Here are a few Ontario / Toronto housing supply charts taken from this recent blog post by Mike Moffat (an assistant professor at Ivey Business School): So what do these tell us? Well, 2015 was a banner year for the supply of new apartments/condominiums in… Read More
In response to the tragic collapse of the 12-storey Champlain Towers South building in Surfside last year, the state of Florida is set to pass new stricter condominium rules around inspections and reserve funds. And according to the WSJ, the requirements would be some of… Read More
I just discovered a new alliance of non-partisan, non-profit resident and ratepayer groups in the Greater Toronto Area that have come together in opposition of what they see as “unregulated overdevelopment and the lack of sensible growth vision for the GTA.” If you’d like to… Read More
Yesterday I wrote about our housing doom loop. Today, the province of Ontario responded (maybe not to my post) by publishing this Housing Affordability Task Force report. In it, are 55 recommendations to improve overall housing supply across the province, with the end goal of… Read More
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) recently published its latest data on housing starts, housing under construction, and housing completions. Here are a few of the highlights: Canada saw 271k housing starts last year (2021). This includes single-detached housing and multiples, which captures semi-detached… Read More
If I have learned anything from this pandemic it is that, when push comes to shove, Torontonians will eat pretty much anywhere. On sidewalks. On streets. In white tents that masquerade as outdoor dining. And in many other little urban crevices. I am only half-joking,… Read More
The big news this week in Toronto planning & development is the province’s decision to approve three downtown development projects using a tool known as a “ministerial zoning order.” The impetus for doing this was to speed up the approval and delivery of about 1,000… Read More
There has been no shortage of prognostications about the demise of cities, offices, and a bunch of other things, as a result of this pandemic. And by now, a lot of you probably know that I think most of this is overblown. I worked in… Read More
Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec are border cities. They exist on either sides of the Ottawa River. And yet, 2017 data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation revealed that there’s about a $450 per month rent spread on the average two-bedroom apartment in these… Read More
This deserves a blog post. Below is a great tweet by Jason Thorne. Jason leads the department of planning and economic development at the City of Hamilton, where, full disclosure, we have a development project. I have said this many times before on the blog,… Read More
BRANDON DONNELLY 