Tag: toronto

• I love narrow streets

  

  

  If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll know that I’m a fan of narrow streets. It’s one of the reasons I have been such a supporter of laneway housing here in Toronto, and why I think they should ultimately allow for some non-residential uses.

  If you have narrow streets and reasonably decent buildings that frame them, you have a base condition that has worked remarkably well since the creation of cities. Almost by default, and even if you don’t have proper sidewalks, it is going to feel pedestrian-oriented.

  The challenge, however, is that it’s usually difficult to create these after the fact. Street networks are powerfully sticky; they generally don’t change unless you have someone like Haussmann rebuilding your city. So if you have these in your city, try and take advantage of them. You’re fortunate to have them.

  The above two photos/measurements are from Milan. Both streets are around 20 feet wide (or 6 meters), which happens to be the required width of a standard two-way drive aisle here in Toronto. It’s a good example of how differently cities can view and allocate space.

  You can do a lot with 6 meters.

  2023.05.28

• Fashion and design capital of the world!

  

  The first and only other time that I have visited Milan was over 20 years ago. I was 19 or so, and a close friend and I decided to take the train into Centrale without a place to stay and without a plan, other than to get into some trouble.

  We ultimately succeeded at this ambitious plan. But I clearly didn’t see enough of the city, and I left thinking that it was a bit of a grimy and sleepy place. I was disappointed. I thought it would be fashion everywhere, and it wasn’t for me. And this impression has lingered with me ever since.

  Boy have I been missing out.

  I have fallen in love with Milan on this very short trip. It really is a capital of fashion and design. This is not a city of meandering tourists looking for the Pantheon (okay, there’s still some of that); it is a big city of business and culture. And if I had to compare and contrast it to other cities, I would say this.

  Its built form is not nearly as manicured and as fussy as Paris’. In fact, in some ways, it’s a bit like Toronto. Its overall urbanism is messier, and you have to scratch beneath the surface and sneak into some courtyards before you really uncover its true beauty. But once you do, it’s magical.

  At the same time, its street fashion strikes me as being slightly fussier. There is an effortlessness in Paris that doesn’t seem as pronounced in Milan (though it is still there). Here, there’s a little more flash and a little more, “I’m sexy and stylish, and I would like you to be aware of that.”

  But this is not to say that you won’t see men and women in suits and stilettos riding a bicycle. It still feels effortless. It still feels natural. And when you’re here, you can’t help but feel like you’re probably not stylish enough for this capital of fashion and design.

  2023.05.23

• Fourplexes are here — now what?

  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 yes and which ones voted no. It’s not all that surprising.)

  This is a major accomplishment and milestone for Toronto. So congratulations to everyone who has been working to make this happen. But of course, now is when the rubber hits the road: Will the market actually build this new housing typology (for Toronto) at scale? Is it actually feasible?

  Jeremiah Shamess of Colliers came out this morning saying that the answer is no. These multiplexes aren’t feasible and it is “not going to solve our housing crisis or even come close.” He may be right, but I think a lot of people — myself included — are now looking closely at their feasibility.

  In fact, this morning I ran into a lender on the street — look what happens when you come into the office — that is seeing if these can be built using CMHC financing. And this is just one example of the work happening all over the city right now.

  There is also the question of scale. Small development projects are challenging. The general rule of thumb is that if you have the resources, you should build as big as you possibly can to drive economies of scale. So if these are actually feasible, who will want to build them?

  The margins on a build like this are almost certainly going to be somewhere between negative and marginally positive. But I still think there’s something to be said about being directionally right. There’s more work to be done and these policies will likely get adjusted, but I think that’s just fine as long as we’re moving forward.

  And that’s what we’re doing today.

  2023.05.11

• The negative externalities of Toronto’s “yellow belt”

  My friend Randy Gladman, of Colliers Strategy & Consulting, recently published this important opinion piece in Urbanize Toronto. In short, it is about how little of our land we dedicate toward high-density housing (about 5%), what that results in, and why it should change:

  TenBlock’s efforts are appreciated; more homes are desperately needed in Toronto, especially near transit. Intensification in all forms should be welcome. But there should be a better way to create the homes we need that minimizes demolition of the ones we have. We don’t have a shortage of low-density land near transit infrastructure in our city. Rather, we have a shortage of the political will needed to combat the calcified forces aligned against intensification. Looking at the development process in Toronto, we can see just how inefficient and confused our system of land planning has become when we consider how we treat low-density areas compared to the very small percentage of the city where greater density is accepted. 

  I think there’s growing awareness in this city and others about why this approach to land use needs to be modernized. And there is certainly positive change underway. But there’s still work to be done. So I’m happy that Randy decided to write about it.

  For the full article, click here.

  2023.05.04

• How Paris’ zoning envelope has changed over the centuries

  I came across this French paper over the weekend, while I was at the gym pretending to work out my legs. It is a fascinating look at the evolution of Parisian urbanism from 1600-1902, including how the city’s height limits have changed over the centuries. Here, for example, are two section diagrams showing the allowable building envelopes for both an 8 meter street and a 10 meter street:

  

  The way to read these is to start at the bottom with the width of the right-of-way (“voie”). As you move up, it then gives you the allowable heights for various dates. So for example, in 1667, the allowable building height for a 10 meter street was 15.60m. After this height, there was then a requirement to stepback following a 45 degree angular plane. Or in some cases, following a certain radius:

  

  We don’t have a ton of 8 and 10-meter wide streets here in Toronto, but there are obvious similarities between what is shown here and what is in our mid-rise design guidelines. Of course, the big difference is that we’re mostly zoned for low-rises houses and Paris is not. This broader context matters a great deal and it’s why I keep asking: Are you sure you want Parisian-style urbanism?

  2023.05.01

• Junction House just got its placemaking art

  Today was a fantastic day for the development manic meter. This was finally installed at Junction House:

  

  

  

  If you happen to find yourself in the area, check it out at 2720 Dundas Street West. And if you’d like to know a little bit about how this placemaking art came to be, click here.

  2023.04.26

• It’s decision time on fourplexes in Toronto

  We talk a lot about “missing middle” housing on this blog and, most recently, we’ve been talking about Toronto’s proposed amendments to allow fourplexes across the city and to do away with density maximums (among other things).

  Well, it’s now time to make a decision. These proposed changes are headed to Planning and Housing Committee on Thursday, April 27th. If you’d like to attend in person or virtually, here’s a copy of the public meeting notice.

  The other option is to make a written submission. The good people over at “More Neighbours Toronto” have created this website which will allow you to quickly write the Committee.

  There’s an auto-generated response in support of legalizing multiplex housing — and that’s what I used for my boring email submission — but, of course, you’re free to edit the text as you’d like.

  If you check the agenda, you’ll see that there are already hundreds of email submissions in to the Committee, many of them coming from More Neighbours. Clearly this is a topic that, one way or the other, many people feel very strongly about.

  Click here to make an email submission.

  2023.04.25

• Wealthiest cities in the world

  According to this annual survey by Henley & Partners (first chart from Bloomberg), these are the top 10 wealthiest cities in the world when you count the number of high-net-worth individuals (i.e. people with investable wealth greater than US$1 million):

  

  However, if you instead count billionaires, the top city flips from New York City to the Bay Area (which includes San Francisco and all of Silicon Valley). This isn’t all that surprising.

  Also not surprising is the precipitous decline in the number of HNWIs residing in Hong Kong. From 2012 to 2022, the number declined by 27%. That said, a bunch of other cities fared even worse. The city that lost the most millionaires over this same decade was Moscow. It declined by 44%.

  For those of you wondering about Toronto, we placed 12th, just after Chicago, with 105,200 millionaires, 193 centi-millionaires, and 18 billionaires:

  

  The next city in Canada on the list is Vancouver, and following that is Montreal:

  

  

  It is interesting to see how much further behind Montreal places with these metrics given that it is an urban region with about 1.6x the population of that of Vancouver’s.

  Also interesting — given its size and global importance — is Paris (18th when it comes to HNWIs):

  

  However, when it comes to seasonal draw, Paris is second only to Miami, which appears to be the undisputed global destination for rich people in the winter. Paris has 126 centi-millionaire residents, but during its peak holiday month (presumably summer), this number is believed to increase to over 300:

  

  Finally, looking at Park City, Utah, it has 8 permanent centi-millionaires and this number is thought to increase to over 100 during the winter snowboarding season. And to be clear, this transient population figure only includes people who own a second home there. It does not include rich people paying US$3,700 per night to stay at Deer Valley. That’s pretty good for a small town of only 8,500 permanent residents.

  

  To check out the full list of 97 cities, click here.

  2023.04.22

• Why so few people drive in Tokyo

  

  Daniel Knowles, who is a correspondent for the Economist, recently authored a book called Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse and What to Do About It. I haven’t read it, yet, but I did just read this excerpt about Tokyo, and it was jam-packed with interesting stats.

  Here are some of them:

  • Among developed cities, Tokyo has the lowest car use in the world. About 12% of trips are completed with a car, whereas 17% of trips are done with a bicycle. Most people walk and/or take transit. Tokyo has the most-used public transit system in the world — about 30 million people each day.
  • Car ownership across Japan is about 590 vehicles per 1,000 people. This is comparable to many European countries. In the US, it’s about 800 vehicles per 1,000. However, this figure drops in Tokyo. Here, the average is about 0.32 cars per household, which was interesting to see because most new housing projects in downtown Toronto have parking ratios that are much lower than even this figure.
  • The average size of a home in Tokyo is 65.9 square meters of usable area. By comparison, the average size of a home in London is 80 square meters. But given that according to Knowles, the average household size in London is 2.7 people, whereas it’s 1.95 in Tokyo. So per capita, Tokyoites actually have more space than Londoners.
  • 35% of streets in Japan are not wide enough to fit a car. If you add in streets that are wide enough to fit a car but not wide enough that a car could stop and not entirely block traffic, this figure jumps to 86%. This to me is a massively significant statistic, because if you want people to walk places you need small streets.
  • 95% of streets in Japan do not allow any sort of street parking — day or night.
  • The average Japanese car owner drives around 6,000 kilometers per year. This is about a third of what the average American does. In my case, it looks like I have averaged about 8,868 kilometers per year over the last 5 years. Though a big chunk of my kilometers would be from longer one-off snowboarding trips. In other words, I don’t drive all that often in the city.
  • Japan has some of the most expensive road tolls/prices in the world. Meaning, Japan does not actively subsidize driving and instead just charges drivers accordingly. Apparently the average is about 3,000 yen per 100 kilometers, which is about CA$30 per 100 kilometers.
  • In addition to not subsidizing cars, Tokyo is also one of the few cities in the world where their public transit does not need to be subsidized. A big part of this has to do with high ridership, but the other important part is that its transit authorities also develop real estate. Shockingly, this means that it tends not to build standalone and single-storey transit stations (ahem, I’m looking at you Crosstown LRT). Instead, they build lots of density where it always belongs: on top of transit.

  I may just have to read Knowles’ book.

  2023.04.21

• Two-way, all-day regional rail

  Neat B and I had a very good friend’s 40th birthday dinner in the Junction this evening.

  So naturally, we walked over to the UP Express station from our offices in the Financial District and took the train one stop to Bloor Street. When we got off — along with everyone else who uses our airport link as a regional express train — we then walked the West Toronto Railpath up to the restaurant on Dupont Street. All in all, it took us about 35 minutes. We hopped on the 5:30PM train and we arrived at Lucia around 5:50PM.

  

  

  

  I know that a lot of people use this particular train to get to and from work, but I’m always so happy whenever I do it. I will take this over being stuck in traffic every day of the week. And for me, it is a powerful reminder of just how critical “two-way, all-day regional rail service” is to this urban region. We can talk all we want about better traffic signals, ramping up enforcement, or whatever, but the real solution to solving traffic congestion is getting people moving in other ways.

  Anyway, I digress. Here’s a photo of the delicious pasta we had:

  

  Happy birthday Philip!

  2023.04.19