Tag: etobicoke

• No sidewalks — feature or bug?

  

  I tweeted the above photo on Saturday morning with the following text: “No sidewalks. Towers in the distance. Welcome to the inner suburbs of Toronto.” What I, of course, wanted to highlight is the contrast between the rural-like street with no sidewalks in the foreground, and the high-density towers built on top of Kipling subway station in the background. It is a perfect example of the kind of Toronto we are building, by design, all across the city. And it also exemplifies one of our great philosophical divides.

  If you look at the responses on Twitter, you’ll see that there are a few opinions. Generally speaking, though, there are probably two main ways to think about this scene. One way is to look at the transit-oriented housing and think of it as urban progress. We are adding new housing and we are doing it in a way that hopefully results in more walkable communities. With this in mind, you might now see the three humans on the street (one of which is in a stroller) and think it’s a shame that they have been forced to walk on the road.

  The other main way to look at this is that not having sidewalks is actually a feature and not a bug (indeed, a lack of sidewalks can be a pretty good indicator for rich people/wealthy households). From this lens, not having sidewalks means uninterrupted driveways (more parking), less through foot traffic, and a more quaint small-town feel. Also with this lens might be a view that the rural-like street was there first, before the transit-oriented towers. And it was doing just fine before people like me drove through their neighborhood and pointed out the lack of sidewalks.

  How do you see this scene?

  2023.03.19

• Mackay Laneway House is now under construction

  Mackay Laneway House begins! cc: @Gabriel_Fain pic.twitter.com/g40uhDUPbn

  — Globizen™️ (@globizen) August 7, 2020

  Well, it only took 11 years.

  I still remember the first time I walked into Etobicoke Civic Centre and showed the lady at the counter my design for a laneway house. She didn’t know what a laneway house was and she couldn’t figure out where it fronted. “Wait, it’s behind the main house? It has no frontage. Where’s the street? Huh?” A lot has changed over the past decade, as I knew it would. All of the building permits are now in and Mackay Laneway House is under construction in Toronto’s Corso Italia neighborhood.

  Kilbarry Hill is overseeing the construction process. (Construction was supposed to start earlier this summer, but COVID-19 had something to say about that.) Regular updates will be posted on the Globizen blog and on the socials, with the goal of creating a kind of “how-to guide” for laneway suites. Expect detailed construction updates, a list of the individual trades that are being used, post-completion costing information, and probably a bunch more.

  The first order of business is the site servicing work, all of which has to be done via the existing house. No connections off the mains because, remember, these are intended to be secondary suites, similar to basement apartments. This raises the question of how best to submeter the utilities. Thankfully, the good folks over at Lanescape were kind enough to share how they have done it.

  Click here to subscribe to the Globizen Bulletin.

  2020.08.09

• Toronto’s first all-female condo project

  

  Real estate development has historically been, and unfortunately still is, a male dominated business. (The story of Florence Casler is, however, a great outlier.) If you want some empirical evidence for this, pay attention to the length of the line for the men’s bathroom the next time you’re at a real estate conference or event.

  This needs to change. Which is why my good friend Taya Cook (of Urban Capital) has just announced, in partnership with Sherry Larjani (of Spotlight Development), the first all-female development project in Canada. It’s called Reina and it’s planned for a vacant site at 689 The Queensway, Toronto. Here is an excerpt from a recent RENX article:

  “We’re embarking on this project to create more visibility for women in real estate development, and to inspire younger women to see career possibilities,” said Cook, the director of development at Urban Capital, in a release announcing the project. “It’s a huge industry and a massive economic driver for the region. For some reason it has been seriously lagging behind in gender equity.”

  Two things are probably important to mention about the team and project.

  Firstly, the women developing Reina are all leaders and key decision makers. This is important for the project’s broader mission, but also because it will likely remove male biases from the design process. Everything from architecture to construction will be led by women and will incorporate a “female perspective.” Secondly — and this just makes the narrative even better — the site used to house a strip club.

  Congratulations Taya, Sherry, and the rest of the project team on a terrific development and initiative: “Condominiums designed by women. Developed by women. Built for everyone.” Follow Reina on Instagram, here.

  Image: Reina Condos

  2019.05.28

• The city refused my laneway house

  

  This afternoon I stood up at the Committee of Adjustment (Etobicoke York) to present the laneway house proposal that Gabriel Fain Architects and I have been working on for the past year and that I have been working on since 2009.

  But before I could start I was told that Councillor Palacio had just submitted a last minute letter to the Committee. I was given a few minutes to read it, but the big bold “REFUSE” was probably the only word I needed to read.

  I was then asked if I had read planning staff’s report. I acknowledged that I had read it and that I was aware that they were also recommending refusal of the application. I also noted that a number of my immediate neighbors sitting behind me were also opposed to the proposal.

  That’s how my presentation started. 

  At this point you might be wondering: why bother?

  I stood up today because, as most of you already know, laneway housing is something that I feel strongly about. This isn’t just about my individual project. I mean, why do all of this work for one small dwelling unit? For me, this is about city building and trying to affect positive change. (I would also love to live on a laneway.)

  I could go on here about how the proposal was shorter than other existing structures on the lane, how the FSI was in check, how we had carefully studied shadows, and how planning staff had already supported greater densities and multiple dwellings on lots of similar size in the area. 

  But that’s not what today was really about.

  Today I heard loud and clear that whether the proposal was a laneway tiki hut or a 2 storey laneway suite, the community did not want more people living in the area and they most certainly did not want more renters living in the area.

  My message to the Committee was that in my humble opinion this is inevitable. Look to Vancouver. Look to Edmonton. Look to many other cities. What we are debating today, or at least what we should be debating today, is what these laneway houses or suites or tiki huts are going to look like.

  Right or wrong, our proposal was an attempt to answer that question. We looked carefully at what others had done before us, including our friends at Lanescape and Evergreen, and we proposed something that we believed was sensitive to its context.

  We were unsuccessful.

  But here’s the silver lining. At the end of it all, and right before a motion was made to refuse the application, one of the committee members said something very impactful. He more or less said: “I agree with you. This is inevitable.”

  Sadly today was not that day.

  I would like to thank everyone who came out today and everyone who got up to speak in support of laneway housing. It meant a lot to me. Some of you are also readers of this blog and it was great to meet you in person. Thank you.

  2017.08.11

• The ultimate Toronto transit map

  

  If you live in Toronto and only give serious thought to one thing today, it should be to this interactive transit map created by Metro.

  The map shows all existing, planned, and proposed transit lines in the city, and then overlays population densities, commuting patterns, household income, and so on. It’s a super valuable map that I think reveals a lot about how we should be focusing our energies to get Toronto moving.

  So what sorts of things does it tell us? I’ll give 2 examples.

  If you look at commuting patterns across the Bloor-Danforth subway line, you’ll see that Runnymede station in the west is where people switch over from taking transit to driving. People west of that station tend to drive. Naturally, it also happens to coincide with where population densities start to fall off.

  By contrast, if you look at the east side of the city along the Danforth and beyond, the entire stretch more or less relies on transit to get around. Part of this likely has to do with income levels, but it’s also because of the availability of the Gardiner Expressway. There’s no equivalent in the east end. Dylan Reid of Spacing Magazine believes this makes a case for some sort of road pricing along the Gardiner, and I would agree.

  As a second example, look at the population densities along the proposed Downtown Relief Line, Finch LRT, and John Tory’s SmartTrack line. Outside of the core, the population densities are relatively low along the proposed SmartTrack line – which is never a good thing for rapid transit.

  There’s also no Sherbourne station on the SmartTrack line, which happens to have the highest population density across the entire Relief Line – 22,131 people per square kilometre! That’s more than any other stop along the Yonge-University subway line except for Wellesley station.

  I’ve written about this a lot before, but I think we need to do a better job of matching up transit investment with expected customer demand. Too often we let politics get in the way of rationale decision making. Maybe it’s time we did something like set minimum population densities. If you want a subway line in your area, you have to first bring the people.

  What else does this map tell you?

  2014.12.06

• How wise are crowds?

  Earlier this week I wrote a post about a new build home under construction at 37 Canerouth Drive in the west end of Toronto. As part of that post, I asked people what they thought the home would be valued at when it was completed. There were just under 10 responses (many thanks!) and I thought it was really fascinating to see the ranges.

  A lot of you responded in the comment section of the post, but a bunch of the other estimates came in via Facebook, Twitter, and email. It isn’t a huge data set, but I’ve nonetheless consolidated the ones I could remember I received:

  $2,375,000
  $2,750,000
  $1,800,000
  $3,000,000
  $8,500,000
  $2,600,000
  $3,500,000
  $1,750,000

  If you average these estimates, you come to a value of $3.3M. However, the clear outlier is the $8.5M. So let’s take that one out and see how the number changes. If you do that, you then get an average estimate of $2.5M. A pretty big swing.

  Now, I don’t know offhand how accurate that number really is, but I’m fascinated by this idea of “the crowd” determining value. Particularly for markets such as housing where supply can be completely heterogeneous and there isn’t a lot of transaction volume to refer back to (compared to other types of markets).

  Because my strong belief is that under the right circumstances and with enough data points, this number could end up being hugely accurate. And, it could also be more forward looking since it’s capturing current market sentiment as opposed to being based on historical transaction prices.

  If you have any thoughts on this, I’d love to hear from you 🙂

  2014.10.24

• Exploring the Mimico waterfront

  

  This morning I explored Humber Bay Park, which is a waterfront park in the west end of Toronto. It’s in a neighborhood called Mimico that used to be a separate town, with its own mayor, until 1967. I honestly can’t remember the last time I was there, so it was fun to explore what felt like a new part of the city.

  Given its proximity to downtown and the fact that it’s very well connected to the water, the area is currently facing tremendous development pressures. In fact, as I was standing in line waiting to order an Americano, the conversation happening directly in front of me was all about how developers are fighting to buy up every piece of land they can find. Normally I would chime in, but today I decided to stay silent.

  

  Today the area is an interesting mix of old low-rise and mid-rise rental apartment buildings (many of which fell into decline a long time ago), and new high-rise condominiums that are all fighting for unobstructed views of the lake and downtown.

  

  There wasn’t a ton of street or public life going on, but it was certainly a beautiful place to spend a Sunday morning. As much as I’m looking forward to getting back into snowboarding, I’m not quite ready for summer to be over. So I’m happy that we’ve been having some great weather in the city.

  2014.09.07

• How Toronto is growing

  If there are two things we like to talk about here in Toronto it’s that there are a lot of condos going up and that it’s becoming increasingly difficult–some would say impossible–to get around. Just this past weekend, I had 2 or 3 people tell me that biking is the only practical way to get around downtown and that it’s fairly easy to outwalk a streetcar on either Queen Street or King Street.

  Usually these statements are followed by a question, asking what the city is doing to address these issues. The unfortunate reality is that I think urban mobility is going to get worse before it gets better (although I am thrilled about the Eglinton Crosstown line now under construction). If you’re a regular reader, you’ll know that I’m a supporter of a Downtown Relief Subway line and that I was disappointed by John Tory’s recent transit proposal.

  The best way to explain why I feel this way is to talk about how and where Toronto is growing. In my post on John Tory’s transit proposal, I talked about how Toronto is developing in the shape of an upside down letter T. And the reason for that is because in the city’s Official Plan, the “Downtown and Central Waterfront” area is identified as a growth node and is shaped more or less like an upside T. It’s the light orange in the following map.

  

  In addition to the downtown core, the areas shown in red are earmarked as “Centres” for growth. There’s one in each borough (Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough) and one at Yonge & Eglinton, which most people would consider to be the heart of midtown. Finally, you have the “Avenues” which are the greenish brown lines on the above map. Those are areas that city also hopes will accommodate future growth.

  Now, let’s look at where development is happening in the city. Here’s residential development from 2008 to 2012. The biggest circle represents 2,000 proposed residential units.

  

  And here’s non-residential development. The largest diamond represents projects with a non-residential floor area greater than 50,000 square meters (~540,000 square feet).

  

  What should become immediately apparent is that growth–particularly on the residential side–is happening more or less according to plan. The biggest “outliers” are really the development happening along Mimico’s waterfront and all the development happening along Sheppard Avenue East. But those are because of the water and the Sheppard subway line.

  In both the residential and non-residential cases though, the downtown and central waterfront area is quite clearly receiving a significant share of the development happening in the city.

  

  Which always makes me wonder: Why are we so reluctant to build proper transit in the core?

  The city’s Official Plan is clearly funneling growth to downtown and yet we continue to propose, fund, and build subway lines in areas where the population densities are lower and ridership levels will inevitably be less. Which ultimately means that the required government subsidies to keep those lines operating will be higher.

  I’m not suggesting that the inner boroughs don’t also need top notch transit and infrastructure. They absolutely do. But I get frustrated when politics trumps rational city building. And so does everybody else who’s stuck with inadequate mobility options.

  Images: City of Toronto

  2014.06.02

• Looking east

  There’s a fairly real divide between east and west here in Toronto. When people talk about real estate or describe the kind of person they are, they often say things like: “I’m an east end kind of person” or “I only want to buy on the west side.” There’s such a split that somebody recently said in a meeting I was in that the east vs. west real estate divide is like Christianity vs. Judaism. 

  Historically, the west has generally been considered more desirable than the east–regardless of what scale you’re looking at. Downtown west vs. downtown east, Etobicoke vs. Scarborough, and so on. And for whatever reason, this seems to be the case in a lot cities I’ve been to. Consider Montreal, Vancouver, New York, and London, to name a few. 

  But lately, I’ve been noticing a growing acceptance of the east side. Friends are telling me that, even though they don’t know the east all that well, they’re almost agnostic to which side they buy a home on.

  At the same time, we’re seeing Toronto’s development boom spread to the east along streets like Church and Jarvis; paralleling the kind of intensification we’ve already seen on the west along Bay Street, University Avenue and further. I’m also noticing a lot of west end restauranteurs open up on the east side. See Carbon Bar and Gusto 501 as two recent examples.

  But with the neighborhoods like the Distillery District and Leslieville attracting lots of yuppies and with neighborhoods like Regent Park and the West Don Lands coming online, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise to you that developers and other entrepreneurs are looking east. Maybe you should too.

  2014.05.10