Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 988

Today’s post is going to be about a handful of things that have caught my attention.

- Gary Hack, who is the former dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, recently published a book called Site Planning: International Practice . It is a textbookish guide to planning processes, new technologies, and sustainability, with an emphasis on rapidly urbanizing countries. Thank you to my friend Michael Geller for bringing this to my attention.

- Sidewalk Labs Toronto is opening a new experimental workspace here in Toronto at 307 Lake Shore Boulevard East (Queens Quay & Parliament) on Saturday, June 16th from 12 - 6pm. It’s an old fish processing plant that they have turned into their office. The team will work there during the week and on the weekends they will open to the public to showcase what they’re up to. Register for the June 16th event, here . I just did.

- Alexandra Lange has a recent piece in the New Yorker called, The Hidden Women of Architecture and Design . It’s about the important role that women have played in the “design of childhood”, which is the title of a book by Lange. There’s also a short but interesting story about Detroit’s Lafayette Park (Mies van der Rohe) at the beginning of the article.

- Finally, here is a blog post by Witold Rybczynski where he talks about the shortcomings of architectural education. Obscure theories. Technical or made-up jargon. And no concern for budgets and schedules. I have always shared a similar view and have long felt that there needs to be more business school in architecture school.

Hopefully there’s something in here that is of interest to you.

It happened.

Today, Toronto and East York Community Council voted unanimously in favor of adopting a planning framework that would allow laneway suites on lands within the Toronto and East York District that are designated as “Neighbourhoods.” 

If you’d like to see the actual vote (and the clapping that ensued), check out this YouTube video  at the 41 minute mark. There are also some great speeches prior to the vote by Councillor Bailão, Councillor Perks, and others.

Now, it still needs to go through City Council, but today remains an important milestone and a positive step forward. So kudos to everyone who has been working tirelessly to push this initiative forward.

I would also like to take this opportunity to address some of the comments that I recently received about this blog, one of which is that I continue to offer a one-sided perspective on this issue of laneway housing in Toronto.

Think of this blog – and I’m stealing this analogy from another blogger – as a bar. I am the bartender and I show up here pretty much every day. I’ve been doing that consistently for almost 5 years now.

At this bar I sip on negronis  – okay, it’s probably beer – and I talk about topics and issues that excite me and that are usually related to city building. If it doesn’t excite me, I don’t talk/write about it. And I get lots of emails every day asking me to write about things that do not excite me.

If you would like to take a seat at the bar, have a drink, and join the conversation, you are more than welcome to do that in the comment section at the bottom of every post. In fact, it’s encouraged. I make a mean vodka soda.

So maybe I’ll see you at the bar. The bartender is a fairly open-minded guy who enjoys good conversation.

Over the weekend, Jason Thorne , who is the General Manager of Planning and Economic Development at the City of Hamilton, tweeted this out . He said, if Jerry Seinfeld can do Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee , then he was going to do Planners On Bikes Getting Coffee . And that’s exactly what he did in Barrie with their Chief Planner, Andrea Bourrie .

I immediately responded by asking : Is this really a thing you are doing? Because if not, it is something you should absolutely start. He was kidding but I think the response he received on Twitter got him reconsidering if he should make it a thing. I think this is a great idea, and so I hope he does consider it. If you agree, maybe send him a tweet .

I have a GoPro, gimbal stabilizer, and a bicycle. So if this doesn’t become a thing, maybe there needs to be a Developers On Bikes Getting Coffee .