The thing that we have been talking about for many months on this blog finally happened: Toronto City Council voted (18-7) in favor of allowing fourplexes as-of-right across all residential areas of the city. (If you’re curious, here is a map of which Councillors voted… Read More
I am positive that it had absolutely nothing to do with this post about fourplex feasibility, but I was happy to receive this notice in the mail yesterday: It is a public meeting notice for the City of Toronto’s proposed multiplex policies (defined as duplexes,… Read More
On the exact same day last week, the Toronto Star published two articles about housing. The first one, this one here, is about how “Toronto has protected huge parts of the city from anything denser than detached or semi-detached houses” and how this has resulted… Read More
Last week I wrote about Toronto’s plan to make fourplexes as-of-right across the city, but also why this form of missing middle housing shouldn’t have a maximum floor space index. Today, let’s look at the numbers in a bit more detail. If you look at… Read More
At the beginning of the year, I wrote this: The desire to add more housing to single-family neighborhoods will continue to pick up steam across North America. How exactly this plays out will be market specific, but in Toronto I expect to see new planning… Read More
Michael Beach used to have a YouTube channel where he “looked at Google Maps a lot.” Meaning, he would pan around various cities and comment on their planning and overall built form. Technically the channel still exists, but he stopped making new videos a few… Read More
Lloyd Alter of Treehugger recently wrote about this infill housing project in Paris. Designed by Mobile Architectural Office (MAO), it is a 6-storey building with 6 residential suites (two of which are 3-storey triplex suites) and 1 ground floor non-residential space. Building section: But here’s… Read More
It is an overwhelmingly positive thing for cities when you can somehow figure out how to turn a site like this (which looks to have been a single-family home): Into 13 homes and new ground-floor retail that looks like this (non-Google street view images can… Read More
I don’t know if any of you have had a chance to play with ChatGPT yet, but it is pretty incredible. Here is something that my friend David Fitzpatrick, who is a planner, tweeted out: There is really no way of telling that AI produced… Read More
The latest issue of Designlines magazine is about how Toronto is — finally — embracing laneway life. And one of the featured homes is none other than Mackay Laneway House. Pictured above is architect Gabriel Fain sitting on the front steps. As some of you… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 