Brandon Donnelly

Daily insights for city builders, delivered every morning at 6 AM ET. I’m Brandon Donnelly — a Toronto-based real estate developer and founder of Globizen. I’ve been writing here since 2013.

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Tag: toronto

  • Why uploading Toronto’s highways to the province won’t fix traffic congestion

    In 2023, the City of Toronto announced a deal that would “upload” the Gardiner Expressway and Don Valley Parkway from the city to the province. This was a big deal because these highways were previously the city’s largest state-of-good-repair liabilities, and so, before this deal, the city was, you know, trying to figure out how to pay for them.

    One option was road pricing (or expressway tolls). And in 2016, this became a real possibility with City Council overwhelmingly endorsing the plan, before it got rejected by the province. It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I was in support of it and writing about it at the time.

    In 2016, Toronto estimated that 40% of all trips on these two expressways were by non-residents, and yet they were being funded by Toronto taxpayers. When I said this on Twitter, many of you got upset and argued that people coming in from the suburbs are a boon for the city. No doubt. But the reality is that this was an inequitable funding structure.

    Let’s look at the 2022 Transportation Tomorrow Survey results, which I wrote about here.

    The mode share for all trips to downtown Toronto (from within the city) was 75% non-car, with transit making up the largest share at 40.4%. And the mode share for home-based work trips to downtown Toronto (people who leave home in Toronto to go to work downtown and then come home) was about 80% non-car! In this case, transit made up nearly 50% of the trips.

    The effective result is that the people who tended to drive the least to work were paying for the highways with their tax dollars, and the people driving into downtown were not. This is in no way intended to be an attack on the latter camp. The simple reality is that driving into downtown and buying a chicken souvlaki pita from Jimmy the Greek at lunch isn’t enough to offset the road usage costs.

    The uploading of the highways to the province (which is still advancing but has already relieved Toronto of its financial obligations) is a more equitable solution. It shifts the cost burden to Ontario taxpayers, reflecting that people from all over the region use these highways and that Toronto is part of a broader economic agglomeration.

    But this only solved the jurisdictional problem. We still have worsening congestion and an inefficient funding model. The problem with using broad-based taxation to obfuscate infrastructure costs is that direct usage then goes unpriced, and that leads to what is known as a “tragedy of the commons.”

    We all tend to act in our own short-term self-interest, and the result is that road demand constantly outstrips the available supply. There’s zero marginal cost to actual usage, whether you drive 100 kilometres each day or bike to work. The most effective way to manage traffic congestion is to remove the hidden subsidy for driving and price the costs and negative externalities.

  • Traffic is agonizing, maybe we should try something new

    The other day I asked my dad how a function he attended went, and he responded by saying, “Traffic, BRUTAL. Traveling by car is an agonizing experience.” He’s not wrong, and I know most of us in Toronto like to complain about it. Traffic is one of the negative externalities of a big city.

    But here’s the thing: we know how to solve this problem. You price congestion, as has been done in New York, London, Singapore, and many other cities, and then direct the revenue it generates to a mode of transport that isn’t as agonizing in a big city: rail travel.

    I’ve written so much on this topic over the years that there’s very little I can add at this point. If you’d like to have a read, here are the search results for “congestion pricing.”

    While the policy has proven successful elsewhere, political inertia and valid concerns over equity keep Toronto stuck. But until we charge for valuable road space, gridlock remains our default. New York City has also shown us that once people see the benefits, they quickly change their minds.

  • Why do cities build skyscrapers?

    Very generally speaking, cities build skyscrapers because of some mix of natural market forces and symbolic prestige. In cities like New York and Hong Kong, where land is extremely scarce and valuable, the only option is to go up. Tall buildings are essential. And in cities like Dubai, I think it’s fair to say that symbolic prestige has been the greater motivator, at least at the outset of the city’s modern reinvention as a global city. Tall, over-the-top buildings helped put the city on the map, even when tall, over-the-top buildings weren’t necessary from a direct economic standpoint.

    Another way to encourage tall buildings is to simply restrict everything else. Ontario’s Places to Grow Act of 2005 was well-intentioned. It was designed to encourage intensification, support transit investment, and curb urban sprawl. I believe that all of these things are desirable planning outcomes. But one of the ways that intensification was sold, politically, was that growth would only be directed to specific areas and that the preeminence of single-family housing in the region would not be in any way threatened.

    The result is what has been pejoratively referred to as “tall and sprawl,” meaning tall buildings surrounded by vast swaths of low-density housing. It’s a built-form contrast that feels unnatural precisely because it is a market distortion created by policy. In a pure market without zoning constraints, the likely built-form outcome would be a smoother density gradient down from major urban nodes and transit stations (where land values tend to be higher). Of course, the Toronto region is filled with countless counterexamples of this.

    Now, to be fair, good work is being done to address this missing layer of medium density, but we’re not there yet. And we’re still working through the supply of the last cycle. Rachelle Younglai recently published an article in The Globe and Mail called “Condo developers outside Toronto feeling the biggest strain from market’s downturn.” This is not surprising. Peripheral markets generally get hit the hardest during real estate downturns and take the longest to bounce back. But on top of this, there are suburban towers that probably didn’t need to get built. The economic imperative was tenuous but for the planning restrictions and the pre-construction condo market.

    My suggestion would be to upzone the areas surrounding these towers and remove as many development constraints as possible, especially around transit nodes. This may seem paradoxical given we’re currently talking about excess supply, but the glut is likely a product mismatch problem. Allowing the surrounding areas to fill in invites the market to build what is most in demand, smooth out the density gradient, build amenities, and create destinations that could then lift the value of the entire node.

    This is not an immediate solution, but it’s a path toward a more natural market outcome. Need a case study to point to? Look to Tokyo. Flexible permissions, mixed-use zones by default, and an orientation around rail have allowed Tokyo to organically evolve into one of the most livable global cities on the planet.

  • Site Tour: Craft Residences in the Junction

    This week, my friend Bill, who is the founder of Gairloch Developments, took me through his Craft Residences project. Bill has done and is doing a number of beautiful projects in the Junction and Craft is one of them.

    When we met up on Dundas, I immediately complimented him on the project’s use of green (which is, of course, Globizen’s brand colour). Craft has green brick mortar, green windows (on the outside), and green picket balcony guards. Love it.

    His response was, “It feels to me like a housing project you’d find in London.” And I think that’s exactly right.

    There are some design details that objectively just cost more to design and build. Often the simpler the detail, the more expensive it is to build. As one of my favourite design sayings goes, “Only the rich can afford this much nothing.”

    But there are other design details that don’t cost more; you just have to give a shit and make good decisions. Bill gives lots of shits, and it shows in his work. I’m super happy that he’s building in the Junction. Below are my photos from the site tour.

    P.S. Globizen has an upcoming, soon-to-be-announced project where we’ve been looking at design details to specifically communicate our brand. Some of them will be green. Please take it as a compliment, Bill.

    Update: Craft Residences was designed by BDP Quadrangle. Heather Rolleston is the principal in charge and senior designer.

  • The 2026 Governor General Medals in Architecture

    I was in Montréal at the start of this year for work and I stayed at the Moxy Downtown. (I will, by the way, use any excuse to find my way to Montréal.) As I walked over to the hotel from the train station, I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, this is a beautiful tower.” It has a nice slenderness ratio and the entire precast facade has been designed to look like an intricate woven pattern.

    Well, it turns out, I’m not alone in my appreciation of 900 Saint-Jacques. The Royal Architectural Institute of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts have just revealed the winners of the 2026 Governor General’s Medals in Architecture (which are given to exceptional projects recently completed by Canadian architects) and it’s on the list.

    Designed by Chevalier Morales architectes and Brian Elsden Burrows Architecte – Le Groupe Architex, the project is worth checking out if you aren’t familiar. Not just because of its beautiful facade, but because of its urban contributions to the Quartier des Gares. The jury called the site “prominent but hostile.”

    Also on the list are two projects by Toronto-based gh3*, who some of you might recall are the architects behind our Project Bench. One is Windermere Fire Station and the other is O’Day-Min Pavilion, both of which are in Edmonton and are exceptional.

    I could keep talking about more of the projects, but I’ll end by saying that this is the first time I’m learning about Kìwekì Point in Ottawa (designed by Patkau Architects and Janet Rosenberg & Studio — the landscape firm behind One Delisle). This is reason enough to book a trip to Ottawa.

    Congratulations to all of the winners. For the full list of projects, click here.

    Photography: 900 Saint-Jacques by Maxime Brouillet; O’Day-Min Pavilion by Raymond Chow

  • The spirit of a place

    We often think of cities in terms of their built environment. This city has lots of futuristic tall buildings, this one has lots of ornate mid-rise buildings, and this one is mostly suburban sprawl. But the built environment is only one component.

    Underlying the physical environment (let’s call it the hardware of a place) is a cultural ethos that connects our spaces and influences our behaviors (let’s call it the software of a place). In the architecture community, this is often referred to as the genius loci, or the “spirit of a place.”

    I was reminded of this when reading a recent column by Benedict Evans that starts with him reminiscing about the six years he spent living and working in the San Francisco Bay Area:

    “More fundamental than that, though, is the ethos and the sense of possibility. Of course, you’re going to do amazing things. Of course, you’re going to make a company – that’s what everyone does. Of course, this new thing is going to change the world. The world is malleable. You can do things. You can create a giant company from a PowerPoint in a couple of years.”

    This, of course, is a well-documented feature of the Bay Area. And its origins can almost certainly be traced all the way back to the Gold Rush of the mid-1800s when risk-taking misfits flocked to the region in search of overnight riches, transforming a sleepy hamlet into a place.

    But even though the lineage may appear clear in the case of San Francisco, the genius loci of a place does not represent immutable code. It changes over time, just as the fortunes and influence of a city also rise and fall over time.

    I often think about this in the case of my city, Toronto. Instead of being founded by maverick gamblers, the city was founded on an opposite set of principles: British imperial loyalty, Protestant morality, and anti-revolutionary order.

    Toronto has changed a great deal since then, through massive waves of immigration and robust post-war expansion, and the city’s built environment has naturally transformed from orderly Victorian row houses to supertall towers.

    But now, with the frenetic condominium boom of the last cycle in the rear-view mirror, there’s an increasing sense of what’s next. What will be Toronto’s genius loci of the future? That’s the exciting opportunity in front of us today and it’s up to us to decide. Indeed, the world is malleable.

  • Paris may have the busiest bike route in the world

    In my opinion, we need far better urban data if we’re actually going to make evidence-based decisions. Thankfully, there are lots of great companies that are focused on this space. One of them is Eco-Counter, which makes devices to count pedestrians and cyclists, among other things. This is an important job, because as Peter Drucker used to say, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”

    Let’s look at their bike counters. According to their global map, they have 464 of them installed around the world. Montreal has 58 of them, which we’ve spoken about before, and is an impressive install base. And Toronto looks to have only one, which is located on Bloor Street on the north side of High Park.

    The busiest route/counter in Montreal is at St-Denis Street and Rue des Carriéres. So far this year — up to November 17, 2024 — this counter has seen an average of just under 5,000 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 1,600,468 trips. Both of these metrics are notably up compared to 2023 when I last looked at the data.

    The busiest route in Eco-Counter’s entire network is on Boulevard de Sébastopol in Paris (an important main roadway, not a side street). It has seen an average of 13,667 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 4,386,996 trips. Not surprisingly, the Paris counter exhibits less seasonality. People still cycle in the winter in Montreal, but it’s less than in the warmer months.

    Finally, our lone Toronto counter adjacent to High Park has seen an average of 1,186 trips per day and a year-to-date total of 380,813 trips. Not quite Paris or Montreal (the latter of which has a colder climate), but I would argue that this really isn’t an indicative location for Toronto given how underdeveloped the area is. Plus, you need to see each route as part of a network.

    If you look at Montreal’s top 5 bike counters, all of them have a year-to-date total that exceeds 1 million trips. This is important information if you’re trying to make mobility decisions and these are significant figures. Imagine if these millions of people got off their bikes and instead decided to take transit or drive a car. That would change things.

    Photo by Celine Ylmz on Unsplash

  • Venice to Venice

    Crypto Citizens are a collection of 10,000 NFTs that were minted between 2021 and 2024, starting first in Venice, California and ending in Venice, Italy. Each of their 10 locations has a sub-collection of 1,000 pieces and I am the owner of CryptoParisian #112, because, well, Paris was the next best city for me after they egregiously skipped over Toronto.

    This is one of the most ambitious projects in the NFT art community and, now that they’ve completed their world tour, they’ve just released a documentary called Venice to Venice. It is currently being screened in private venues around the world, but eventually there will be a world premiere at a film festival. This is when I presume they will land in Toronto!

    If you’d like to watch the trailer and/or mint it, click here.

    Photo: Seth Goldstein

  • More homes, less rezonings

    One of the really positive things that is happening in the world of Toronto land use planning is that the minimum scale of development that is permitted as-of-right continues to grow. We’ve gone from fourplexes to 6-storey apartments, and now we’re talking about mid-rise buildings (6-11 storeys) and even some tall buildings (12 storeys or more).

    What this ultimately means is being able to build without a rezoning application. That means no site specific negotiation, and no fighting over whether the building should be 32 meters tall or 30.5 meters tall with a 2.4 meter stepback because of shadowing concerns on someone’s heritage-designated garden gnome. It means getting under construction sooner.

    Here are some of the specific ideas being reviewed:

    • Expand the number of streets designated as “Avenues” throughout Toronto (Avenues are a defined term and where we have decided that mid-rise buildings should go)
    • New Official Plan policies that would encourage more mid-rise buildings on Avenues
    • Eliminate the rear angular plane requirement (currently a mid-rise performance standard); this is expected to produce ~30% more homes in your typical mid-rise development
    • Increase as-of-right permitted heights to 6-11 storeys (the city estimates that this will unlock ~61,000 additional homes)
    • Introduce “transition zones” between Avenues and low-rise neighborhoods, which could then accommodate things like low-rise towns and apartments up to 4 storeys (it’s worth noting that transition zones were initially part of Toronto’s mid-rise performance standards but then got removed for some reason)

    This is meaningful progress. Let’s enact and keep going.

  • Let’s get serious about building more homes in Canada

    I live in a condominium. I find it extremely desirable. I don’t yearn to live anywhere else. And I think of it as my home. But there is of course truth to this Globe and Mail article:

    Canadians, by and large, continue to think of condos and apartments as housing, not homes. That’s hardly surprising given the way Canada builds them: small units in tall towers clustered in downtown cores or near busy transit hubs. They’re the one- and two-bedrooms young people rent in their 20s (and, increasingly, their 30s). The starter homes. The initial landing spot for newcomers. But they are not desirable homes for two large swaths of the population. Young families need multiple bedrooms and proximity to parks and schools. Retirees looking to downsize often say they want to remain in the same neighbourhood. A dearth of higher-density homes for these two groups has dire consequences for cities.

    The problem is twofold.

    Our land use policies are too restrictive, though that is slowing starting to change for the better. And it is simply not economically feasible to build larger, family-sized apartments at any sort of meaningful scale. This is not a developer unwillingness problem, it is a math problem.

    Toronto, for instance, would be far better off if we had European-scaled apartment buildings all across the city and a lot more family-friendly housing. I believe this to be true at least. But in order to achieve this, we need to get serious. This is not serious.

    We need to dramatically reduce development charges and other government fees. We need to get rid of the site plan control process for smaller buildings. We need to remove required amenity areas (the city is the amenity for small-scale neighborhood apartments). And the list goes on.

    So if anyone in government is reading this and is truly serious about building more affordable housing in this country, please give me a call. I will gladly come into your office and run you through a development pro forma so that you can see what it’s going to take. We can fix housing.