The City of Vancouver recently published this video talking about missing middle housing. For those of you who are following this trend (and reading this blog), there won’t be a lot that is new in the video (although Uytae Lee is great). But I’m sharing it here, anyway, for three reasons. One, it’s an example of Toronto being ahead of Vancouver, which wasn’t the case with laneway housing. Vancouver started allowing these first. Two, it is further evidence that this shift toward intensifying low-rise residential neighbourhoods is really happening — and gaining momentum — all across North America. And three, the City of Vancouver is about to bring forward new multiplex housing policies. So now is a good time to get involved and say things.
Tag: video
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We’re building an airport!
One of our partners shared this video with me today:
And it is possibly one of the greatest 39 seconds of interview you’ll ever watch.
It is a video of Jim Fahy interviewing James Horan about the construction of Ireland West Airport. The important context is that Horan was a parish priest in Knock, County Mayo, and he desperately wanted an airport so that pilgrims could more easily visit the Knock Shrine.
However, critics felt that an airport in County Mayo was just not feasible. The area was too foggy and too boggy (I had to look this one up).
But Horan successfully campaigned to have one built and he did somehow find the money. Though maybe not the following week. The campaign apparently took a lot out of him, and he died shortly after the airport opened.
But in the end, he got it built.
It takes a special kind of person to accomplish what most people view as boiling the ocean (i.e. an impossible outcome). And when you watch the video, it will become obvious to you that James Horan was that kind of person.
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The first vacation rental REIT
This is a fascinating interview with John Andrew Entwistle, the founder of vacation rental company Wander. The way to understand Wander is that it is a vertically integrated travel company. So unlike Airbnb, for example, Wander owns all of their real estate (vacation homes in top destinations), they property manage, they asset manage, and they are building out the technology required to connect all of this stuff.
They have also created what they are calling the first ever vacation rental REIT, which means that you can buy a piece of their real estate portfolio (currently 13 properties). In addition to being a source of cash, this creates an interesting flywheel effect where maybe you stay in a Wander and then decide to become an investor in their REIT, or vice versa.
Eventually though, Wander hopes to be just as asset light as Airbnb (which again, doesn’t own any real estate; they’re a booking platform). The idea is that REIT unit holders will ultimately own the real estate and they will be the asset manager / technology platform that sits on top. But that they will still control the entire travel experience.
John also gets into some of the specifics of how they run their business. For example, in each destination, they hire local cleaning crews and handy people (who are not Wander employees). They typically spend about 7% of the value of a property to furnish it (which is typically around $80-150k per property right now). And their average order size is around $4.5k, which suggests that people are willing to pay a premium for this vertically integrated travel experience.
If you can’t see the video above, click here.
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[Video] Saudi Arabia’s new 170-km-long vertical city
I am usually known for my optimism for the future. But I am having a difficult time deciphering whether the new 170-km-long vertical city that Saudia Arabia just revealed (see above video) is a legitimate development proposal, a new metaverse project, or a dystopian spoof about how we’re all going to live in beehives once autonomous everything and artificial intelligence takes over.
The Line, as it is cleverly called, is intended to form the basis for a new and allegedly livable city called Neom. This is a city that is intended to lead Saudi Arabia into some sort of glorious post-oil future. And the plan is for it to eventually house some 9 million people; all within a 170-km-long mirrored strip that is 200m wide, 500m tall, and accessible end-to-end in 20 minutes via high-speed rail.
I would love to see the development pro forma for this one (if it even exists), but I certainly don’t need it to determine that this thing is never going to be built — certainly not in its current incarnation.
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[Video] RAD Marketing’s Future Frontiers real estate podcast
I was recently on RAD Marketing’s Future Frontiers podcast talking about real estate stuff with Daniel Marinovic (CEO and Managing Partner of Forest Gate) and Sean Zahedi (Vice President at RAD). I haven’t watched the video yet and I honestly don’t remember what I said (it was a few weeks ago), but if you’re interested, you can listen to it here and watch it on YouTube here.
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Toronto condos on the rise again
CIBC Deputy Chief Economist Benjamin Tal was recently interviewed by Larysa Harapyn of the Financial Post about the state of the housing market in the Greater Toronto Area. The message he delivers is pretty clear: “If you think that Toronto is unaffordable now, you wait.” The long-term fundamentals in this market remain strong. Demand is outstripping supply and will likely continue to do so, which is why Tal also stresses the importance of delivering more purpose-built rental housing. If you can’t see the video above, click here. (And with that, I think it’s time to switch topics for tomorrow’s post. That’s enough Toronto housing for one week.)
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Why do haunted houses look the way that they do?
This short 5-minute video by Vox is a perfect example of how, just like with fashion, architecture and design tastes are always changing. The things we like at one point in time may not be what we like in the future. And it can go from extreme desire to extreme disgust. In this video, Vox makes the argument that the mansions of America’s Gilded Age are the reason why all haunted houses seem to look the same in popular culture and in our imaginations.
Once the extreme desire of America’s nouveau riche (who were clearly trying to emulate rich Europeans), they fell out of favor with the arrival of modernism and a new cultural ethos. All of a sudden it wasn’t fashionable to have copious amounts of ornament and labyrinthian-like floor plans filled with a bunch of gaudy stuff. So the rich moved on and many of these homes fell into disrepair, setting the stage for spooky thoughts.
What’s interesting about this phenomenon is that it can make it difficult to discern what has design and cultural value and what doesn’t. Because something that has value today, may not have perceived value tomorrow (and it may also become the backdrop for future horror movies). Of course, the opposite is also true. We could hate something today, but eventually learn to love it.
Brutalism is perhaps a good example. Though there seems to be a groundswell of people interested in preserving this style of architecture, I continue to think that it remains a generally unloved kind of built form when it comes to the general public. So does that mean it has little present and/or future value? That’s not a straightforward question.
The other thing I find fascinating about this haunted house phenomenon is that it shows how one thing can lead to another. If the typology of haunted houses is a result of the Gilded Age mansion, then it’s also important to consider that the Gilded Age mansion is arguably a result of the new wealth that was being amassed by some Americans at the end of the 19th century.
The Gilded Age was a period economic expansion for the United States. New fortunes were being made via rail, steel, tobacco, and other industries. (Inequality was a concern.) And this new wealth was naturally looking for a way to show off (as it usually does). That happened to manifest itself in ornate European-like mansions. But had that not happened, would haunted houses look the way that they do today?
Happy Halloween.
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How to respond to the coronavirus
I just finished watching this TED talk with Bill Gates. For those of you who are up on their TED talks, this is not the one from five years ago where Bill predicted a pandemic and told us all that we were nowhere near ready. (We, of course, didn’t listen.) This is one that was published a few days ago and talks about how we should be responding to the outbreak that we are currently living through. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been committing significant resources toward solving problems exactly like this one. So it’s interesting to hear his thoughts. In case you’re wondering, herd immunity isn’t the answer. We need (1) widespread testing and (2) to be extremely disciplined about our social distancing. In his words: “But money, you know bringing the economy back and doing money, that’s more of a reversible thing than bringing people back to life.”
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The lost history of Seneca Village
This is a fascinating short video (by Vox) about a former neighborhood in Manhattan known as Seneca Village. Today, its land forms part of Central Park.
Most of us would probably agree that building Central Park was both a good idea and a powerful example of the value of foresight.
But that doesn’t mean that the area’s pre-park history is something that should be forgotten. (Thanks for sending this along, Jeremiah Shamess.)
If you’d like to learn more about Seneca Village, check out this NY Times opinion piece by Brent Staples. It’s called, The Death of the Black Utopia.