Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 308

Here is a mapping, from the University of Toronto's School of Cities , showing the number of "closed" building permits issued in Toronto between 2013 and 2023 for both rear-yard suites (laneway houses and garden suites) and secondary suites (like basement apartments).

A "closed" building permit probably means that construction is complete. However, it is not uncommon for a permit to inadvertently remain open. This happened to me with Mackay Laneway House. The permit was supposed to be closed, but it wasn't.

So here's the same mapping with open (i.e. active) permits also turned on:

Three things immediately stand out:

1. Secondary suites seem to be somewhat evenly distributed across the city.

2. Rear-yard suites are heavily concentrated in the older areas of the city, flanking the downtown core.

3. North Toronto is wealthy and isn't having either of these housing typologies.

Looking at these mappings, it probably seems like a decent amount of new housing. But that's not really the case:

• From 2013 to 2023, Toronto issued 2,209 building permits for secondary suites (1,525 have been closed and 684 remain open as of December 31, 2023).

• And from 2020 to 2023, Toronto issued 898 building permits for rear-yard suites (192 have been closed and 706 remain open, which does suggest some increased adoption). Rear-yard suites only became permissible in 2018 , which is why the date range is shorter.

To be fair, I would imagine that many secondary suites get built without a building permit. So I think the above number is probably underestimating actual supply. But even still, it doesn't change the conclusion: A lot more needs to be done to increase the supply of new housing in Toronto.

Rental housing in France is both heavily regulated and supported through dedicated public funds. Here's a high-level overview of what that means (via this 2021 Brookings case study by Arthur Acolin):

• Homeownership rates in France went from 35% in 1954 to 56% in 2001

• As of 2018, 58% of French households own, 40% rent, and the remaining 2% supposedly get free housing from either their employer or a family member

• Not surprisingly, younger households are most likely to rent (the figure is > 60% for people aged 18-29)

• Household size seems to play a major factor in how likely people are to live in public housing

• France has some 4.5 million public housing units and 17% of all households live in them (which represents about 43% of all renter households)

• Within the unsubsidized rental market, 93.5% of households live in homes owned by individual investors (this is as of 2013) and only about 3.5% live in homes owned by institutional investors

• This is pretty typical of Europe, where multi-family isn't an established real estate asset class like it is in North America; so for those of you who like to hate on individual condo investors, check out France

• In the decade between 2010 and 2020, 28 metro regions in France adopted some form of rent control and, in a few markets, like Paris and Lille, there are also maximum rents that can be charged for specific housing types

If you're interested in rental housing, Brookings also has articles covering the US, Germany, Spain, Japan, and the UK. They can be found here .

It is disappointing to me that we often vilify all condominiums as being " luxury condos ." I think the rhetoric is disingenuous and I think it distracts us from finding more productive solutions. As Mike Moffatt points out in this thread , if you look at virtually all major cities in Canada, the most affordable housing options are going to be condominiums and not low-rise freehold houses.

In his case, he looked at current for sale listings in London, Ontario, and found that for homes under $400k, about 81% of them were condominiums, and for homes over $1,200,000, only 4% of them were condominiums. Again: the real "luxury homes" are the low-rise houses that not the condos.

Now to be fair, John Pasalis is not wrong in responding to the thread and saying that on a per pound basis, or a per square foot basis, condominiums are actually more expensive. I've been saying this for years on the blog. When measured this way, mid-rise buildings are one of if not the most expensive housing typologies.

So John's argument is that, while condominiums may be the more affordable option for 1-2 person households, if you're a family in need of more space, low-rise housing is likely going to be more affordable for you on a per square foot basis . And I would agree with this statement.

The problem with this approach in the real world, though, is that people don't buy and afford homes based on this metric. You can't go to a bank and say, "I want to buy this house for $1.7 million dollars because it's only $680 per square foot when I include the basement, and that's better value than this 700 square foot condominium selling for $1,400 psf."

Sorry, the bank is going to tell you what total price you can afford based on your income. And that's why condominiums in our market have tended to serve as a critical entry point for first-time buyers. They're the most affordable option in terms of their total sale price.

So in my view, labelling all condominiums as "luxury" is not exactly productive. It ignores their role in providing more affordable homes; it overlooks the supply constraint that low-rise houses represent in most of our cities; and it's a distraction from the more systemic issue at hand: how do we make housing more affordable for everyone, including families?

Photo by  Marcos Paulo Prado  on  Unsplash