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.

Subscribe

  • Don’t serve coffee

    For the last few weeks, a small corner store/cafe at 42 Dewson Street has been in the news here in Toronto. It has been in the news because, despite the fact that Toronto is actively working to allow more uses like these in residential neighborhoods, it is my understanding that it currently remains a legal non-conforming use. Meaning, it’s allowed to operate only because it’s been there for a long time.

    The specific fight right now, though, is around whether this corner store is allowed to serve people coffee. It can sell groceries and stuff, but can it serve coffee? (Also, self-serve coffee is apparently an entirely different thing and acceptable behavior.) The store owner thinks the answer is yes. But then somebody called in an anonymous tip and the city came knocking:

    CityNews reached out to the City of Toronto for a response. They said “the building at 42 Dewson St. is in a Residential Zone, and a non-residential/commercial use is not permitted. Any change of use from a Retail Grocery/Variety Store is not permitted; and that includes store staff preparing food or drinks (or coffees) for sale to patrons. A change of use, requires zoning relief from the Committee of Adjustment.”

    Okay, so serving coffee to people is potentially problematic. But why? Here are three possible reasons that immediately come to mind:

    • Somebody else in the neighborhood is serving coffee and they’re ruthlessly trying to eliminate all competition.
    • Serving coffee encourages people to linger and lingering people make more noise relative to people who don’t linger.
    • The neighborhood is filled with pedants who like to read zoning by-laws in their spare time and they just can’t stand seeing such a blatant disregard for refreshment rules.

    There are, of course, other possible reasons. And according to Twitter/Reddit, the real reason is that the property is owned by a rich developer and the neighborhood is, for a variety of reasons, pissed off at said rich developer. I don’t know that this is true, but maybe it is. Because fighting over served versus self-served coffee seems like an insane thing to argue about.

    If you happen to agree, Dan Seljak has a petition you can sign, here.

    Photo: CityNews

  • America’s most and least car-oriented cities

    My partner Kieran sent me this chart this morning:

    It is a summary of the average weekday miles traveled by adults in private vehicles, including taxis and ride-hailing vehicles, for the 50 largest metro areas in the US (data is from the fall of 2023). At the top of the list with the most miles traveled is Raleigh, and at the bottom of the list with the fewest miles traveled is, not surprisingly, New York.

    The other cities on the bottom of this list probably won’t surprise you either. But it’s a good reminder of how built form determines our mobility choices. If you look up which US cities have the highest population densities and the most compact built forms, I think you’ll generally find that it mirrors what you’re seeing here.

  • Approved but unbuilt

    Recent data from the City of Toronto indicates that there were approximately 106,000 new residential units completed between 2019 and 2023. That averages to about 26,500 homes per year.

    At the same time, Toronto is reporting that 258,397 units are currently approved for development and that 436,421 units are currently under review. The former means that the projects have been approved and that a building permit has been applied for or has been issued. And the latter means that the units are still under review or under appeal.

    These feel like staggering numbers. If we were to use the same completion rate as 2019-2023, it would take over 26 years to build these 694,818 new units (homes approved + under review).

    However, I think it’s safe to assume that not all of these homes will be built; at least not in the short term. Many (perhaps most) of these projects are simply going to evaporate in the current market environment. They’re unfinanceable.

    Because that’s the thing, zoning approved does not necessarily equal built and occupied. And right now, in this market, these two things feel like they’re diverging. Toronto grew by about 207,000 people between 2019 and 2023. And it built about half of this number in new homes.

    When we look back at the next four years, I suspect that this housing supply number will be noticeably lower. This is despite the staggering headline numbers.

  • Electric vehicles are approaching price parity

    According to Bloomberg Green, there are now at least three car manufacturers — Tesla, Hyundai-Kia, and GM — with electric vehicles that (1) have a range greater than 300 miles (480 kilometers) and (2) cost less than the average price of a new vehicle in the US (which is currently around $47,000). This means that we are now approaching price parity:

    This is an important adoption milestone, even if it does, at this point, feel totally expected. The International Energy Agency (IEA) is forecasting full price parity by 2030. But in my mind, I’m already done with ICE vehicles. When I bought my current car over 6 years ago, I knew it would be the last internal combustion engine I ever own.

  • Infinity and beyond

    Earlier this week, Oklahoma City Council approved plans for the 1,907-foot-tall Legends Tower. If built according to these plans, it would become the 5th tallest building in the world and the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere.

    Currently, the tallest building in the US is One World Trade Center at 1,776 feet (581 meters). This is a symbolic height meant to reference the date of the Declaration of Independence.

    To be even more specific, though, the Legends Tower wasn’t approved at 1,907 feet. As I understand it, it was approved with with an unlimited height. Meaning, if the developers wanted to go even taller in the future, they could.

    This is sort of unique. Usually when a new by-law/ordinance is passed, it includes a maximum height in feet/meters. In this case, I guess they’ll just use an infinity symbol and call it a day.

    Here are some quotes from Dezeen:

    “AO is delighted that the Oklahoma City Council has approved the development team’s request for unlimited height for the Boardwalk at Bricktown,” said AO.

    “We are grateful that the City Council has embraced the vision of Matteson Capital and the entire design team to transform the city into a global destination.”

    The obvious question is “will this get built?” And I don’t know the answer to that. But I do think that infinity is just as symbolic as 1,776 feet.

  • 10 years of radical change in Paris

    I know that many of you already know this, but it’s pretty remarkable what Paris has been able to achieve over the last 10 years:

    Paris has closed more than 100 streets to motor vehicles, tripled parking fees for SUVs, removed roughly 50,000 parking spots, and constructed more than 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) of bike lanes since Mayor Anne Hidalgo took office in 2014.

    The result is that, according to city officials, air pollution in the capital has declined by about 40% since 2011. And bicycle usage has increased by some 70% — this is since 2019.

    Now, Paris does happen to be blessed with a dense urban fabric. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that this transformation was simple or easy. The difference is will. Most Parisians seem to support these actions.

    So the next time you’re stuck in traffic and cursing some scapegoat, maybe consider what you would be willing to do to dramatically reduce traffic congestion. Would you be open to radical change in your city?

  • Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism

    A few months ago, one of my old professors from architecture school — Phu Hoang — reached out to me through this blog. That’s one of the benefits of writing publicly — it becomes your calling card. In this case, it had been at least 16 years since I was in his design studio.

    We connected over a call. He told me about his and Rachely’s firm, MODU Architecture. And he let me know that he’s no longer teaching at Penn. He is now the Head of Architecture of the Knowlton School at Ohio State University.

    Then, following the call, he was kind enough to send me a copy of his new book, Field Guide to Indoor Urbanism:

    The typical approach to modern building design is to have clearly defined boundaries between interior and exterior spaces. The outside is the outside. And the inside is a climate-controlled space that is, for the most part, sealed to the outside.

    Most of us spend the vast majority of our lives in these latter spaces. In fact, since the advent of modernism and the International Style over a century ago, the general idea has been that these spaces can and should be mostly the same.

    HVAC systems make it so that you don’t really need to worry about context or the environment. What works in Toronto can work in Phoenix. You just need to dial up your cooling loads.

    This is so much the case that whenever I’m in a city with a fairly benign climate, such as somewhere in California, I always find myself fascinated by the fluidity between interior and exterior spaces. It’s such a foreign concept to me that it stands out: “Wait, how is this not sealed?

    Indoor urbanism, on the other hand, makes the argument that this binary approach is the wrong way to think about spaces. Here’s an excerpt from a recent Metropolis article about MODU:

    They call this approach “indoor urbanism,” which privileges the blurred boundary between what has traditionally been considered interior space and exterior space. This in-between space–straddling open and closed, artificial and natural–deserves architects’ keen attention, especially as the planet warms. “Indoor urbanism recognizes that architecture and cities are situated on an environmental continuum, as a matter of degrees rather than absolutes,” write Hoang and Rotem in Field Guide.

    Examples of this thinking can be found throughout their work. This project in Jackson, Wyoming is one of my favorites both because I love Jackson and because it’s a cold and snowy place. And yet, even in this climate zone, their design includes for several “semi-exterior areas” that serve to connect you to nature.

    This is a decidedly different way to think about architecture and urbanism. But as our climate crisis intensifies, it’s only going to become more relevant.

  • Power of the pen

    Yikes. To be completely honest, I was not expecting this post and this post to blow up in the way that they did. But hey, here we are and here’s the blogTO article: “Developer shames City of Toronto into issuing permit for bold new skyscraper.” What all of this suggests is that most people are shocked by how long it takes and how difficult it is to build a building. I mean, what I wrote about is just one sliver among the countless other things that need to come together for it to happen. But to my mind, these are productive discussions to be having. Because the more everyone is aware, the more likely we are to improve things.

  • More people, fewer new homes

    This is an interesting chart from the Centre for Urban Research and Land Development at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU).

    It is based on recent population estimates from Statistics Canada, and what it is saying is that the Greater Toronto Area grew by 233,000 people during the 12 months ending July 1, 2023. If you include Hamilton, this number increases to 246,000. And if you include the entire Greater Golden Horseshoe, it increases to 340,000.

    This is significantly more population growth compared to any of the six preceding years. And assuming this 2021 population estimate of about 9.8 million people is more or less correct, it represents an almost 3.5% growth rate. That’s remarkable. It’s also happening at a time when housing starts are declining.

  • Does above-grade parking kill street life?

    Here’s an unproven hypothesis that you can all challenge me on: many or most people only care about the environment while it is convenient to do so. Said oppositely, once it becomes inconvenient to care about the environment, we tend to start prioritizing other objectives.

    The example I have in my mind right now is parking. Now, to be clear, cars are not the best mobility solution for the environment. But let’s assume for a minute that you need parking and you have only two available options: below-grade parking or above-grade parking.

    The former is worse for the environment. If you were to look at the embodied carbon in below-grade parking versus above-grade parking, it would be higher. So from an environmental perspective, you want above-grade parking.

    It also makes for more flexible spaces. It’s hard to convert below-grade parking to much else. Again, this strengthens the environmental case, because now you’re building something that can be repurposed in the future.

    However, unless you’re forced to only build above-grade parking (as is the case in Miami), many/most cities tend to shun it. The most common objectives are (1) that it’s unsightly, and therefore needs to be wrapped with occupiable spaces, and (2) that it kills street life.

    What this suggests is that (1) and (2) are seen as being more important than the environment. And I think this is noteworthy in its own right. But here’s the other thing: this is arguably a false dichotomy. I mean, does above-grade parking necessarily kill street life?

    The above two street view images are from 1111 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach. It’s a parking structure and area of the city that I have visited many times. And I have to say, the street life seems fine to me. What do you think?