Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 895

The minutes from One Delisle's Design Review Panel meeting were just published. They are public and available on the City of Toronto's website, here . The project was on the December 13, 2018 agenda.

No project is ever perfect, but here are two paragraphs from the minutes that I think do it justice:

The Panel thought the proposal had an "iconographic landmark quality to it". Numerous members pointed out that it's (sic) siting at a transitional "hinge point" on Yonge St would also lend itself to iconic placemaking as well as a striking addition to the view down the Yonge corridor.

The Panel was excited to have this type of sophisticated design come to Toronto. Many members felt that the massing and design solution would be a powerful and beautiful addition to the skyline. Several members commented that the proposal could become "a building with a name" similar to landmark towers in London, England. One member suggested that Toronto could use more buildings with personality.

Lots of buildings, of course, have names. What is really being discussed is a building with an identity that resonates with people in a meaningful way and that becomes associated with a particular place.

But let's not forget that being "iconic" is only one part of this equation. The goal here is ambitious architecture with genuine civic value. And if you're at all familiar with the project and broader ideas for the block , I would hope that mission is clear.

New York is close to implementing new "pied-à-terre tax." If the bill passes, which the New York Times believes is likely , cities of a million or more people will be able to levy an additional property tax on non-primary residence homes worth $5 million or more. The additional tax would be based on the following sliding scale :

So let's say for argument sake that you own a pied-à-terre in New York City worth approximately $238 million . Based on the above, your additional tax would be $370,000 + [4% x ($238 million - ~$25 million)]. That's almost $8.9 million. Most of the revenue from this tax is expected to come from this upper (and open-ended) valuation bracket.

New York City estimates that the tax could bring in about $650 million annually . The state in turn believes it could then raise $9 billion in bonds. And the intent is that these additional funds could be used to fund things like transit and housing. I am curious how elastic the demand is for trophy real estate in New York.

Another thing I noticed while reading up on this bill is that the New York State Senate has made it pretty easy to voice your opinion on proposed legislation. On the sidebar of every bill making its way through the system is a box that looks like this:

This is probably the clearest engagement tool I have ever seen on a government website. Do you think something like this could work for new housing?

Three years ago I wrote about how I was one step closer to not only going cashless -- I had pretty much already done that -- but also going walletless. (That's one of the things about writing a daily blog -- there's a public record.) I still carry a wallet in most cases, but I couldn't tell you the last time I paid for something using cash here in Toronto. It was probably at a Vietnamese restaurant.

I did, however, notice on my trip last month that Germany and Austria are still quite reliant on cash. Many places only accepted cash and many places wouldn't accept credit cards under a certain minimum spend. Fewer opportunities to just tap as well. I had forgotten how annoying it was to carry around lots of coins. You really need a change purse.

Still, a paradigm shift has taken place. And because of this shift, there's a growing movement in cities toward banning cash-free businesses. Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, DC are all working on policy. The concern is that not accepting cash discriminates against lower-income patrons.

According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FIDC) , approximately 8.4 million US households (6.5% of all households) were "unbanked" in 2017. This means that no one in the household had either a checking or savings account.

An additional 24.2 million US households (additional 18.7% of all households) are estimated to be "underbanked", meaning they have at least one account at an insured institution, but they also rely on outside financial products -- such as payday loans.

When surveyed , somewhere around half tend to cite "not having enough money" as one of the reasons for being "unbanked." But the good news is that the percentage of people without a bank account seems to be declining (see above chart).

This is important because we all know where things are headed. And banning cashless businesses isn't going to stop that march. There are deeper issues that need to be addressed. Here is an excerpt from a recent CityLab article on the topic :

“I certainly don’t think [this bill] is the right long-term solution,” said Rogoff . “The future does not lie in this direction. The future lies in giving people free debit cards and financial inclusion.” He cited the case of India. The country launched a program to decrease the number of unbanked and saw the percentage decrease from 47 percent of adults in 2014 to 20 percent unbanked in 2017 according to the World Bank Global Findex Report. “If India can manage to give people free debit cards, so can the U.S.” Rogoff said.

Kenneth Rogoff is a professor of public policy at Harvard University, the former chief economist of the IMF, and author of The Curse of Cash . If you're interested in this topic, his book may be a good one to check out.