Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 393

We often talk about the challenges associated with smaller scale developments on this blog. They are difficult to underwrite, there are diseconomies of scale and, after a certain point, developers typically start to require a certain minimum size. In other words, if you have a big development machine with a lot of fixed costs, you probably don't want to build even 100-150 homes at a time. You want something like 250-300 homes as a starting point.

But there is something so great about small infill projects, which is another topic that we like to talk about on this blog. Take, for example, the above 10,940 square foot project at 6001-6009 Rue St-Hubert in Montréal. Designed by L. McComber , the project includes 2 commercial spaces and 8 homes (specifically, 2 studios and 4 multi-level "townhouses").

Using rough measurement approximations from Google Maps, the lot looks to be about 15m wide x 26m deep. So the lot itself is somewhere around 4,200 sf, which is effectively a double lot based on the prevailing frontages in the area. According to this rough math, I'm guessing the FSI (floor space index) of this development is somewhere around 2.5x.

It is certainly a beautiful project, but in my mind the two most noteworthy aspects of this development -- at least for this audience -- are the following:

1. The architect essentially acted as the developer. They wanted to build and then own their own office space, and so they now occupy the ground floor of this project. As a partial end-user of the development, this likely means that they underwrote it slightly differently compared to if they were a pure developer.

2. The project's circulation space is outside and is largely housed in a central open-air courtyard.

Here's what #2 looks like:

This second point about circulation is an important one because it's an effective way to reduce hard costs, improve overall efficiency (rentable/saleable divided by gross construction area), and lower long-term operating costs. Of course, exterior stairs/circulation are quite common across Montréal's walkups. So maybe this isn't all that novel for them.

But I still think it's a perfect reminder that we shouldn't use climate as an excuse. Montréal is both colder and snowier than Toronto. And just look how they're building. I would happily live here. Would you?

Photos: Raphaël Thibodeau via L. McComber

I love my Canadian passport. It is both a part of my own identity and my ticket to the rest of the world. And as much as I also love technology, I hope that we never do away with old fashioned passport stamps administered by grumpy customs officials. I don't care if the data is being stored on a blockchain somewhere -- which will likely be the case -- I would really like a barely legible and awkwardly placed stamp inside of my personal paper folio.

Of course, now there's a new passport.

This week, Canada unveiled a new design featuring enhanced security features (presumably all of which are vitally important) and a lot more images of nature. Perhaps not surprisingly, it has received a lot of criticism. But it doesn't seem to be the usual, "this is new and I just don't like change" kind of criticism. It seems to be the "this is objectively bad" kind of criticism.

Supposedly, many of the visual changes were done because they were thought to better represent who we are as Canadians. Really?

Families, Children and Social Development Minister Karina Gould, who helped announce the changes, and who oversees Service Canada, said that the redesign – including images of polar bears, people jumping in a lake, and birds in winter – capture the “spirit of who we are as Canadians.”

At the highest level, I think it is clear from this redesign that we are struggling with our own sense of national identity. Who are we? And what kind of nation do we aspire to become? This is evident through at least two features of this new passport:

1. The way we are communicating the monarchy of Canada

2. The iconography that we believe captures the "spirit of who we are as Canadians"

The current passport design -- which I have in front of me right now -- features the Arms of Canada prominently in the middle of the cover. The new design (pictured above), moves the Arms of Canada to the bottom left, though it appears to remain the same size as before. However, this move makes room for a partial maple leaf to tuck behind the Arms in the center of the cover.

Ignoring that these two objects feel visually incongruent with one another, I generally hate both designs simply because I hate the fact that Canada is a constitutional monarchy. However, I will give credit to the previous design and say that at least it was decisive. It had one visual image in the center of the cover that clearly communicated something : our monarch is first and foremost.

Now what we have done is decided to timidly introduce a partial (and minimal) maple leaf behind it. It is perhaps the softest way we could have done it: "Sorry, mind if I just insert this here?" But rather than assert brand Canada, it merely signals that we're shy, and we don't really know who we are.

If it were up to me (and it isn't), the Arms would come off the cover completely (it can go somewhere inside as part of our history), and I'd place a single small red maple leaf under the word "Passeport." Nothing on the back cover. Ironically, I think this would be infinitely more impactful -- and confident -- than what is shown here.

The next problem has to do with the iconography that we believe captures the "spirit of who we are as Canadians." As of 2021, it is estimated that over 82% of Canadians live in an urban center, and this number continues to increase. So while I appreciate that we have a very large land mass and that our natural environment is precious, it does not actually reflect the current reality of how the majority of Canadians live.

Perhaps the argument is that deep down inside we all secretly wish that we were living in the woods next to nature (or at least in a luxury "cottage" in Muskoka). This is the true "spirit of who we are." I don't know, maybe it is for some. But there's something to be said about recognizing the reality we live in today and the importance of our cities in driving the Canadian economy forward.

Equally important is recognizing the people, moments, and symbols that form part of our history. Much of that was stripped from this new design. So is it time to go back to the drawing board? I think so. Our visual symbols tell the story of who we are and who we want to become. If we can't get these right, then how will we actually get to where we want to go?

One conventional way to think about cities is that people migrate to urban areas in order to make more money. This remains true today and the data is pretty clear that, if you live in an urban area, you're likely to make more money than if you didn't -- even if you're just as educated. You're also likely to make even more money if the city is really big ( there's a correlation between income and city size). And you probably also walk a little faster given that, you know, time equals money.

But there are other reasons for wanting to live in a city. And probably the biggest is that they can bring us pleasure. Back in 2001, Edward Glaeser, Jed Kook, and Albert Saiz published this paper called, "Consumer City", where they showed that high amenity cities have tended to grow faster than low amenity cities. They also went on to demonstrate that, in high amenity cities, urban rents have tended to increase faster than urban wages, suggesting that there are other reasons for wanting to live in a city beyond simply wage growth.

Fast forward to today and Ed Glaeser has a new opinion piece in the New York Times arguing the following:

New York is undergoing a metamorphosis from a city dedicated to productivity to one built around pleasure. . . The economic future of the city that never sleeps depends on embracing this shift from vocation to recreation and ensuring that New Yorkers with a wide range of talents want to spend their nights downtown, even if they are spending their days on Zoom. We are witnessing the dawn of a new kind of urban area: the Playground City.

I saw City Observatory comment that they thought it was odd Glaeser didn't mention his previous work on the Consumer City. But I wonder if this is him not wanting to suggest that this was a trend decades in the making. Maybe instead, he wanted to position it as a dramatic and profound shift brought about by a pandemic. But how can you not ask this question: Is the Playground City truly something novel, or are we just following a trend line?

In my view, they're not all that different. The basic idea is that people like cities that are cool and fun, and so they will pay a premium to be in those kinds of places. This was true in 2001 and it's still true in 2023. The only difference today is that we now believe we have too much office space in some markets, and so we're trying to recalibrate around work vs. pleasure. But even with this, the work component of our cities isn't going to zero.

Photo by  Jan Folwarczny  on  Unsplash