Thank you for securing this approval Sean! We are excited to move forward….

Which is why the findings need to be revived and repeated ad nauseam until they become more difficult to ignore.

A 2021 City of Ottawa study showed that a new unit in the denser core returns $606 per capital to the city in annual tax revenue, while a new unit in low density greenfields costs the city $465 per capita annually.

Oh, and also foreign capital.

How RealToken-Linked Transfers Could Be Influencing Detroit’s 2026 Assessments Sales linked to RealToken appear repeatedly in the neighborhood valuation study, raising questions about whether mass appraisal systems are adapting to new speculative ownership models.

Wow. Crypto meets housing market speculation meets municipal property tax.

gratiotlabs.substack.com/p/how-realto...

Here’s some
1 Review OP neighbourhood character policies, esp. how they relate to densification policies
2 A simple, clear guideline outlining acceptable measures for single stair up-to-4 storey bldgs
3 Paris-style street greening, including school streets.

Now that EHON is wrapping up, what should @planning.cityof.toronto.ca ‘s next pressing planning priorities be?

Fair enough. But for those interpreting the charts, minimum added dwelling needed to avoid doubling up, e.g., is not equal to actual demand but would over-estimate it.

How does the data differentiate between those who are doubling up out of necessity versus those who prefer to live together, eg student roommates, seniors seeking companionship, etc.?

If you dramatically increase the supply of residential mortgages, which is what government-backed NHA mortgage-backed securities and Canada Mortgage Bonds programs were aimed at doing and did very successfully, not surprising perhaps that that would result in upward pressure on house prices.

The Bank of Canada report noted that public securitization may cause lenders to overextend mortgage credit beyond what would exist without securitization, leading to “…more leveraged households and elevated house prices.”

This has been widely acknowledged, including by the Bank of Canada.

Fed gov guarantees NHA Mortgage-backed securities and Canada Mortgage Bonds.

Last time I checked, Cdn taxpayers were on the hook for almost half a *trillion* dollars of MBS.

City vs CMA perhaps?

Or, better still, just remove provincial HST from the first $1,000,000 of new housing prices.

That would remove $80 K from prices, equivalent to the current DCs for 2+ bedroom units in Toronto.

And could be done tomorrow.

Thing is you don’t need the cumbersome and no doubt lengthy process of creating municipal service corporations for water, etc.

Just create a separate property tax levy on new units for capital costs.

This takes costs out of home prices and annualizes them.

1000%

Great article on single stair buildings and my Toronto sixplex.

With multiplexes now as-of-right, single stair solutions offer huge potential for simple, high quality, livable, replicable buildings within neighbourhoods.

I hope many others will be encouraged to pursue this potential.

@shawnmicallef.bsky.social

One of the interesting findings of other follow-up research on the NYC charge was that travel speeds (for cars and public transit) improved not only within the charge zone, but outside it too, ie even non-payers benefit.

In 2021 I connected “stair daddy” @holz-bau.bsky.social with CoV staff to see if they had any funding for a study.

His report (and obsessive posting) helped kick off a movement that now is taking hold across North America.

The original all-purpose, heavy-duty, city-country hauler:

Suspect this won’t really reduce the number of C of A applications needed, but probably will move buildings a bit closer to lot lines!

Did you know that as per a new Planning Act Regulation, as long as a building setback is 90% of a required min setback from a lot line, it no longer has to go to Committee of Adjustment?

EG if a required front yard setback is 3 m, you can have 2.7 m.

They are single exit stair configurations as permitted for sprinklered buildings of up to 25m in height by the National Construction Codes of Australia.

Small-car manufacturer should counter with a parked pickup with a litre of milk strapped tightly down on the truck bed under their ad.

I feel that there hasn’t been attention paid to the fact that as per Bill 17, development charges on condos & ownership housing are no longer payable upon building permit, but upon occupancy permit.

This is helpful, bc developers no longer have to finance the cost of DCs thru construction.

Interesting that private apartment construction tanked across all the former TO municipalities by the end of the 70s, not just the one with a new reform council in ‘72. Plus a lot of new units were built in the burbs!

nb data is from a diffrnt source than Jeff’s chart, so #s not exactly comparable.

What I meant was that the TO Council reform measures didn’t cause much of the steep drop in rental unit construction shown in Jeff’s chart in the mid-1970s. But it did have longer-term impacts by affecting the political culture around urban development and planning policy.

Even so, agree it did have long-lasting effects on Toronto planning culture and local politics, as you point out.

I’ve come to the view that the 1970s height restriction + reforms probably didn’t actually affect growth much in TO. It happened to coincide with cancellation of v successful fed tax incentives + rent control, & rental construction tanked not only in the old City, but Scarb, NYork + Etobicoke too.