It is very disappointing to hear that Paul Calandra -- Ontario's new Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing -- is talking about "use-it-or-lose-it" zoning policies and that mayors are coming out in support of it. This is a terrible idea.

On the surface, it may seem like this would force/incentivize developers to build more housing sooner. But what it fails to recognize is this: just because a developer wants to build, it doesn't mean that they are able to build.

This current market environment is a perfect example. It is likely that the Greater Toronto Area will see dozens of new condominium launches this fall. These are developers who will be spending millions of at-risk dollars to bring their projects to the market in the hopes of pre-selling homes and then obtaining construction financing.

However, it is highly probable that not all of these projects will actually start construction in the short-term. And if/when that happens, it will not be because these developers are just squatting on entitled land; it will be because they can't get financing. In other words, the market isn't there.

This will not be a good day for anybody. So I fail to see how it makes sense to penalize developers who happen to find themselves in this unfortunate situation. It's as if our only solution to the current housing crisis is to make it more expensive to build new housing.

For another post that I wrote on this topic, click here.

If you really need a new home, then I guess this makes sense:

We thought rising mortgage rates would crush the homebuilders, and bet against Pulte in the FT stockpicking contest. But the exact opposite happened: high rates froze the existing house market by giving homeowners a huge incentive not to move — their irreplaceable cheap mortgages. That left new homes as almost the only game in town for anyone who really needs to buy a home. Pulte has been one of the best- performing stocks in the S&P 500. Never pick stocks, even in a stupid stockpicking contest, on the basis of superficial research.

And here's a chart that supports this argument (new homes as a % of total single-family home inventory, including resales):

It's an interesting nuance.

But it's certainly a different story here in Toronto with new condominium sales. According to Urbanation, in the first half of this year, the Greater Toronto Area sold 6,727 new condominium homes. This is down 59% compared to 2022, and represents the slowest first six months in a decade.

In this case, higher rates have dramatically slowed the market.

One of the most important considerations for livability in a multi-family building is the elevators. And as someone who has lived in a condominium building for the last 10 years, I know firsthand that it can be frustrating when they aren't working properly. So this is obviously something that we pay a lot of attention to in our own projects.

The very general and crude rule of thumb is that you want at least 1 elevator for every 100 homes. For example, at Junction House, we have 151 suites and 2 elevators. So that means we have 1 elevator for every ~76 homes. At One Delisle, we have 371 suites and 4 elevators. So 1 for every ~93 homes. At the same time, I live in a building with 357 suites and 3 elevators (1 for every 119), and it works just fine.

But again, this is a very general rule of thumb. There are many other factors that can influence performance such as the number of levels in the building, the number of suites per floor, the number of below-grade parking levels, and so on. In my building, we have all above-grade parking, so I'm sure that impacts things.

If you have a building with a lot of below-grade parking, that will generally decrease performance all else being equal (i.e. increase weight times). Because now you have that many more stops, even if the number of homes remains constant above.

One common way to mitigate these impacts is to add a parking shuttle elevator. This is a dedicated elevator for just the parking levels, and it's something that you'll often see in office buildings. This helps service levels. It can also help the overall building efficiency (saleable area/gross construction area) by potentially eliminating the need for another elevator shaft in the above-grade levels.

But the trade-off is that you now need to transfer elevators, usually at the ground floor. Some people don't mind this and think it helps with building security. If someone sneaks into the garage, there's another obstacle to getting up into the residential floors. But it does mean that if you're coming home with groceries in your hands, you need to take 2 elevators.

I'd be curious to hear from all of you what you think about parking shuttle elevators in residential buildings. Because I suspect that as building heights increase and as parking ratios continue to decline, parking shuttle elevators will likely become more common in cities like Toronto. Let me know in the comments below.

Disclaimer: I am not an elevator consultant! I am telling you just what I have learned over the years from speaking with actual professionals. So I recommend you speak with one before making any important elevator decisions on your own projects.

Photo by Edwin Chen on Unsplash