Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 829

The Junction House team is excited to announce that construction will start this fall and that our ground breaking ceremony will be held at 11AM on Saturday, October, 19th. Mark your calendars.

It will take place at our Sales Gallery — 2720 Dundas St W . This will be one of the last opportunities to see the award-winning Junction House Sales Gallery before it is demolished in preparation for construction.

There will be photo opportunities for everyone in attendance, and so we encourage you to bring your phones/cameras. You're welcome to extend this invitation to family and friends, but kindly RSVP by sending an email to info@junctionhouse.ca .

We look forward to seeing you there.

This recent Streetsblog article about the possibility of turning the M Ocean View line in San Francisco into a kind of subway is a good reminder about the always important connection between transit investment and density. The question I always pose to myself is, "If I were a private company deciding where to spend the money on a new and expensive subway line, what would I look for?" Most of us recognize that population and employment densities would be near, if not at, the top of the list.

Of course, if the company were fully private, then we would run the risk of low-density / unprofitable areas of the city not being serviced by transit. For a variety of reasons, that's not an ideal outcome, which is why transit operators are mostly subsidized. The challenge is that the way we plan transit in most -- or all? -- cities has become so highly politicized today. That's how we end up with the wrong transit technologies in areas that don't have the density to properly support them.

Now, I don't know the specifics of the M Ocean View line. (Maybe some of you do and will provide those thoughts in the comments below.) So this is not a post about what may or may not be appropriate in this particular instance. But it is a commentary on the importance of fiscal prudence and sound transportation planning.

Photo by  Lance Anderson  on  Unsplash

This week, RBC Economics published a study on Canada's rental market where they argued that the pace of new supply needs to at least double in markets like Toronto in order to meet future housing demand and balance the market. Similar things, I'm sure, could be said about many other housing markets around the world.

The report pegs the current rental housing deficit in Toronto at about 9,100 units:

And because they believe that the cost of ownership is pushing more people into rentals, the number of renter households is expected to grow at an average rate of 22,200 units per year in Toronto.

If you take 22,200 units per year over the next two years, and add in the current deficit of 9,100 rental units, you get to a total count of 53,500 rental units. This is what RBC Economics believes must be delivered to the market in order to restore equilibrium, and decrease the upward pressure on rents.

Rental units are, of course, delivered to the market in two main ways. There's purpose-built rentals and there are for-sale units that end up as rental housing. But even if you amalgamate both of these tenures, we are not building enough housing.

Against this backdrop, I find it curious that developers are so often vilified. Earlier this week, I saw Jennifer Keesmaat tweet out that -- as we ready for this fall's federal election -- any sensible housing plan must move away from our current for profit housing delivery model.

Who, then, will build these 53,500 rental units? That part wasn't clear to me.