I attended the above talk last night over Zoom. (Shoutout to Michael Mortensen for inviting Slate’s development team and for helping to moderate the Q&A.) The talk was a conversation between Larry Beasley (former Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver) and Theresa O’Donnell… Read More
Witold Rybczynski makes an interesting comparison between military and civilian (city) planning in a recent blog post called, “The Fog of Life.” Here’s an excerpt: Good military planning, as I understand it, is based on preparing for “what if,” that is, developing different scenarios. What… Read More
The urban-to-rural transect is a New Urbanist planning framework that prescribes a smooth continuum of settlements that go from least dense to most dense. The six zones are as follows: natural (T1), rural (T2), sub-urban (T3), general urban (T4), center (T5), and core (T6). Part… Read More
There was a good discussion on Twitter this morning about small-scale commercial uses in residential neighborhoods, like the coffee shop shown above on Shaw Street. In most residential neighborhoods in Toronto, this kind of commercial activity is not permitted if you were to try and… Read More
Architect Sheena Sharp, of Coolearth Architecture, tweeted something interesting out today: Improving this would be good. And it is the same gripe that I had with architecture school when I was there. Why is it taboo to talk about money and the market? Why must… Read More
If I have learned anything from this pandemic it is that, when push comes to shove, Torontonians will eat pretty much anywhere. On sidewalks. On streets. In white tents that masquerade as outdoor dining. And in many other little urban crevices. I am only half-joking,… Read More
Joe Berridge’s recent opinion piece in the Globe and Mail is a good reminder — in the face of a whole lot of uncertainty — about the resiliency of our cities. Those previous decades saw a surge of people and jobs locating downtown, with consequent… Read More
Netflix has a new docuseries out about Latin American street food. I watched two episodes of it last night. The first was about a chef from Buenos Aires, Argentina and the second was about a chef — named Dona Suzana — from Salvador, Brazil. Even… Read More
Currently, if you’re building an Ancillary Secondary Dwelling Unit (such as a laneway suite) in the City of Toronto, you can defer the payment of any development charges for 20 years from the date that a building permit is issued for the unit. But really… Read More
As many of you already know, the City of Toronto is currently studying ways to increase the supply of “missing middle” type housing in our low-rise neighborhoods. This week they published a new report called, “Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods.” The Globe and Mail has… Read More
