Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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  • Free money for everyone

    The idea of providing everyone with an unconditional “basic income” is a popular topic these days – though it’s clearly not a new idea. I know many people today who think it is positively inevitable. At some point in the foreseeable future, inequality will reach such extreme levels that we will discover the need to give everyone free money, without any strings attached to it.

    Below is a TEDx talk by Rutger Bregman where he explains why this is what we should be doing. One of his examples is a study that was done in London where they gave a group of homeless people free money. What they discovered was that they didn’t just go out and buy alcohol and drugs, which is what some of you may be thinking. They did positive things with it. They became empowered.

    If you can’t see the video below, click here.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIL_Y9g7Tg0?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

  • The 0.1%

    City Observatory recently published a post called, The 0.1 percent solution: Inclusionary zoning’s fatal scale problem. 

    I recognize the political attractiveness of this land use policy, but I’ve always been skeptical about its effectiveness. 

    Here’s an excerpt from the post:

    “While inclusionary zoning gets top mention as a preferred policy by many affordable housing advocates, there’s precious little evidence that its ever had more than a token effect on the size of the housing affordability problem in any city. In addition, because inclusionary zoning requirements essentially shift the cost of housing subsidies onto new development, they raise its cost, and likely reduce the number of units that get built–which tends to aggravate housing shortages and further accelerate prices.”

    Sadly, I think that many housing policies tend to be more about optics, than about impact. There’s rarely such thing as a free lunch.

  • The value of relative pricing comparisons

    I find the topic of pricing incredibly interesting. How much is someone willing to pay for item X? I’ve said this before, but pricing was one of my favorite classes in business school.

    Here is a line that I really liked from a recent blog post by Tomasz Tunguz’s on price anchoring:

    “Relative pricing comparisons are among the most common method of price rationalization.”

    The topic of his post may not be all that interesting to this audience – it’s about software as service platforms – but the principles should be. 

    In Tomasz’s post he talks about how companies building SaaS products aimed at salespeople will often have their pricing compared to that of Salesforce. In other words, people might say to themselves: Salesforce costs $X per seat. Is this other product worth half of $X? Salesforce is the anchor.

    I can tell you that I do this all the time. (Do you?) I’ll say to myself, condos of this build quality are selling for $Y in this neighborhood. Is this other neighborhood better or worse? If better, how much of a premium might someone apply to it?

    So if you’re in the business of pricing products, you may want to give some thought to how your customers might be anchored when assessing your offering. Relative pricing comparisons allow us to rationalize dollars in our mind.

  • Building a city from the internet up

    There has been a lot of exciting tech + urbanism news this week in Toronto. Uber announced that it’s building a new artificial intelligence team in the city and it came out that Sidewalk Labs (Alphabet company) had responded to an RFP put out by Waterfront Toronto. 

    The RFP, which closed at the end of last month, was to find an “innovation and funding partner” for the 12-acre Quayside precinct shown above in purple. It’s the first parcel of the “eastern waterfront.” (Click here if you’d like to download a copy of the actual Request for Proposal.)

    These days, it’s easy to be cynical about these sorts of announcements. Every day you hear about some new innovation center or tech hub. But what’s perhaps unique about this one is that Sidewalk Labs is thinking crazier than most and they have the financial backing that crazy sometimes needs.

    If you’re not at all familiar with Sidewalk Labs, I suggest you read this post about how the company wants to build cities “from the internet up.” It’s by their CEO, Daniel L. Doctoroff. 

    Not surprisingly, they are thinking about everything from automated trash systems and autonomous vehicles (including their impact on built form, cost of living, productivity, etc.) to exchange-based thermal grids and more cost effective construction methods. And it’s not just about the technology. It’s about marrying tech + urbanism.

    Also interesting is their model of setting up a “hyper-focused labs”, which are each run by entrepreneurs-in-residence. These internal labs are focused on things like housing affordability, the health challenges faced by low-income city residents, and so on. 

    It’s all very exciting. So let’s ensure this moves forward and let’s hope Sidewalk Labs keeps thinking crazy. Toronto is ready to lead and show the world how a city built from the internet up should perform.

  • We’re working with superkül

    Today I am excited to announce that we are working with superkül architects on a new mid-rise condo project here in Toronto. Details about the site and project to follow.

    I am excited about this for a few reasons.

    It should go without saying that I love their work. Check out Compass House, SHIFT Cottage, Harbord Towns, and Oben Flats Queen East.

    You may also notice that they work at a variety of different scales and have a lot of single-family / custom home work. This was important to us because one of our goals for this project is to create really great homes within a boutique building. Emphasis on home.

    The other exciting piece is that one of the founding principals of superkül – Meg Graham – was one of my professors in architecture school. So there’s a sense of coming full circle.

    This matters to me because when I became a developer I told myself that I was going to be the kind of developer that gave a shit about design and actively worked to improve the built environment.

    I guess what I’m saying is that there’s a feeling of continuity. I haven’t forgotten where I came from, which was the world of architecture.

    Image: Blok Design

  • Powerhouse: A case study in neighborhood infill

    Dezeen recently featured the above project in Philadelphia by Interface Studio Architects. It’s called Powerhouse and the goal was to provide a variety of different housing typologies and tenures within a dense infill project that, at the same time, remains in keeping with its context.

    The full block complex contains 31 residential units, which are a mixture of apartments, duplexes (stacked towns), live/work units, and single-family townhouses. There’s also a corner retail space. 10 of the units are rental and the balance are for sale. The development also incorporates 3 existing rowhouses on the block. (Were these the holdouts?)

    Here is a diagram from ISA to give you a sense of how these different housing types come together:

    The project feels germane to Philly’s urban fabric and it is certainly interesting in its own right. But for those of us from Toronto, it’s perhaps even more interesting because it’s a scale of infill development that we don’t see very often in this city: low-rise intensification. (Also commonly referred to as “The Missing Middle”.)

    Recently I’ve been speaking with a number of people about whether or not Toronto should be thinking differently about its low-rise neighborhoods. Because as it stands today, even this sort of gentle density can cause quite a stir. 

    Two thoughts immediately come to mind – one of which will not surprise anyone who reads this blog. Firstly, I see laneway housing as an elegant way to intensify low-rise neighborhoods without changing their character. That’s why I’m proposing this house.

    Secondly, I have long felt that we should rethink how we treat arterial roads that are not designated as “Avenues.” That is, we should encourage greater densities. An “Avenue” designation signals mid-rise. But absent this, our policies are frankly retrograde, given the way some of these arterial streets have evolved over the years.

    What are your thoughts about this scale of infill?

    Images: ISA

  • Data is the new oil

    “A NEW commodity spawns a lucrative, fast-growing industry, prompting antitrust regulators to step in to restrain those who control its flow. A century ago, the resource in question was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era.“

    The Economist just penned an interesting piece arguing that the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data. That’s why the five most valuable publicly traded companies in the world are all tech/data companies.

    But the point they are really making is that current antitrust remedies are poorly suited to this new precious commodity. For example, in today’s world authorities need to be thinking not just about firm size, but about the extent of their data collection.

    There’s a reason firms with no (meaningful) revenue get acquired for huge numbers. Yes, sometimes it’s just for the talent. But it’s also because of the data they control and the potential threat they pose.

    So much of what we do today leaves a digital trace. And those traces are hugely valuable. I suspect we will be hearing more about this as the data economy continues to spawn tech giants.

  • A bureaucratic boondoggle

    Below is a brief interview with Peter Gilgan from Bloomberg North. Peter is the CEO of Mattamy Homes, which is the largest home builder in the Greater Toronto Area.

    In this video he talks about his concerns around a housing bubble and how the government is choking off housing supply in this region – leaving his sales offices mostly closed.

    He’s absolutely right in that everything does seem to take longer, and longer. But I suspect that some of you will debate his comment that homeownership should be considered a right.

    Is renting a bad thing?

    If you can’t see the video below, click here.

    //cdn.playwire.com/bolt/js/zeus/embed.js

  • A sneak peek of One Spadina Crescent

    Earlier this week I got a sneak peek of One Spadina Crescent – the new building for the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto. 

    The renovation and addition was designed by the Boston-based firm NADAAA. And let me tell you, it’s absolutely spectacular.

    I was in a rush at the time and I didn’t have my real camera on me, but I managed to quickly grab this snap:

    It’s of the third floor. 

    What you see in the middle are steps leading down to an “open bleacher space” that functions as a crit space and as an oculus that brings light into the core of the building. In the middle of the building is a large flex space.

    Because the building effectively sits in the middle of Spadina Avenue, the windows on the right side (above) look directly up the street, as if you were standing in the middle of it. I wish I had betters photos to share with you all.

    When you’re an architecture student, you spend almost all of your waking time in studio. I can certainly think of worse buildings to be cooped up in. I’m excited to see it in full swing come September.

    Click here if you’d like to see renderings of the building.

  • How Vancouver assesses laneway house eligibility

    image

    Vancouver has supported laneway houses since 2009. So today I thought I would take a look at what their policy considers to be an “eligible lot.” All of the information for this post was taken from this laneway housing how-to guide dated November 2016.

    Here are some of the main ways in which they assess eligibility:

    • Laneway houses are allowed on all lots in the following zones: RS single family zones, RT-11/11N, RM-
      7/7N, RM-8/8N, RM-9/9N and RM-9A/9AN.
    • LWHs are permitted in addition to a secondary suite within the main house.
    • LWHs can be for family use or for rental.
    • LWHs are permitted on lots with a minimum width of 9.8m (32.15′). But provided they are designed appropriately, planning may also allow LWHs on lots as narrow as 7.3m (23′).
    • The LWH site must have access to an open lane.
    • A fire access path must be provided from the street along one of the sideyards to the entrance of the LWH. This path needs to have a clear width of 900mm.
    • The lot must be deep enough to allow for a both a LWH and a backyard open space.
    • The LWH and the main house must have a minimum separation distance of 4.9m (16′).

    If you’re a regular reader of this blog and wondering how Mackay Laneway House stacks up against the above criteria, here are the test results:

    • The lot is in a Residential R Zone, which permits a variety of different building types ranging from detached houses to fourplexes and apartment buildings.
    • The lot width is 7.62m, which exceeds the lower minimum dimension.
    • There is a lane.
    • The access path on the sideyard is 2.38m, but with a bay window projecting into it. So net, it’s closer to 2m, which still greatly exceeds the minimum clear width above.
    • The design includes for a generous backyard between the main house and the proposed LWH. 
    • The separation distance between the first floor of the main house and the proposed LWH is 7.5m (24′-7″). The main house steps back on the second floor, and so this distance would then increase. But in all cases, the minimum dimension is easily exceeded.

    If you’d like to learn more about laneway housing in Vancouver, click here.