Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 44

Yesterday we spoke about the merits of fine-grained urbanism and why the direct and obvious way to achieve this is to just, you know, encourage more small-scale development. So today, let's talk about some of the specific things that would likely need to happen in order to unlock all of the small and under-utilized sites that today are not being developed at scale.

I'm going to speak from a Toronto perspective and talk specifically about small-scale "apartments," which in today's planning environment are generally buildings with seven or more dwelling units. Under this threshold, we have new terminology like "houseplex." But I'm sure that much of what I raise will translate to other cities and building types.

Here's my working list (I've also added a few items from this Twitter discussion ):

• As-of-right zoning permissions (the key, though, is that what's as-of-right needs to be economically viable)

• No side-yard and front-yard setbacks

• No site plan control approval (currently required for projects with 10 or more homes)

• No/lower development charges

• No parkland dedication fees

• No required parking

• No required amenity spaces (the city is the amenity)

• Curbside garbage collection (as opposed to internalized collection facilities)

• Reasonable servicing connection costs (I'm specifically looking at you Toronto Hydro)

• No Record of Site Condition, or a streamlined process (Ministry of the Environment, Conservation and Parks approval)

• Single egress stair

• Flexible elevator sizing

• No rental replacement

• Predictable financing terms from agencies like CMHC

There's a lot on this list. But there isn't just one thing standing in the way of more fine-grained development. If you think I missed anything (or you just disagree with my line of thinking), feel free to leave a comment below.

What Toronto has demonstrated with its efforts to expand housing options in its neighbourhoods is that, when it makes economic sense to do so, people will actually build small. Today, the market is building single-unit laneway houses, and increasingly, it is building things like fourplexes and sixplexes.

So, what's standing in the way of more 10-, 20-, and 30-unit projects? It's the barriers and hurdles we have erected.

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Cover photo by Jason Ng on Unsplash

One of the benefits of older cities and neighbourhoods is that their scale and rhythm of development often allow for walkability and a wide variety of experiences in a short period of time ( here's a related post ). The typical characteristics include small lot sizes, diverse ownership, short city blocks, a mix of uses, and visual variety. And in planning speak, this is typically referred to as fine-grained urbanism.

Here's a random block example from Toronto that I'm choosing simply because I had a wonderful sourdough sandwich on this street over the weekend:

The longest lots in the middle of this block are over 45 metres deep and under 5 metres wide. The result is some very long and narrow buildings, but at the same time, a lot of storefront variety when you're walking along Dupont Street. It has the bones for a great retail street. The only problem is that, for the most part, we don't build our cities like this anymore. We do the opposite. We build bigger, which is conversely referred to as coarse-grained urbanism.

But since we know that fine-grained urbanism makes for better street experiences, it is common to try to impose it on new developments. Cities will say, "Hey, I know that you have a big, wide, shallow retail space on the ground floor of your building, but can you chop it up into smaller, fine-grained spaces such that they all become totally unleasable?" (I half kid. See here for some context.)

The result:

To be clear, I am in no way picking on this development. As a rule, I don't do that sort of thing on this blog. Development is hard. I also like it. I just think it's perhaps the clearest example of what all urban-minded planners and developers are trying in earnest to do, and that is to create coarse-grained urbanism masquerading as fine-grained urbanism. The architectural rhythm of the storefronts matches the existing context, but the scale of the retailers may not.

And that's okay. This is the reality of the world today, and modern retailers want what they want. I'm also a believer in the power of free markets. But to this same end, I want to point out something that is exceedingly obvious: the best way to create fine-grained urbanism is to simply encourage small-scale development!

Every hurdle we erect only increases the incentive for developers to build bigger and coarser. It becomes the only way to underwrite profitable projects. The solution is to lower the barriers to development and, in turn, make small more feasible. Because if we do that, we already know it'll make our cities better. I think we'll also find that the market will respond with a different category of tenants and entrepreneurs.

Tomorrow, we'll talk about the specific ways in which Toronto and other cities could execute on this better.

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Cover photo by Finn on Unsplash

This past weekend, the Brazilian-Japanese coffee house, The Coffee , soft-opened at the base of Junction House (right at the corner of Dundas St W and Watkinson Ave). And it was busy! I've been eagerly awaiting this opening since it was first announced last year.

But not for any direct economic reasons — unless, of course, it reminds you that you should buy a new home at Junction House ! As I mentioned before, we (the developers) no longer own this retail space. This is not our tenant.

I'm mostly excited as a proud resident of the Junction, and because I think it's a perfect fit for the building and the neighourhood. So, I would encourage you to check it out at 2720 Dundas St W . Starting today, any coffee meetings I take in the Junction will be held here.