visit between September 25-27, during the hours of 10am-5pm.

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  Project credits (in order): Superkül, Studio VAARO, Gabriel Fain Architects, Dubbeldam Architecture + Design

  Image credits: All renderings by Aron Lorincz Ateliers

  2026.09.16