At the end of last month, Toronto City Council adopted the “Housing Now” action plan. The first phase of the plan involves the public marketing of 11 city-owned sites for the purpose of finding non-profit and private sector partners to help redevelop the lands with… Read More
Some of you may want to debate the “center of the world” title (New York may be more deserving), but Laura Parker of National Geographic recently published a great essay describing the tremendous growth that London has seen over the last 30 years thanks to in part… Read More
I really like what has been put forward for Block 8 in the newly developing West Don Lands neighborhood of Toronto. Here is a rendering looking east from the Distillery District toward the proposed westernmost tower: It feels like an extension of the Distillery District,… Read More
Each year, first-year graduate students at the Yale School of Architecture are tasked with designing and then physically building a new single-family house in an economically depressed neighborhood. Sometimes, like this year, the house may have multiple dwelling units. I have always thought that this… Read More
There are a number of affordable housing plans being thrown around in Toronto right now given that we have a municipal election coming up this fall. From what I have read, the plans are largely centered around surplus and/or available public land and possibly some… Read More
Over the weekend I watched this interview discussion between Elon Musk and Marques Brownlee. If it doesn’t show up below, you can find the video here. Elon figures that if Tesla works really hard they could probably come out with a USD 25,000 car in… Read More
A bunch of people have asked me lately about what they should do if they want to get smarter on land use planning and on the entitlement process for development projects. It was specific to Toronto, but I don’t think my answer is specific to… Read More
Fred Wilson published a good post last weekend on the proposed bill that went to New York City Council this week regarding new reporting requirements for Airbnb and their hosts in NYC. You can read more about his position on his blog, but he is… Read More
It happened. Today, Toronto and East York Community Council voted unanimously in favor of adopting a planning framework that would allow laneway suites on lands within the Toronto and East York District that are designated as “Neighbourhoods.” If you’d like to see the actual vote (and… Read More
The Seattle Times has an article up about “widespread single-family zoning” that will feel familiar to many here in Toronto who, I know, are having similar conversations about the amount of land dedicated to low-density housing. The article, by Mike Rosenberg, estimates that 49% of all… Read More
