Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 366

This morning I spoke to the Globe and Mail about the evolving nature of Dupont Street here in Toronto. The impetus for the discussion was this : Dupont Street is now seeing a lot of residential intensification, but the street itself remains a bit of a crosstown highway. It's not yet a "complete street." And since Junction House is effectively on the west end of this midtown artery, John Lorinc asked to get my thoughts.

The point I tried to make is that, in my opinion, this is first and foremost a zoning issue. Dupont Street is seeing intensification, but it is largely happening on the north side of the street, abutting the rail corridor (purple and red in the above Official Plan map). The south side of the street is, for the most part, a low-rise neighborhood (yellow in the above map).

This kind of edge condition is somewhat unique in the city: low-rise on one side of the street; higher density housing, retail, and office on the other. But it is particularly problematic if you're trying to create a great main street, because single-sided retail streets generally don't work very well.

We could certainly have a discussion about sidewalk widths, bike lanes, and other streetscape improvements; but in my mind, there is nothing inherently bad about the cross section of this street. The right-of-way width is 20 meters, meaning there are generally two lanes going in each direction. This is a dimension you'll find all over the city, including on beloved streets like Queen Street.

The problem here is what is abutting the street, and it is something that is systemic across the city: we have too many arterial roads that only allow for low-rise housing. So if you were to ask me what to do next, and I was asked this morning, the first thing I would do is up-zone the south side of Dupont and allow for non-residential uses at grade.

And once this is done, I am certain it will snowball many other positive improvements.

I don't normally write about food on this blog. But hear me out. Yesterday was Bianca's birthday and we had an incredible experience at Osteria Giulia . We sat at the bar, as we like to do, and everything was perfect: the food, the service, and the interiors.

First, let's talk about the food.

Anchovies, grilled sourdough, and a lot of delicious butter:

Endive, pear, burnt honey vinaigrette, toasted almonds, and ricotta:

Ricotta filled pasta, mushrooms, and artichokes:

Sea bass, leeks, artichokes, fava beans, and charred tomatoes:

Now, let's talk about the interiors. They were designed by Guido Costantino Projects. And to get a good feel for their approach, I suggest you first check out their Instagram and then move onto their website . They do really beautiful and calming work.

Design always matters.

And I'm pretty sure that the cream-colored stones and light-oak details made everything taste that much better last night. If you haven't been and you get a chance, I would highly recommend you try Osteria Giulia. It's now one of our favorites in the city.

Happy birthday, Bianca!

We poured the concrete footings/foundations for Parkview Mountain House this week. Above is a photo of the pour. We're about two weeks behind schedule because of delays related to site works and excavation. (We're building into the side of a mountain .) But I'm hopeful we can make it up once we finish concrete work and move on to wood framing next month.

For those of you who like details, here's a section showing the footing and retaining wall on the back of the property facing the slope of the mountain:

Our tallest retaining wall is going to be 15 feet high, which, as I understand it, is more or less the maximum we could have done here without getting into more elaborate structural solutions (such as tiebacks). So the team spent a lot of time solving a design puzzle that involved the height of this retaining wall, the maximum allowable zoning height for the site, and our choice of established grade.

Onward. More concrete to come and then we move to wood. It's a race to get "closed in" before the snow starts up again.