Our cost consultant, Finnegan Marshall, gave our team a presentation today on what’s happening with construction costs in Toronto and across Canada. I’ve said this before, but hard costs are no joke right now. One of the areas that they focused on was the impact… Read More
Inclusionary zoning has been on my mind this week and so I thought I would revisit some of my old posts on the topic. I wrote about it here, here, here, here, here, and probably in a bunch of other places that I am forgetting… Read More
Urbanation released its Q1-2021 quarterly condo market update for the Greater Toronto Area at the end of last month. And there’s some good stuff in it. New condo sales totaled 5,385 units in the first quarter of this year, which is higher than the 10-year… Read More
Building on yesterday’s post about inclusionary zoning, below is a telling diagram from the Urban Land Institute showing which areas of Portland can support new development and which areas cannot. To create this map, ULI looked at achievable rents in each US census block to… Read More
I asked this question on Twitter this morning because I am planning to write more development-related posts. It’s a topic that seems to be of interest to a lot of people. One question that I received was about the kind of profit margins that Toronto… Read More
Let’s say that we have a piece of development land worth $100. That is the market value of the land based on its highest and best use at this particular point in time. Now let’s assume that the land was just encumbered with a new… Read More
Developing a building can often feel like you’re trying to solve a rubik’s cube. Among other things, you have to manage a myriad of different stakeholders, all of which — naturally — operate in their own self-interest. There’s the city, community, politicians, various agencies, consultants,… Read More
On February 1, 2017, an inclusionary zoning ordinance came into effect in Portland, mandating that all new residential projects with 20 or more units dedicate a portion of the building to affordable housing. For the first year, the requirement was 8% of all units for… Read More
The San Francisco Chronicle recently published an article called, “SF residential projects languish as rising costs force developers to cash out.” It talks about the impact that rising costs (both construction and other) are having on new housing supply. Some developers aren’t building even though may… Read More
About a year ago, Portland enacted “Inclusionary Housing” policy requiring new apartment buildings of 20 units or more to offer up a portion of the units at below market rents. Developers are able to select from a few different options and the rents are calculated according… Read More
