Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 646

Daniel Foch , Daniel Clark , and Adam Darvay recently stopped by Mackay Laneway House to film a last-minute video tour before the new tenants move in. They had quite the rig setup (see above). There was also a drone flying around that is not pictured here. The full house tour should be available in about two weeks and I'll be sure to share here on the blog.

One of the things we talked about during the tour was the future of laneway housing in Toronto. Will we see strong adoption going forward and, if yes, what does that mean for Toronto's laneways? I think we will continue to see a steady increase in the number of laneway suites that get built in Toronto each year. And so eventually this form of living will become a ubiquitous part of the urban landscape. It's happening fast.

Now consider what this could mean for Toronto's laneways. As garages and parking spaces get slowly replaced by new housing, it will mean that our laneways could at some point flip from being vehicle first to pedestrian first. Mackay Laneway House does not have any vehicular parking. The front door is off the laneway. You enter on foot. That's how you experience the lane. And Gabriel and I thought it should be celebrated.

If or when this tipping point occurs, it will trigger a perception change. Slowly but surely we will start to think of our lanes not as back of house, but as front of house. And when that happens, it'll almost certainly force us to rethink how we design them. Forget utilitarian. Our laneways have the potential to become some of the most pedestrian-friendly streets in the city, especially with a few streetscape and landscape improvements.

Pushing this idea even further, could you imagine a world where our laneways not only become more front of house, but where the laneway side becomes the more desirable side of the property? If we gave people the option, how many would prefer to build their main house on what is today considered to be the backside? (Remember how things once flipped in Paris? )

But for the fact that we have an entrenched built form that could make this "inversion" challenging, I think there are people who would prefer to have their front door on the quieter and more pedestrian-friendly side of their property. Either way, I continue to believe that we are in the early stages of an ADU/laneway housing revolution. And things are just getting started.

Scarcity. FOMO. Scott Galloway is right. In this recent post , he talks about why humans are programmed to chase scarcity and why blockchains (specifically NFTs ) could represent something incredibly meaningful for not just the art world but for many other asset classes. Here's an excerpt from the post:

People like scarcity — a lot. Owning something scarce makes one feel unique, and signals success and worthiness as a potential mate. Scarcity is also an instinctual trigger for obsession — when we sense a scarcity of something, be it food or a mate, we are programmed to become obsessed with finding it. Art auctions, the (pre-pandemic) lines outside Supreme, and the margins on a Panerai Tourbillon prove this point.

A Van Gogh and a Rothko are both unique, and therefore scarce, because they are made of atoms, and it is impossible to arrange a second set of atoms in an identical configuration. Print artists, whose lithographs are made to be reproduced without alteration, use a small "17/100" written in the corner, to distinguish each print and bestow scarcity upon it.

To hold value, scarcity must be credible. The dirty (not-so) secret of the art world is that art buyers, and even professional art appraisers,  struggle to discern  originals from forgeries. A well-made forgery provides the same practical value as an original — you can hang it on your wall and bask in its profundity. Yet the art world invests millions of dollars in identifying the "real" version of valuable works; once unmasked, forgeries are nearly worthless.

I have always found this fascinating about art (but really, it applies to most other things). Is the price you pay so that you can "bask in its profundity" or because the object in question signifies something -- it tells a story? In addition to scarcity, we also obsess over stories. They help create meaning for us.

The interesting thing about all of this is that it's really just a question of perception. When a work of art is discovered to be a fake that is, indeed, detrimental to value. But what changed? The art itself hasn't changed. We just no longer enjoy it and derive as much value from it because the story is not what we thought it was.

https://youtu.be/i_PFn-1SFgY

CIBC Deputy Chief Economist Benjamin Tal was recently interviewed by Larysa Harapyn of the Financial Post about the state of the housing market in the Greater Toronto Area. The message he delivers is pretty clear: "If you think that Toronto is unaffordable now, you wait." The long-term fundamentals in this market remain strong. Demand is outstripping supply and will likely continue to do so, which is why Tal also stresses the importance of delivering more purpose-built rental housing. If you can't see the video above, click here . (And with that, I think it's time to switch topics for tomorrow's post. That's enough Toronto housing for one week.)