Tag: toronto

• Panel: Investing in Condominiums

  I sat on a panel tonight for a discussion on investing in condominiums. It was organized by the Six Degrees Real Estate Mixer group.

  My overall position was that we’re now returning to a more balanced market. The days of massive appreciation and overnight riches are gone. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to see anywhere near the correction that the US housing market saw in 2008.

  What I do think it means is that everyone – from developers to small investors – needs to remain focused on fundamentals. Buy quality assets in great locations and make sure the rental income is there. Cash is king. That’s fundamentally what the real estate business is about.

  Overall, the data shows that developers are pulling back with respect to releasing new product to the market and that price appreciation has slowed, almost trading sideways. All of this is good for the market if you’re worried about a catastrophic crash.

  I think the experience in the US has made us all paranoid about our own housing market. But it could end up saving us from repeating their mistakes.

  2013.10.24

• Toronto needs a consistent taxi brand

  For the sake of our global brand, Toronto taxis need to have a consistent brand – the same car, the same colour. I’ve thought about this before and written about it somewhere, but it’s worth repeating.

  I was driving around downtown on Saturday night and I started to compare the ratio of cabs to non-cabs on the road. As is typical for any weekend night, most of the cars were cabs. And yet they’re a complete hodgepodge of different car types and colours.

  The cab companies, of course, like it this way. They want to be differentiated. But from a practical standpoint, does this even matter? Sure, I might call a specific company to pick me up somewhere, but when I’m hailing a cab on the street I go for the first available car. I couldn’t care less what company it is. 

  The result of this heterogeneity though is that we’re missing out on a valuable opportunity to brand our city. New York has its yellow cabs, London has its black cabs and all of Germany has its beige Mercedes Benzes. In our psyche, those cars symbolize those cities.

  Just like companies, cities today compete with one another for talent and capital. It’s been said many times before that the vast majority of Millenials now choose where they want to live (which city) before they even start looking for a job. Toronto needs to be on the top of that last.

  Taxi branding may seem like a small detail, but it’s not. As a comparison, take for example the Shangri-La Hotel company. The first time I stayed at one of their hotels was in Vancouver. I remember asking one of the staff members about the fragrance that seemed to permeate the entire building.

  He told me that it was the “Essence of Shangri-La” and that it was actually diffused throughout the entire building, as well as around the perimeter. The purpose of this was to give global travels a familiar feeling – that feeling of being home – wherever they are in the world. Now that’s consistent branding.

  Similarly, being in Toronto should make you feel like you’re here and in no other city. Our lumbering streetcars certainly help with that, but our cabs don’t. In a time where globalization is making cities feel more and more alike, we need to be doing everything we can in order to differentiate.

  Hell, in addition to having the same car and colour, maybe we should even create an Essence of Toronto scent for our cabs.

  2013.10.21

• Highrise

  A friend of mine recently told me about a documentary that he thought I’d like. It’s called Highrise. And it’s an exploration of vertical living around the world.

  But it’s not your typical documentary. It’s a multi-year, multi-media documentary that I’m still in the midst of exploring. There’s videos, interactive web documentaries, blog posts and other stuff planned.

  If you’re interested in highrise buildings and cities, you can start here and here on the New York Times’ website.

  2013.10.19

• Transit rant

  Transit planning is absolutely and utterly broken in Toronto. Over the past few years, it has become abundantly clear that our current methods are completely ineffectual. We’re entirely useless at delivering transit infrastructure to the most important economic region in Canada. 

  The process is deeply political, and with all three levels of government involved, as well as countless agencies, we’re getting absolutely nothing done. And when we do manage to achieve some level of progress, such as provincial funding for the Scarborough subway line, it turns out that fact and evidence would suggest we’re actually headed in the wrong direction.

  It’s an unfortunate situation that we’ve gotten ourselves into, because transit and infrastructure have such a profound impact on productivity levels and our economy as a whole. And yet we’re just sitting back while our politicians fight over transit investment according to what best suits their voter bases.

  Politicians should not be making these decisions. At this point they’ve proven their inability to make effective progress and so I believe we need to strip them of this responsibility. Part of the problem is that we have a mismatch of time horizons: politicians need quick wins, while transit investment is a long term game.

  What we need is an entity – ideally one entity – that isn’t reliant on ad hoc funding hand outs. It needs a sustainable funding source and the power to make decisions about where infrastructure investments will be made in our region. We can’t continue to screw this up. Transit is far too important.

  2013.10.14

• Getting to know Birch Cliff

  It’s no secret that TAS is working on a project in the Kingston Rd & Victoria Park area, technically known as Birch Cliff. As a result of this, I’ve been spending time getting to know this neighbourhood as well as the adjacent Upper Beaches area, which I truthfully didn’t know very well before.

  As someone who grew up in the west end of Toronto and never lived east of the DVP before, my sense of the place was limited. But I have to say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by what a lot of people would simply call Scarborough. 

  Kingston Road is a thriving main street with lots of great local businesses, as well as a spattering of the usual chains – such as Starbucks – that arguably legitimize the arrival of a neighbourhood. On top of this, the next major block south is Queen Street East and the Beaches neighbourhood.

  So to all of my downtown friends, go hop on your bike and check it out.

  2013.10.12
• [vimeo 76207227 w=500 h=281]

  Biking in Toronto means dodging cabs that don’t signal and closely watching parked cars for doors that might be about to open and could catapult you up and into the air. We have little in the way of dedicated cycling infrastructure. In fact, our incompetent mayor actually celebrates the removal of bike lanes. 

  Despite all this, Toronto has a fairly robust cycling culture. There’s no shortage of bearded hipsters riding around on fixies with a U-lock in their back pocket. However, it’s nothing in comparison to the city of Groningen in the Netherlands, where over 50% all of trips are made on a bicycle.

  If you’re into cycling or want to be converted, I recommend you take 15 minutes to watch the above video. The hoards of cyclists are interesting to see and they provide good background on how Groningen got to where it is today. Hint: It involves dramatic measures from a leftist city government.

  (Source: http://player.vimeo.com/)

  2013.10.12

• From sunset to sunrise

  Tonight is Nuit Blanche in Toronto. Running from sunset to sunrise, the festival is a collection of more than 110 contemporary art projects scattered all around downtown. It’s one of my favourite events in the city.

  This year one of my good friends has organized an installation called My Virtual Dream. It involves some sort of large dome structure and is located at University & College in front of the UofT pharmacy building on the north west corner.

  But other than the art, one of the things I love about Nuit Blanche is what it does for the city. It brings everybody out and onto the streets in order to explore and experience the city in a totally different way. Spaces get repurposed and new environments emerge. It’s a fun time to be in Toronto.

  2013.10.05
• [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBYPuSE0huc?wmode=transparent&autohide=1&egm=0&hd=1&iv_load_policy=3&modestbranding=1&rel=0&showinfo=0&showsearch=0&w=500&h=375]

  I wasn’t at TEDxToronto this year, but I just stumbled upon the conference opening video and I think it’s brilliantly done (by @BizMediaAgency). You need to watch it. It makes me proud to be a Torontonian.

  (Source: http://www.youtube.com/)

  2013.10.04

• Is Hong Kong’s transit model exportable?

  Hong Kong’s MTR (Mass Transit Railway Company) is one of the most profitable transit systems in the world. Rider fares amount to roughly 186% of its operating costs.

  In comparison, Toronto recovers about 70% of its operating costs from fares and New York recovers 57%. This means that in the latter two cases, government subsidies are required to keep the systems in operation.

  On top of this, Hong Kong relies on a unique “rail plus property” model, meaning that they also use the profits from real estate development activities to fund transit expansion. Here’s more on how it works:

  “In a value capture scheme, MTR is granted low-cost land around its future stations [from the government]. It then develops the land and uses the profits to pay for system expansion. Through this system, MTR has managed to build subways and elevated rail lines throughout the islands that make up Hong Kong, largely paying its own way.”

  Overall, this seems to make a lot of sense. Which begs the question, could this model – specifically “rail plus property” – be exported to other cities?

  NextCity asked this question with respect to New York, but came up with 3 problems: first, New York has an operating shortfall, unlike Hong Kong; second, New York doesn’t have the same amount of government owned land; and third, construction costs are way higher in NYC.

  The first thing that comes to my mind is, why are Toronto and New York so bad at farebox recovery? Our infrastructure is not self sustaining; we’re reliant on government handouts.

  Looking at fare pricing, there’s a big difference between the cities. Hong Kong charges based on distance traveled, whereas Toronto and New York charge a flat rate. Intuitively, dynamic pricing makes sense, since you’re then able to capture shorter rides that would otherwise be replaced by walking (or other alternatives) and you capture more value during longer rides.

  The other big difference is the hyper density of Hong Kong, since we know there’s a correlation between urban density and transit ridership. I would assume that the demand for most of their rail lines is fairly high. And it’s for this exact reason that I’m opposed to the new Scarborough subway line here in Toronto. Building subways in areas of the city without the densities to support it will only exacerbate our farebox recovery problem.

  As for the other two points regarding government land and high construction costs, I have to believe that there’s a way to create a “rail plus property” model that circumvents these concerns.

  For one, why does it have to be government land? Could we not reward developers with additional density if they build a subway station in the basement of their new building or contribute to a transit fund? The city already allows additional density near subway stations. Why not do the same for locations where we simply want a station?

  Transit is too important not to get right. I hope Toronto will soon understand that.

  2013.10.02

• How much space do you need?

  Urban Capital has just unveiled its new Smart House condo project here in Toronto. With units starting at 289 square feet, the project is all about ultra-compact and ultra-smart living.

  While micro-apartments are trending right now, they’re not a new idea. Architects have been fascinated by modular, adaptable and compact living for ages. Here’s an example of 100 square foot living capsules built in Tokyo in the 1970s.

  Tokyo, of course, is a unique example. There you have the entire population of Canada living in one city. But that doesn’t mean that Toronto isn’t feeling the pressures of urban intensification. Apartments are getting smaller.

  But the interesting thing about space is that it’s a relative thing. I personally live in 650 square feet and find it more than enough space. Though I also place a huge value on my time and try to minimize the amount of traveling I need to do.

  And this is really the trade off you make with space. As you move further away from a city (and housing costs drop), you’re effectively shifting those housing costs to transportation costs. Which includes real costs like gas and time, as well as more intangible costs like quality of life.

  However, I know many people that are willing to make that trade off for more space. But I wonder sometimes how much of that incremental space is necessity versus perceived necessity.

  How much space do you need?

  2013.09.29