Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 321

As a follow-up to yesterday's post about infill housing and overall urban densities, let's look at some basic math.

The City of Toronto has an estimated population of 3,025,647 (as of June 2023) and a land area of 630 square meters. That means that its average population density is about 4,803 people per km2. Obviously this number will be higher in some locations, and lower in others. But overall, this is the average.

Now let's consider how many people we could actually fit within the existing boundaries of the city (city proper not the metro area) if we were to simply match the average population densities of some other global cities around the world.

Again, what this chart is saying is that if we took the same physical area (Toronto's 630 square meters) and just increased the population density to that of, say, Paris, we would then have a total population of over 13 million people and we'd be housing an additional 10,011,573 humans on the same footprint.

I am not suggesting that this is exactly what should be done. (Though, you all know how much I love Paris.) What I'm suggesting is that calling a place "full" isn't exactly accurate. How would you even measure that? What someone is really saying is that they are content with the status quo in terms of built form and density.

Note: The above population densities were all taken from Wikipedia , except for Toronto's figures, which were taken from here .

I tweeted this out yesterday:

https://twitter.com/donnelly_b/status/1735411219094192197?s=20

What I was getting at is that there's lots of available room within our existing boundaries for infill housing. We are nowhere near full, despite what some people will tell you. In fact, most areas are not dense enough to properly support modes of transport that aren't the car.

Of course, there are a number of ways that one could be offended by a statement like this.

One, you could argue that more density would make the city unlivable. Two, you could get into the chicken-and-egg game of whether a more expansive transit system is needed before allowing more density. Three, you could say that we already have enough zoned and unbuilt housing supply -- so why do we need more? And I'm sure that there are many others that I'm not mentioning here.

Density can be a counterintuitive feature for cities. It can actually make a place more livable by encouraging more amenities adjacent to where people live and work, and it can also reduce traffic congestion by empowering alternative forms of mobility. If the only reasonable way to get around is by car, then of course most people will drive.

We also need to avoid the chicken-and-egg mental trap when it comes to mobility infrastructure. Land use and transportation always work hand in hand and need to be thought of and executed on simultaneously.

Finally, the objection of already having lots of sites zoned for new housing is an enticing one. But zoned and delivered are two vastly different things. And the unfortunate reality is that there are a lot of zoned sites that won't be able to develop in the short and medium terms because the market isn't there . But that doesn't mean that other housing typologies couldn't be built.

At the same time, we need move away from " cruise ships of urbanity ." Broadly speaking, Paris -- to cite just one of many examples-- is at least and on average about 4x denser than Toronto. And somehow, people still like living and visiting there.

If you are the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority and you own excess land next to a transit line that you've just recently built, one possible option could be to give this land to a non-profit housing developer so that they can build some affordable housing. And this is exactly what was agreed to in 2007 with the Lorena Plaza site in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of LA. The proposal: 49 affordable units geared toward people making 50% of the AMI.

However, like all things in development, things do take time. And when building new 4-storey housing complexes, there is always the real possibility that you might face several years (or longer) of fierce opposition. In the case of Lorena Plaza, it apparently took the developers from 2013 to 2020 to reach a settlement with the local councilman and their immediate neighbor (a commercial plaza). In the end, this project is now expected to occupy next summer (2024), which brings the total project timeline to 17 years.

This is probably an extreme example and, thankfully, some of the rules have since been changed to help speed up projects like this one. Still, it is no wonder we can't build enough new housing. (Los Angeles wants to build some 450,000 new homes by 2029.) Time isn't free. And according to the WSJ , this relatively small project ended up costing US$34.2 million to build. That's nearly US$700k per suite. A number that will buy you a lot of home in many cities across the US.