Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 851

I came across this tweet by Sean Galbraith last night. You will probably need to click through to see the full extent of the photos. It is a series of images showing two back-to-back houses. The lands touch one another. But if you were to drive from one house to the other, it would take you about 18 minutes because of the area's road network. Approximately 7.1 miles.

https://twitter.com/PlannerSean/status/1154134486105436161

This, of course, is far from urban. It would take over two hours to walk this same distance (assuming an average walking speed of 1 mile every 18 minutes). If you're an urbanist, this is surely galling to you. But I think it's also important to remember that this is, at least partially, a result of a consumer preference for dead end streets that limit through traffic.

This recent NY Times article -- which makes the case that the current protests in Hong Kong are at least partially a result of inequality -- has a pair of interesting diagrams that speak to the city's tight housing market.

The first compares average living space per person in Hong Kong to Paris and New York City. New York City appears palatial compared to the illegally subdivided apartments that are discussed in the article.

The second looks at housing affordability as a multiple of median household income. Hong Kong is over 20x. I am curious what median incomes were used for each of the cities. A small denominator makes the multiples look worse.

In this chart, New York also includes the entire metropolitan area, which would help to improve its affordability ranking. So one could argue that this isn't really a fair comparison.

At the same time, none of this changes the fact that Hong Kong has some of, if not, the most expensive housing in the world.

Images: NY Times

This a big month for laneway (housing) advocates in Toronto. Last week, City Council voted in favor of expanding the policy provisions for laneway suites to all Neighbourhoods within the city. ( Neighbourhood is a defined term in the city's Official Plan.)

Previously, the policies -- which allow laneway suites to be built as-of-right -- only applied to the Toronto & East York Districts. Here's a copy of the recent staff report in case you would like more information.

On Monday, my friend Alex Sharpe (of Lanescape) was on BNN Bloomberg talking about why this is a good thing for the city. Alex and the rest of the team at Lanescape have been instrumental in these policy changes.

If you're a Toronto homeowner with a property that fronts onto a laneway, I would encourage you to consider this opportunity. It's a way to increase the value of your home and it's a way to create more rental housing in this city.