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A decision on legalizing small businesses like cafés and corner stores in the interior of Toronto’s neighbourhoods — under a framework city planners had winnowed down since last year in the face of heavy opposition from residents’ associations — has once again been punted into the future.
At Toronto’s Planning and Housing committee on Thursday, officials decided to defer a decision on allowing more small businesses in neighbourhood interiors, instead green-lighting changes only along major streets and to the rules for home-based businesses, which still require final approval from city council.
Planning changes always seem to happen slowly, painfully, and incrementally. I remember giving presentations on laneway housing back in 2013-2014, and I would always say "this is inevitable — it's a question of when, not if."
At the time, this felt like a bold statement because it was nearly impossible to get a laneway house approved. You had to be cunning, willing to fight for years and, even then, you might not be successful. Now they're permitted as-of-right and they, frankly, no longer feel novel. They're just something we do around here.
Of course, the same will eventually be true of small-scale neighbourhood retail. Especially because it was what we used to do before we created rules against it. But as always, things happen slowly, painfully, and incrementally.
If you'd like to download the proposed Major Streets Zoning By-law Amendment, click here, and if you'd like to download the proposed Home Occupations Zoning By-law Amendment, click here.
Cover photo by Dan Burton on Unsplash
Over the years, we've spoken a lot about the benefits of cities permitting small-scale commercial uses in residential neighborhoods.
They increase overall urban vibrancy. They promote local consumption (reducing the need for people to do things like drive). And they can help reduce the barriers to entry for small businesses. These spaces tend to be more cost-effective and, in some cases, like here and here, they are spaces that the homeowner already owns.
But there are some important objections to consider. Perhaps the most common one is this: What happens if my neighbor opens a 24-hour taco stand next door? I'm fairly confident that I could single-handedly keep a taco stand in business if it opened up next to me — what an amenity — but I get the concern. It's a legitimate one.
In this part of the world, we have typically responded to this concern by restricting uses. We have thrown the baby out with the bathwater by saying, "Nope, restaurants aren't allowed, because there's a chance it could be a 24-hour taco stand and that might annoy people."
But there are alternatives.
Japan's land-use approach, for example, is (1) generally focused on what you can do (versus what you can't do) and (2) organized around intensity and nuisance. I've never developed in Japan and I don't know the exact nuances of their policy framework, but directionally I think it's an interesting way to moderate this land-use consideration.
An accountant who wants to hang a shingle is different from a coffee shop that's only open from 8am to 3pm (and doesn't have a commercial kitchen), and a coffee shop is different from Peggy Gou DJ'ing next door at an all-night taco bar. But they are all non-residential uses, and that makes them illegal in many/most residential neighborhoods.
Thinking in terms of an intensity gradient is one way to create more mixed-use communities, while at the same time respecting the local context.
So what did we uncover during yesterday's great urban design debate?
If I can extract one overarching takeaway, it's maybe this one: We need to be big and bold (have a compelling vision!), while at the same time getting out of the way of small-scale urban innovation. Joe Berridge, for example, felt strongly that Toronto is not taking full advantage of its waterfront. We've been too focused on bike lanes and parks, rather than on creating noteworthy global draws and aggressively marketing ourselves externally. Toronto needs its Sydney moment — something like a globally significant Opera House that attracts people from all around the world. I don't disagree. Cities need to do things that are remarkable.
At the same time, we spent a lot of time talking about the micro scale. Some of the most loved urban environments from around the world have the simplest built form: fine-grained and humble buildings fronting onto human-scaled streets — streets like Ossington in Toronto and seemingly every street in Paris. But that was then. This kind of built environment is mostly incongruent with how we plan and develop new communities today. We develop big, we impose top-down planning, and we no longer have the same inherent flexibility that our older building stock had.
Take, for instance, Toronto's East Bayfront, which is where this conference is taking place. It's a recently developed community with many or most of the hallmarks that constitute good urban design today: handsome architecture (including mass-timber buildings), pedestrian-friendly streets, well-designed public realms, and more. And yet, the area is largely void of any urban vibrancy. Other than the boardwalk along the water and a handful of restaurant patios, there's very little public life. Many of the buildings are also connected by bridges, which is not in and of itself a problem, but it further removes life from the street.
Here are a few photos of the area that I took while leaving the panel:
Compare this to a random street in Tokyo:
The buildings are ugly, or at least nondescript. None of the tenants are following a consistent signage standard. There are no sidewalks. And there's an overhead rail line bisecting the street. And yet, it's vibrant. It's a successful urban street. Most older cities have areas akin to this, but it's a real challenge to create it from scratch in new developments (see above). I'm very interested in this challenge and, as we have talked about many times before on the blog, I think part of the answer lies in allowing flexibility and ground-up change. It's impossible to predict what an area could become and, for that reason, top-down planning will never get it exactly right.
Thinking about it this way, urban design isn't dead; it just maybe needs a refocusing. And what I propose is approaching it along the lines of Jeff Bezos' old management adage: You want to be stubborn on vision, but flexible on the details.
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