Tag: zoning

• Burnaby backtracks on inclusionary zoning

  The City of Burnaby recently passed an amendment to its inclusionary rental requirements. It has now been removed from the southeast portion of the city, which, according to Burnaby Now, has one of the lowest median incomes in the city.

  Here’s an excerpt from the staff recommendation report that was approved in early October:

  The analysis explored the impacts of increasing the density of developments in the Edmonds Town Centre area to try and improve revenues. However, the results showed that at current values, additional density is not able to offset the costs of providing the non-market housing, and that the equity needed to pursue large developments became prohibitive. As such, it is recommended that inclusionary rental requirements apply city-wide, with a delayed effective date for the Southeast Burnaby CMHC rental zone (the “SE Burnaby CMHC Zone”), until such time that inclusionary rental requirements become financially viable.

  What’s noteworthy about this amendment is that it acknowledges the real costs associated with non-market housing and shows how important high market rents are to subsidizing them. There’s no such thing as no-cost affordable housing. In the end, somebody always has to pay.

  2024.11.04

• Density is good

  Here is an interesting chart (source) showing housing starts in Canada, by type, between 2000 and 2023:

  

  As recent as 2000, single-family houses accounted for 61% of total starts and multi-family housing accounted for 39%. This flipped somewhere around the financial crisis and, last year in 2023, the percentages were 23% and 77%, respectively. This is a meaningful inversion which has helped our cities become more vibrant and more conducive to non-car modes of transport.

  But in this recent article about Canadian housing, Donald Wright more or less argues: so what? We’ve been densifying our cities for all these years, but it hasn’t helped our affordability problem. Supply must not be the answer to our housing crisis.

  I’m not exactly sure what he believes to be the solution, but I don’t think this problem is as simple as “we’ve built some housing, we made our cities denser, and yet housing is still expensive — more supply must not be the answer. Let’s move on.”

  Among many other things, it’s important to understand what kind of density we’ve been building. Because up until very recently, we’ve basically taken the position that single-family neighborhoods should never be touched, and that density should only go in very specific areas — and only after a lengthy and expensive rezoning process has been completed.

  We’ve designed new housing to be expensive.

  But attitudes are changing all across North America. We are now starting to do two very important things: (1) we are opening up more of our cities to intensification and (2) we are now allowing more multi-family housing on an as-of-right basis. Meaning, no lengthy rezoning exercises and no risk of community opposition.

  These are two fundamental changes that should alter the kind of density that gets built. And in my view, it’s going to be a positive thing for Canadian cities.

  2024.10.04

• Remember unfunded inclusionary zoning?

  Over the weekend, we spoke about how the “GTA condo market is in a state of economic lockdown.” What this generally means is that the math isn’t making sense to build new condominiums. And so the market is necessarily pausing.

  We spoke about what this will likely mean for supply in the coming years, but I think it’s also interesting to talk about this in the context of something else: unfunded inclusionary zoning.

  As a reminder, inclusionary zoning is, in its most basic form, a requirement to build a certain amount of affordable housing as part of new housing developments. And what I mean by “unfunded” is that there are no subsidies or other incentives being provided to the project.

  This means that the cost of providing this housing — and there is an additional cost — needs to be shouldered by the project, which ultimately means the market-rate units need to pay for it.

  Which is why if you look at most policy studies, you’ll often find recognition that, because of this economic reality, IZ tends to work better in areas where home prices/rents are higher. And again, that’s because the market-rate homes need to shoulder the cost.

  We have questioned, many times, on this blog, whether this is the right approach to delivering affordable housing, but I think this question becomes even more critical in our current market environment.

  If the entire market is, for the most part, in a state of economic lockdown, should we really be layering on additional costs and making it broadly more difficult to build any sort of new housing? It seems counterintuitive.

  For more on this topic, check out this recent Sightline article by Dan Bertolet.

  2024.07.29

• Approved but unbuilt

  Recent data from the City of Toronto indicates that there were approximately 106,000 new residential units completed between 2019 and 2023. That averages to about 26,500 homes per year.

  At the same time, Toronto is reporting that 258,397 units are currently approved for development and that 436,421 units are currently under review. The former means that the projects have been approved and that a building permit has been applied for or has been issued. And the latter means that the units are still under review or under appeal.

  These feel like staggering numbers. If we were to use the same completion rate as 2019-2023, it would take over 26 years to build these 694,818 new units (homes approved + under review).

  However, I think it’s safe to assume that not all of these homes will be built; at least not in the short term. Many (perhaps most) of these projects are simply going to evaporate in the current market environment. They’re unfinanceable.

  Because that’s the thing, zoning approved does not necessarily equal built and occupied. And right now, in this market, these two things feel like they’re diverging. Toronto grew by about 207,000 people between 2019 and 2023. And it built about half of this number in new homes.

  When we look back at the next four years, I suspect that this housing supply number will be noticeably lower. This is despite the staggering headline numbers.

  2024.06.13

• Exclusionary zoning cuts both ways

  Here is Wikipedia’s definition of exclusionary zoning:

  Exclusionary zoning is the use of zoning ordinances to exclude certain types of land uses from a given community, especially to regulate racial and economic diversity. In the United States, exclusionary zoning ordinances are standard in almost all communities. Exclusionary zoning was introduced in the early 1900s, typically to prevent racial and ethnic minorities from moving into middle- and upper-class neighborhoods. Municipalities use zoning to limit the supply of available housing units, such as by prohibiting multi-family residential dwellings or setting minimum lot size requirements.

  This is a common way to think about it. Prohibiting multi-family residential is a way to try and keep renters away. And mandating minimum lot sizes is a way to ensure that lots don’t get subdivided and that nobody builds homes of, you know, lesser value.

  It’s more or less a way of setting a minimum bar, which is why the term exclusionary zoning is used. If you don’t meet this minimum bar, you are excluded.

  Many of you will know my views on this (related post, here). But for the purposes of today’s post, consider this question: Should there also be an upper bound? In other words, should there be things like maximum lot sizes?

  Manhattan Beach, California seems to think so, which is why when Rob DeSantis bought three adjacent lots in 2000 for $13 million and proceeded to build a 12,640 square foot home — one that is currently on the market for $150 million — the City reacted by forming a “Mansionization Committee.”

  And ultimately they decided, through the passing of a new ordinance, that mansions of this fortitude should not be allowed in Manhattan Beach. It’s just too much.

  So it turns out that exclusionary zoning actually cuts both ways. You can be too poor for a particular community. Or, you can be too rich.

  2023.11.22

• Thoughts on Dupont Street in Toronto

  

  This morning I spoke to the Globe and Mail about the evolving nature of Dupont Street here in Toronto. The impetus for the discussion was this: Dupont Street is now seeing a lot of residential intensification, but the street itself remains a bit of a crosstown highway. It’s not yet a “complete street.” And since Junction House is effectively on the west end of this midtown artery, John Lorinc asked to get my thoughts.

  The point I tried to make is that, in my opinion, this is first and foremost a zoning issue. Dupont Street is seeing intensification, but it is largely happening on the north side of the street, abutting the rail corridor (purple and red in the above Official Plan map). The south side of the street is, for the most part, a low-rise neighborhood (yellow in the above map).

  This kind of edge condition is somewhat unique in the city: low-rise on one side of the street; higher density housing, retail, and office on the other. But it is particularly problematic if you’re trying to create a great main street, because single-sided retail streets generally don’t work very well.

  We could certainly have a discussion about sidewalk widths, bike lanes, and other streetscape improvements; but in my mind, there is nothing inherently bad about the cross section of this street. The right-of-way width is 20 meters, meaning there are generally two lanes going in each direction. This is a dimension you’ll find all over the city, including on beloved streets like Queen Street.

  The problem here is what is abutting the street, and it is something that is systemic across the city: we have too many arterial roads that only allow for low-rise housing. So if you were to ask me what to do next, and I was asked this morning, the first thing I would do is up-zone the south side of Dupont and allow for non-residential uses at grade.

  And once this is done, I am certain it will snowball many other positive improvements.

  2023.08.04

• Social media as zoning review board

  This is an interesting article about the neighborhood-based social network, Nextdoor, and how it has become a tool for housing politics:

  Overall, activists both for and against more housing regard Nextdoor as an increasingly influential and even critical tool in the fight, which conflicts with the platform’s marketing as a friendly, kinder social media. Rather than being the neighborhood bulletin board, Nextdoors around the country are looking more like the local zoning commission hearing.

  Housing debate is no stranger to social media, but in the case of Nextdoor, the audience gets focused down to the scale of a neighborhood. And that clearly changes things.

  For the full article, click here.

  2023.01.26

• Why housing is so expensive

  A friend of mine sent me the above podcast episode this morning (click here if you can’t see it embedded above). I’ve only listened to a bit of it, but I plan to finish it up over the long weekend. Here are the topics it covers:

  We discuss why the states with the highest homelessness rates are all governed by Democrats, the roots of America’s homelessness crisis, why economists believe the U.S. gross domestic product could be over a third — a third! — higher today if American cities had built more housing, why it’s so hard to build housing where it’s needed most, the actual (and often misunderstood) causes of gentrification, why public housing has such a bad reputation in the U.S.; how progressives’ commitment to local democracy and community voice surprisingly lies at the heart of America’s housing crises, why homeownership is still the primary vehicle of wealth accumulation in America (and the toxic impact that has on our politics), what the U.S. can learn from the housing policies of countries like Germany and France, what it would take to build a better politics of housing and much more.

  2022.07.29

• Zoning controls, sprawl, and housing affordability

  Maybe it’s confirmation bias, but I continue to feel like there is a groundswell of interest in trying to improve housing supply and overall affordability. The YIMBY movement continues to gain steam. Here are are few excerpts from a recent M. Nolan Gray article where he calls for an end to zoning as we know it today:

  In nearly every major U.S. city, apartments are banned in at least 70 percent of residential areas. San Jose prohibits apartments in 94 percent of its residential areas. The most a developer can build in these zones is a detached single-family home.

  The results speak for themselves. Houston builds housing at 14 times the rate of peers like San Jose. And it isn’t just sprawl: In 2019, Houston built roughly the same number of apartments as Los Angeles, despite being half its size. Since reforms to minimum-lot-size rules were put in place in 1998, more than 25,000 townhouses have been built, overwhelmingly in existing urban areas.

  To be clear, Houston has made its share of planning mistakes. But, free of zoning, the city can constantly remake itself. That Houston is now one of the most affordable and diverse cities in the country is no accident.

  The relationship between housing affordability and constraints on development is a well-documented one. If you want more affordable housing, you generally want fewer, rather than more, constraints on delivering new housing.

  But as I was reading through the article, I couldn’t help but think more specifically about the relationship between sprawl and affordability. Because it is also true that, for a variety of reasons, the former has tended to help the latter (or at least coincide with it), which is why Gray felt it was important to say “and it isn’t just sprawl” when talking about Houston.

  Part of this relationship has to do with the fact that expansionist development tends to be of the low-rise stick-built varietal, which is a relatively cost effective way to build. Whereas the higher density infill stuff tends to be built using more expensive materials like reinforced concrete. But of course there are many other factors at play, including lower land costs.

  So I think one really interesting question is this one here: To what extent could we break this relationship between sprawl and affordability with what Gray is advocating for? In other words, how cheap could we make new infill housing in our older cities if we were to greatly loosen zoning controls or possibly even remove them all together?

  I don’t know the exact answer, but I know that directionally it would be better.

  2022.06.24

• Small-scale retail is set to return to Toronto

  Progress is happening slowly but surely.

  Over the years we have spoken a few times about this nice little coffee shop on Shaw Street here in Toronto. It is a good looking and widely visited coffee shop that has made many guest appearances on urbanist Twitter.

  The problem, though, is that it was a real battle to get it approved, thanks to the opposition of a single neighbor. That’s all it takes to hold up a new project. In this case it was a coffee shop. But it could also be thousands of new homes.

  But that was then. Today if you look on the City of Toronto’s website you’ll actually see this exact coffee shop on a page that speaks to the benefits and the historic role of small-scale retail, service, and office uses.

  Right now these uses are only permitted in low-rise neighborhoods on major streets and through an amendment to the Zoning By-Law (unless the nonconforming use already exists). This is a lot of unnecessary work (see above) and it has translated into a steady decline in these sorts of uses across the city.

  Thankfully, the city is now looking to change this and permit these uses on an as-of-right basis. So it looks like the good fight was worth it.

  For more info, head over here. And if you’d like to attend the public meeting to talk about how brilliant this is, you can do that on July 5 over at City Hall.

  2022.06.14