Some of you might remember that Toronto City Council approved new garden suite policies earlier this year. Garden suites (also known as accessory dwelling units) are kind of like laneway suites but without the adjacent lane.

Unfortunately, these new policies were subsequently appealed by a group of Resident's Associations, and so they haven't been in force. Thankfully, the Ontario Land Tribunal has just dismissed this appeal:

What this means is that, as of today, you're now free to build a garden suite in the City of Toronto. So hire an architect and file for a building permit -- it's go time. If you need any referrals, please feel free to reach out.

The Ontario Land Tribunal is often criticized for its ability to overrule local communities on land use matters such as these. But this is a good example of why it is needed and why it is important to have some kind of neutral arbitral.

Because these sorts of decisions should not be based on what any one individual or group thinks; these decisions should be based on what makes for good planning and what makes the most sense for the broader city and region.

Invariably, this is going to piss some people off. But in my mind, it's kind of like that asshole teacher you used to have. Sure, you hated him/her at the time, but in retrospect you end up appreciating what they were trying to do to help.

This could be a bad analogy.

My friend Bruce of getrefm.com (real estate financial modeling) just introduced me to a new real estate startup called Envelope. Basically it’s 3D mapping software that allows you to quickly visualize the zoning envelope for a particular site. It’s similar to what Flux.io was initially trying to do.

Now, I think this is very cool, but my first reaction was: What if the zoning is out of date? What if approvals/entitlements are done a site-specific basis? This isn’t the case in every city, but I’ve heard some people in Toronto argue that this city basically has no zoning code. (We can debate that one in the comments, I’m sure.)

That being said, there are still many design guidelines in this city that shape built form and I could see a tool like this being incredibly useful. They’re still in private beta but I would like to try it out. Hopefully they’ll see this blog post and let me have an early peek.

Image: envelope.city

I’ve been writing about the hypocrisy of parking minimums for years now. Some posts here, here, and here. 

To me, it doesn’t make sense to try and promote more sustainable forms of urban mobility while at the same time mandating a minimum number of parking stalls in every new development. 

Do you want people driving or not driving? Pick one.

That’s why I was happy to see the following action item in the province of Ontario’s five year plan to transition to a low-carbon economy and fight climate change (thank you Ken Wilcox for bringing it to my attention):

I haven’t gone through the entire action plan and so this post is not a commentary on that. It is, however, a commentary on subsection 1.4. I believe it is the right thing to do and I’m stoked to see it in the plan.