Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 333

These days, it is cool to be pro housing.

Unaffordability has apparently gotten so bad that we are now seeing a groundswell of support for increasing overall housing supply. So politicians are doing things. And this week, the Province of British Columbia proposed some new legislation related to transit hubs.

As proposed, the legislation will require BC municipalities to designate Transit Oriented Development Areas (TOD Areas), mandate minimum heights and densities within certain radii (broadly 800m in the case of rapid transit stations), and remove parking minimums .

Not surprisingly, a lot of people are excited about this and, there's no question, that this is directionally the right thing to do. But I have two immediate thoughts.

The first is that the devil is always in the details. This all sounds good, but: Are the proposed minimum densities and heights going to be enough to stimulate development? For example, is 4 the right minimum FAR for 300m from a transit station?

The second thought has to do with the level of excitement surrounding this announcement. (I'm going strictly based on Twitter, which admittedly could just be my bubble). The fact that city builders are so excited about this announcement tells us a lot about the current state of affairs.

Because what this proposed legislation is more or less saying is the following: "Hey, here's a great idea! Let's build more housing around higher order transit and not force the market to build unnecessary parking."

Is this really something that should be considered novel? I thought this was just how cities should work.

This is one example of how AR (augmented reality) can be used in a large retail store:

https://twitter.com/AndrewHartAR/status/1722307291888656764?s=20

In this particular case, it's an example of a customer being guided to a particular screw in a large hardware store.

The company, which is called Hyper , is also working to expand their product to other physical locations, such as malls, campuses, airports, and hospitals. And broadly speaking, their mission is to "build the digital layer for the physical world."

Where they have started seems to make a lot of sense. If I'm in a large hardware store and I'm trying to find a very specific product, I'd be more than happy to pull out my phone and have it guide me there.

I could also see myself pulling out my phone if I were standing in Yosemite National Park and I wanted to know all of the important points-of-interest . So from these perspectives, AR seems obviously useful.

But these are discrete moments in time. I'm looking for something right now, help me. And this is arguably how we will all start regularly using AR -- with our phones for brief periods of time.

But at some point, it is likely to become more seamless and constant. Maybe that sounds far fetched (or completely undesirable). But I'm still hoping that this becomes possible with a cool pair of sunglasses.

It is well known that Salt Lake City has some of the biggest blocks and widest streets in the United States. This is typically a challenge if you're trying to create a walkable urban environment; however, it can also be an opportunity, because it means you have a lot of public space that you can do other things with.

It is for these reasons that SLC is working on something called the Green Loop:

And the idea is to turn a ring of downtown streets into a new linear park that looks something like this:

More specifically, the Green Loop wants to do the following five things ( copied verbatim ):

• Develop a robust downtown urban forest

• Serve as an active transportation corridor for walking and biking

• Improve water quality through stormwater management

• Create inviting social spaces that provide a variety of amenities and attractions

• Create public front yards and gardens within the downtown that support the needs of all users

In my mind, albeit as a non-Salt Laker, this has the potential to be truly transformational for the city and as impactful as the High Line was for New York. So if you are a local, I would encourage you to complete this short project survey . It's open until Nov 30.