The March issue of Monocle just dropped, debuting a new format called the Monocle 100. It's a list of the people, places, and things worth knowing about. And in the middle of it is something called the Monocle Property Survey, which was deliberately timed to coincide with MIPIM, the massive real estate conference that takes place every March in Cannes.
As a quick aside, our team contemplated going to MIPIM this year in search of both friends and money, but then we thought to ourselves: Why bother going to the South of France when we have Toronto in the middle of March to enjoy?
The first thing the Property Survey does is give a rare nod to developers: "While architects often nab all the credit for building our cities, streets and homes, it's actually developers who should get much of the kudos (and blame, in some instances). Because it's usually developers — small, large, private, state-funded — that must secure land, raise capital and take risks." It almost feels weird hearing somebody say something positive about our kind.
But even better, the survey includes a full page on our unique creative residency program at Parkview Mountain House (Park City, Utah):
A big thanks to the Monocle team for the feature. If you're in Toronto and would like to pickup a copy of this month's issue, visit their shop in Little Italy at 776 College Street. And if you'd like to learn more about PMH, including our creative residency program, visit pmhpc.com.
One of the big housing trends that we have seen across North America over the last several years is the push to allow greater supply in low-rise neighbourhoods.
Here in Toronto, this has come through a well-known program called Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods (or EHON), which I believe launched around 2020. But you can find countless similar programs in other cities.
Salt Lake City, for example, is currently looking at updating its single-family exclusive zoning to allow for "gentle infill opportunities" on smaller lots. The zones under consideration cover 77% of the land zoned for residential in SLC. And interestingly enough, this program is also called Expanding Housing Options.
Whistler is out, the Interior of BC is in. Huge real estate deals are out, powder chasing is in. If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you'll know that I do a ski and snowboard trip with a group of friends each year around this time.
Our last three trips were to Park City (where it snowed so much we lost power); Trois Vallées (which also served as my bachelor party and which involved equal parts snowboarding and dancing on tables); and Hokkaido (where it looked like Toronto looks right now).
This year — for annual number fifteen — we're headed to Revelstoke and Kicking Horse in the Selkirk and Purcell Mountains.
On some trips we like to combine an urban trip with the mountains, so that we can also gawk at architecture and urbanism. That's what we did in Japan last year. But this year's trip is not about that. It's about unadulterated time in the mountains.
It has been a weird season for snow. The west coast has been too warm with not enough of it, and the east coast has been too cold with unusual amounts of it. I have no idea what's in store for us this week, but here's to hoping it looks like the cover photo of this post.
In some related real estate news, Extell Development Company and Hilton just announced that they'll be opening a Waldorf Astoria Resort and Residences in the new Deer Valley East Village.
It's going to have 132 hotel keys and 105 one- to six-bedroom branded residences ranging from 1,099 to 5,155 square feet. Of the 105 branded residences, 56 will be "hotel residences" located above the hotel, and the remaining 49 residences will be in a more exclusive standalone residential building.
The March issue of Monocle just dropped, debuting a new format called the Monocle 100. It's a list of the people, places, and things worth knowing about. And in the middle of it is something called the Monocle Property Survey, which was deliberately timed to coincide with MIPIM, the massive real estate conference that takes place every March in Cannes.
As a quick aside, our team contemplated going to MIPIM this year in search of both friends and money, but then we thought to ourselves: Why bother going to the South of France when we have Toronto in the middle of March to enjoy?
The first thing the Property Survey does is give a rare nod to developers: "While architects often nab all the credit for building our cities, streets and homes, it's actually developers who should get much of the kudos (and blame, in some instances). Because it's usually developers — small, large, private, state-funded — that must secure land, raise capital and take risks." It almost feels weird hearing somebody say something positive about our kind.
But even better, the survey includes a full page on our unique creative residency program at Parkview Mountain House (Park City, Utah):
A big thanks to the Monocle team for the feature. If you're in Toronto and would like to pickup a copy of this month's issue, visit their shop in Little Italy at 776 College Street. And if you'd like to learn more about PMH, including our creative residency program, visit pmhpc.com.
One of the big housing trends that we have seen across North America over the last several years is the push to allow greater supply in low-rise neighbourhoods.
Here in Toronto, this has come through a well-known program called Expanding Housing Options in Neighbourhoods (or EHON), which I believe launched around 2020. But you can find countless similar programs in other cities.
Salt Lake City, for example, is currently looking at updating its single-family exclusive zoning to allow for "gentle infill opportunities" on smaller lots. The zones under consideration cover 77% of the land zoned for residential in SLC. And interestingly enough, this program is also called Expanding Housing Options.
Whistler is out, the Interior of BC is in. Huge real estate deals are out, powder chasing is in. If you're a long-time reader of this blog, you'll know that I do a ski and snowboard trip with a group of friends each year around this time.
Our last three trips were to Park City (where it snowed so much we lost power); Trois Vallées (which also served as my bachelor party and which involved equal parts snowboarding and dancing on tables); and Hokkaido (where it looked like Toronto looks right now).
This year — for annual number fifteen — we're headed to Revelstoke and Kicking Horse in the Selkirk and Purcell Mountains.
On some trips we like to combine an urban trip with the mountains, so that we can also gawk at architecture and urbanism. That's what we did in Japan last year. But this year's trip is not about that. It's about unadulterated time in the mountains.
It has been a weird season for snow. The west coast has been too warm with not enough of it, and the east coast has been too cold with unusual amounts of it. I have no idea what's in store for us this week, but here's to hoping it looks like the cover photo of this post.
In some related real estate news, Extell Development Company and Hilton just announced that they'll be opening a Waldorf Astoria Resort and Residences in the new Deer Valley East Village.
It's going to have 132 hotel keys and 105 one- to six-bedroom branded residences ranging from 1,099 to 5,155 square feet. Of the 105 branded residences, 56 will be "hotel residences" located above the hotel, and the remaining 49 residences will be in a more exclusive standalone residential building.
In their case, they are proposing to create a new definition for "Small Lot Dwellings," which would, among other things, reduce the minimum lot area per dwelling to 2,000 sf, reduce the number of required off-street parking spaces from 2 to 1 per dwelling, and allow up to four homes per lot via fourplexes and townhomes.
One of the things that I found interesting about their proposed policies is that they seem to explicitly encourage "sideways" multiplexes and row houses like this:
This starts to tell you something about the scale of SLC's urban fabric, even though there are no dimensions on this conceptual site plan. These are big lots.
Despite sometimes having the same moniker, cities are responding to their urban contexts in different ways. SLC uses explicit density math: at least 2,000 sf of site area per dwelling. Whereas Toronto increasingly relies on built-form standards: here's the envelope you can build, if you can fit a fourplex within it (or a sixplex in certain wards), go for it. And don't worry about parking.
If Toronto mandated one parking space per dwelling unit, virtually no multiplexes would ever get built in the city. Our lot sizes simply don't allow for it. Moving away from the car is also the only way that Toronto will be able to continue to grow and scale up.
Despite these local nuances, the overall ambition remains the same. Low-rise neighbourhoods across North America are being asked to house more people on the same amount of land, and that's a positive step forward.
Cover photo by Ashton Bingham on Unsplash
Map and planning diagrams from Salt Lake City Planning Division
If you missed my recent post about the East Village and the new Four Seasons that is also currently under construction, click here.
In their case, they are proposing to create a new definition for "Small Lot Dwellings," which would, among other things, reduce the minimum lot area per dwelling to 2,000 sf, reduce the number of required off-street parking spaces from 2 to 1 per dwelling, and allow up to four homes per lot via fourplexes and townhomes.
One of the things that I found interesting about their proposed policies is that they seem to explicitly encourage "sideways" multiplexes and row houses like this:
This starts to tell you something about the scale of SLC's urban fabric, even though there are no dimensions on this conceptual site plan. These are big lots.
Despite sometimes having the same moniker, cities are responding to their urban contexts in different ways. SLC uses explicit density math: at least 2,000 sf of site area per dwelling. Whereas Toronto increasingly relies on built-form standards: here's the envelope you can build, if you can fit a fourplex within it (or a sixplex in certain wards), go for it. And don't worry about parking.
If Toronto mandated one parking space per dwelling unit, virtually no multiplexes would ever get built in the city. Our lot sizes simply don't allow for it. Moving away from the car is also the only way that Toronto will be able to continue to grow and scale up.
Despite these local nuances, the overall ambition remains the same. Low-rise neighbourhoods across North America are being asked to house more people on the same amount of land, and that's a positive step forward.
Cover photo by Ashton Bingham on Unsplash
Map and planning diagrams from Salt Lake City Planning Division
If you missed my recent post about the East Village and the new Four Seasons that is also currently under construction, click here.
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