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Articles by Brandon Donnelly
You can't manage what you don't measure
Broadly speaking, cities tend to have better data on vehicular traffic than on pedestrian and bicycle traffic. This is because road design has traditionally prioritized the movement of cars, above all else. So it has felt right to bias traffic counts. But there are lots of places where pedestrians and cyclists greatly outnumber vehicles.
What might happen in 2025
Very broadly speaking, our current commercial real estate downturn started, in my opinion, around the middle of 2022. That's when sentiment started to feel different and the market was starting to respond to increasing interest rates. Over the past few years, I've been overly optimistic in terms of how soon the market would reset. But eventually I'll be right.
Where the rich don’t drive - is density the new luxury?
This data is from 2019, but I imagine that things would look pretty similar today and that it might even be a little more pronounced. The dataset from the above article looked at how many people have cars in a given area (a darker dot = fewer cars) and then plotted this against population density and income per capita.
Two somewhat useless housing polls
I tweeted two polls today. The first one is mostly useless: It asked whether developers should build more 3-bedroom apartments/condominiums. And not surprisingly, the vast majority of people voted yes. Of course, the problem with this poll is that it says nothing about the overall affordability of these larger suites. (We’ve talked about this many times before on the blog.) So it is akin to asking: Should Mercedes put this concept car into production and make it widely available?
French people like electric scooters
Close Search Type your search terms above and press return to see the search results. Toronto doesn’t like electric scooters. Something about them being dangerous. But here are some interesting statistics for France, which has apparently become the leading scooter market in Europe: The Fédération des Professionnels de la Micromobilité (FPMM) — yes, this exists — estimates that there are about 2.5 million regular scooter users in France.
Families in multi-family buildings
There is an ongoing debate in Toronto, and many other North American cities, about how to encourage more families to live in multi-family buildings. And here that has generally translated into (1) mandating a certain number of larger family-sized suites and (2) creating design guidelines to better equip both suites and buildings for families. But what we often ignore is the very real economic reality of buying a large family-sized suite.
Distributed Japanese capsules
Japanese Metabolism was a post-war architectural movement that was based around the idea that cities and buildings should be able to grow and transform just like other organisms. There are other elements to the movement, but this was at its core. And perhaps the best example of the Metabolism movement was the Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo (pictured above).
How the suburbs are subsidized
Close Search Type your search terms above and press return to see the search results. This is an excellent video that I would encourage all of you to watch. It provides a visual look at city finances and explains how car-dependent suburbs are usually heavily subsidized by productive urban places. These are the kinds of analyses that all cities should be doing and, among many other things, I think it could go a long way to positively influencing how we plan our cities.
This may not actually work
I am, of course, generalizing, but we live in a world of comparables and proof. In the slightly-modified words of Seth Godin, we have been trained to show up with proven and verifiable answers because that’s what will get us an A on the test or what will allow us to keep our jobs. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Risk mitigation is an important part of any organization. But if everything you’re doing is already proven, then by definition, and regardless of any claims, you are not innovating.
A whole new internet
I don’t exactly know what “metaverse” means, but what is clear is that nobody really does right now. Here is an excerpt from a recent article by Benedict Evans: Some people, namely Mark Zuckerberg, believe that VR is going to be the next smartphone. But Benedict raises an interesting point: the direction of travel for tech seems to be toward less immersion, rather than greater immersion. We used to have giant computers that filled rooms. Then computers got smaller.
Are elevators bad?
So, I of course think this is silly. But here’s a claim that living in high-rises — that is, buildings with elevators — is bad for people’s physical and mental health: Apparently what happens when you get into an elevator is that you immediately lose your ability to interact meaningfully with other humans. Yeah, I’m not the only one who disagrees: Cities, it turns out, are complicated. And there are always trade-offs to be made.
New York City proposes a bounty for reporting bike-lane blockers
The general rule when it comes to bike lanes is that, if you build them without some sort of grade-separation, at some point a car is going to park in them. But here are two possible solutions to this problem. The first is that you could build some sort of grade-separation that can’t be driven over. And the second is as follows: What this essentially does is decentralize rule enforcement by paying people to be rats.
Housing supply in low-cost and high-cost municipalities
Here is a housing study that looked at housing supply — in the US from 2000 to 2020 — relative to median housing values. And here is the key takeaway: What this chart is saying is that new housing is rarely added in cities with the lowest-value homes. The bar on the left represents municipalities whose median housing values are less than 50% of the metropolitan average. And this makes sense. If values are low there is likely little to no incentive to build. The math just doesn’t work.
The average wait time for a rent-controlled apartment in Sweden is now over 9 years
I’m not all that familiar with Stockholm’s housing market, but according to this recent article, it would appear that, like most big cities, there isn’t enough affordable housing to go around. This is despite the fact that everyone in Sweden is technically entitled to it. As of December 2021, there were 736,560 people (in Sweden) in the queue for a rent-controlled apartment, resulting in an average wait time of about 9.2 years.
France clamps down on “dark stores”
One way to shop for things is to make a list of all the things you want and/or need, and then go to a location that sells as many of those things as possible. As I understand, this is more or less what people do when they go to a place like Costco. Another way to shop is to just order things piecemeal, and have them delivered to you when you want them and in the least amount of time possible. And it turns out that this latter option is pretty popular.
Adam Neumann raises $350 million to revolutionize the apartment market
Today it was announced that venture firm a16z has made a $350 million investment in Adam Neumann’s new residential rental company called Flow (which is kind of ironic). The company is set to launch in 2023 and nobody on the outside seems to be entirely clear on how it plans to revolutionize the multi-family rental market, but supposedly this funding round values Flow at more than $1 billion and supposedly Neumann will be rolling in the 4,000 or so apartments that he has been buying up.
How Toronto landed its first Michelin Guide
Back in May, I happen to come across a 1912 copy of Michelin’s Guide to France. It was exceedingly cool to see and I’d love to find a copy for my own library. (For those of you looking for a reminder on how the Michelin Guide works, click here.) After returning to Toronto, I then serendipitously learned that our city would be getting its own guidebook this fall, which will be a first for both Toronto and for Canada as a whole.
Consistency over intensity - rethinking Toronto’s low-rise neighborhoods
Toronto’s chief planner, Gregg Lintern, published this piece in the Toronto Star over the weekend where he argued that “expanding housing options in [Toronto’s] neighbourhoods is the missing piece of the growth puzzle.” What he is saying is that if we’re going to have any chance at reasonably accommodating the 700,000 or so people who are expected to move to this city over the next three decades, we’re going to have to evolve our low-rise neighborhoods.
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.
Insufficient electrical capacity until 2035
One of the things that you need to do when you’re constructing a building is arrange for new utility connections. Sometimes there’s enough capacity to support what you’re building and sometimes the capacities need to be upgraded (which usually becomes the responsibility of the developer).
Finally - garden suites are now permitted in Toronto
Some of you might remember that Toronto City Council approved new garden suite policies earlier this year. Garden suites (also known as accessory dwelling units) are kind of like laneway suites but without the adjacent lane. Unfortunately, these new policies were subsequently appealed by a group of Resident’s Associations, and so they haven’t been in force.
The cost floor
Generally speaking, the cost of building a new building is always going up. There are moments in time, like during a recession, where costs might temporarily correct downward. But generally speaking, there is a cost floor that is constantly rising. This includes everything from hard costs to rising development charges.
Does off-site construction equal more compromises?
We have been talking about prefabricated and modular buildings for so long that it’s easy to think it might never happen. (Here’s a related post that I wrote back in 2015.) There are also lots of groups that have tried and failed. Perhaps the most high profile is the bankruptcy of off-site construction company Katerra, which had raised some $2 billion in funding, but for whatever reason(s) couldn’t figure things out.
I was here first
Connor Dougherty published this thoughtful piece about NIMBYs over the weekend in the New York Times. And it has been making the rounds online ever since. It is thoughtful in that Connor tries to understand what makes NIMBYs tick.
Water supply and air conditioning
This past weekend I was reminded that Phoenix is largely what it is today — the 5th biggest city in the US — because of two very important things. Firstly, the city had to figure out water supply. About 50% of the city’s water supply comes from surface and groundwater, specifically the Verde River and the Salt River watersheds that are to the north and east of the city.
Hard costs are insane right now
Marlon Bray over at Altus recently shared the above chart on LinkedIn. Normally I only go on LinkedIn about once every quarter, if that. But thankfully our team likes to follow nerdy charts and so it got circulated around. The chart is from Statistics Canada (table 18-10-0135-01 to be exact) and what it shows is the % change per annum of their construction price index, going all the way back to 1989. It is good context for the massive cost increases that we are all currently working through.
A flexible parkade in Calgary
As a general rule, I believe that our cities should be striving for less rather than more parking. Which is why it still baffles me when allegedly progressive cities continue to mandate ludicrous parking ratios (even when the sites are next to transit). You know who you are. But if you absolutely have to build it, the new 9th Avenue Parkade + Innovation Centre in Calgary is a good example to look to.
Displacement and gentrification
Let’s consider a scenario where we have a relatively affordable 20-unit apartment building in a rapidly growing global city. This particular building happens to be of an older vintage and so let’s say that the in-place rents are about 40% below market. Next let’s assume that the zoning has just been updated for the land and it is now possible and economically feasible to build a total of 300 housing units in a new high-rise building. This would mean demolishing the existing 20 apartment units.
Same height parties
This isn’t new. And it’s maybe a bit random. But we’re probably overdue for a break from housing debate. So here is an interesting art project by Hans Hemmert (who is part of the German collective Inges Idee). Called Personal Absurdities (1997), the project consisted of parties in Berlin in which everyone was equalized to the same height — 2 meters to be exact. The was done through blue stryofoam platform shoes ranging from 5 to 43cm in height.
Twitter > Instagram
If I had to pick only one social network to use, it would be Twitter. I, of course, also enjoy Instagram because I like taking photos. But if I had to pick one, it would be Twitter. I just find that Instagram is more about passive consumption (like watching TV), whereas on Twitter I’ve found a way to actively engage in productive discussions around the topics that interest me — everything from real estate and architecture to NFTs and photography.
The great housing supply debate continues
The great housing debate continues: Are we building enough housing, or are we not? Right now the media is talking about a new report from the Union of B.C. Municipalities, which is claiming that cities in British Columbia are actually building enough housing to keep pace with population demand. Between 2016 and 2021, the province’s population grew by 7.6% and the number of new dwellings grew by 7.2%, according to the report. So supply appears to be lining up with demand.
Per buildable square foot
Let’s say that you were comparing and thinking about buying two different pieces of development land. Both are about 25,000 square feet in size, but one is priced at $5 million and the other is priced at $50 million. If you were to calculate how much you were paying per square foot of actual dirt, you might conclude that the $5 million parcel is the cheaper one. But as we have discussed many times before on the blog, the value of development land depends on what you can build on top of it.
Kaunas - European Capital of Culture
So each year Europe runs a program called the European Capitals of Culture. The objective is to celebrate the richness of European culture and presumably drive throngs of tourists to its various locales. They do this by choosing a set of cities, designating them “capitals of culture”, and then running events and programming all throughout the calendar year in those places.
6-unit missing middle site for sale in Toronto
Marty over at Laneway Housing Advisors published this listing in his newsletter today. It’s for an entitled lot at 78 Gladstone Avenue in Toronto that has been approved (by way of a minor variance) for 6 units. Five units in the front where a house currently sits and one unit at the back in a standalone laneway suite. Though it also happens to be a corner lot and so the laneway suite isn’t really “in the back”. It’s listed for $2.5M.
Florida proposes stricter condo rules
In response to the tragic collapse of the 12-storey Champlain Towers South building in Surfside last year, the state of Florida is set to pass new stricter condominium rules around inspections and reserve funds. And according to the WSJ, the requirements would be some of the strictest in the US. Under the House bill that has already passed, condominium buildings that are three or more stories would need to be fully inspected and recertified once they are 30 years old.
Margolese National Design for Living Prize
This landed in my inbox earlier in the week. And since I think it’s important to support Canadian talent and I think it’s important for us to continually nurture a Canadian cultural identity, I’m sharing this design prize with all of you today. Hosted by the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture (SALA), the Margolese Prize is intended to recognize early to mid-career Canadians who are doing outstanding work related to the built environment.
Housing doom loop
This discussion between Patrick O’Shaughnessy and Marc Andreessen is a great follow-up to my recent post about the productization of housing. Broadly speaking it’s about tech, software eating everything, and the future of the world. But if you skip to around the 15 minute mark, Marc talks about the growing divide in our economy between sectors that are changing rapidly and sectors that are changing slowly.
Case studies on inclusionary zoning
Back in 2017, Portland, Oregon enacted new inclusionary zoning policies mandating that all new residential projects with 20 or more units must deliver a specified amount of affordable housing. Early accounts, by people like Joe Cortright of City Observatory, suggested that the market was reacting to this new requirement as you might expect. Developers rushed to get new applications onto the books and then there was a drop off in new housing supply.
Informal settlements are the desire lines of housing
Toronto’s new garden suite (accessory dwelling unit) policies are headed to Planning and Housing Committee this week for approval. If you’d like to leave a supportive comment, you can do that over here by clicking “submit comments” at the top of the page. I just finished doing exactly that. Given that this is happening, I figured I would share this related article from the New York Times talking about ADUs and informal housing in Los Angeles.
An exciting new proposal for Toronto
I love change. In fact, a big part of what I do for a living is imagining what things could be in the future. However, the bias that humans have toward the status quo has been well documented by people like Seth Godin, as well as many others. It is easier to defend that which already exists.
Choice over convenience
“Change makes us uncomfortable. Sunk costs are hard to ignore. Possibility comes with agency, and agency comes with risk.” –Seth Godin This is a quote from a recent blog post by Seth Godin talking about choice vs. convenience. His overarching argument is that we tend to go with convenience over choice when making decisions, and that means forgoing many/most of the options that we actually have available to us.
Toronto’s elimination of most parking minimums is now official
We knew it was coming. But it’s important and worth mentioning again. This week, Toronto City Council adopted new Zoning Bylaw Amendments that will remove most parking minimums across the city. We now join many other cities across North America who have done similar things in order to try and encourage more sustainable forms of mobility. If you’d like to take a spin through the draft amendments, you’ll find them linked here.
Should we be building more live/work spaces?
Lately, I’ve become very interested in live/work uses. This is not something that I have written much about over the years, but it is now on my mind for a few reasons. One, many of us tried working from home for the first time over the last 21 months or so, and my understanding is that some people enjoy it. It’s not my preference, but I don’t represent everyone.
Dwelling in peace
These “aesthetic monsters” are part of a new NFT collection that I recently bought into. They’re called Angomon (supposedly “ango” translates from Japanese into “dwelling in peace”). And they can be purchased on the Magic Eden NFT marketplace. At the time of writing this post, the floor price is about 1.15 SOL. The ultimate plan is for these characters to live in some sort of 3D world that will be called the Angoverse (which is an obvious play on metaverse).
Toronto has issued nearly 200 building permits for laneway suites - is that enough?
Love what @Gabriel_Fain did for this laneway house near Shaw and Dupont. White brick is excellent. #lanewaylove #beaglobizen pic.twitter.com/OVFnAZ12yo — Brandon Graham Donnelly (@donnelly_b) November 20, 2021 We talk a lot on this blog about laneway housing and ADUs, including, of course, the one that Globizen built earlier this year. But beyond being exceedingly cool (see above), what has this policy change meant at the macro level? To what extent is it actually helping housing supply?
Longer-term benefits of Airbnb for housing supply
There is a commonly held view that short-term rentals (such as the ones you might find on platforms like Airbnb) are bad for housing affordability because they take long-term rentals out of the market and they help to drive up property values. And there’s evidence for this. A study published in Harvard Business Review found that home-sharing alone might be responsible for about 20% of the average annual rent increases across the US.
The future of parking is a lot less of it - at least here in Toronto
I was having a conversation this week with a few friends in the industry about the future of parking. We were specifically talking about Toronto, but I would imagine that much of this holds true for many other cities around the world. Here in Toronto, it’s not uncommon to see new parking spaces in central locations selling for upwards of $200k. For those that are not in the industry and not seeing the work and immense costs that go into building parking, this often comes as a surprise.
Building on rooftops in New York City is really tough
Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is a pretty wealthy guy and so it is fairly safe to assume that he could choose to live almost anywhere. For some people the ideal might be a low-rise house with a backyard in the suburbs. But since 2018, Ackman has chosen a kind of penthouse apartment on the roof of a 1920’s co-op building in Manhattan’s Upper West Side. It was formerly the home of author Nancy Friday and Ackman supposedly purchased it for $22.5 million.
Hong Kong needs bigger apartments
CityLab recently published this article about “why Hong Kong is building apartments the size of parking spaces.” It’s about the city’s “microflats” which are typically in the range of 150 to 300 square feet. Supposedly there about 8,500 of these apartments across Hong Kong and in 2019 (this was apparently peak microflat) they represented about 7% of all new residential construction. Hong Kong is one of the densest and most supply constrained real estate markets on the planet.
A single room with a single book
This recent post by Benedict Evans talks about the firehose that is the internet. To illustrate this point, he gives the example of unread emails. If you were to look at your phone right now, how many unread emails would it show? My work email account is mostly read because reading and responding to emails is one of the ways that I manage to remain gainfully employed. But my personal email currently has 27,230 unread emails.
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