@g_meslin @StephenWickens1 I don’t think we ever solve this unless MPAC assessment correlates with value spent on Service delivery, as opposed to value realized by a property.
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Jeff Ranson
3.3K posts
Jeff Ranson
@jeffranson
Green Buildings and Urban Development in Toronto. Tweets my own
ÜT: 43.655405,-79.372395 Beigetreten Temmuz 2009
1.3K Folgt841 Follower
It's 40 years since then soon-to-be-fired Canada Post CEO and ex-Toronto Transit Commission chief Michael Warren told me per household mail delivery cost about 2X as much in Etobicoke + Scarborough as in old Toronto and that sprawl similarly made good transit much more expensive.
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@donnelly_b 2nd kid we took a cab to and from the hospital. Brought a car seat with our hospital supply kit.
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For those of you with kids and who don't drive/have a car, how did you get your newborn home from the hospital?
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@DavisJKyle @donnelly_b You're reading too much into the photo. We have no idea about the larger context. It could open onto a beautiful park or an Avenue with an allée of trees. There could be courtyard gardens. Ultimately with such a small footprint the city can eat less into surrounding nature.
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@donnelly_b I’ll never really like this from the lack of tree canopy (in light of greater urban heat islands) but it’s a pretty good example of historic planning.
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@donnelly_b That's like asking if a forest is better than a meadow. The beautiful thing about the world is that there is room for both, sometimes even in the same city.
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Which do you prefer: messy urbanism or a consistent aesthetic?
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@ChrisSpoke Just wait until you see Osgood and contrast it to changing trains at St. George. What is 2+ extra travel minutes per rider every day forever cost?
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Another benefit of cut + cover is shallower stations.
Damian W.K. Baranowski@DamianDC7
What are your thoughts on the stairs at Avenue Station?
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@Sumskillz @SwanBoatSteve I'm glad I'm not the only one who's fantasized about Sporting Life station on Line 1.
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@SwanBoatSteve I hate that Lawrence to Eglington stretch on the Yonge line. History of homeowner jerks blocking an in between station if memory serves me right.
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In all of the hoopla about Line 5 Eglinton's opening, spare a thought for those who live between stations and face longer walks to transit, or a wait for the surface bus running every 20 minutes. Eglinton joins areas like north Yonge where the riders in between don't count.
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@Mehrbod365 @BlairScorgie They could also use a stop around Lytton BLVD - 2km separation distance is too far along a street that is effectively near continuous activation.
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@BlairScorgie Interesting... but i don't think the gap between Lawrence & Eglinton station makes any sense.. that area can benefit from more density..
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Ladies and gentlemen,
I give you - the next wave of transition zones. Brought to you by the Government of Ontario and the City of Toronto.
transitionzones.com
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@EricDLombardi And loading/garbage requirements need to change or the ground floor retail doesn’t work.
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This is what Ontario’s suburban transit centers/downtowns should look like.
But it would be illegal to build this way, so we can’t even plan for it. We can’t even think about it.
Ontario is promising to review the building code “line by line”. Three key reforms would allow this built environment.
1) Single Egress Buildings (ideally up to 8 stories)
2) Permission for small European Elevator standards.
3) Fire/street rights of way.
This would also need to be paired with equipment modernization and new training for Firefighters.
There are many other details on urban forms, setbacks and step backs etc that need to be changed. But building beautifully is a choice we can make and can actually be more affordable than the current approach.
Alicia, Courtyard Urbanist@UrbanCourtyard
Urban amenities like having a pharmacy on your block, a farmer's market that comes to the plaza out your front door, and a courtyard in your backyard ...
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@donnelly_b @TTChelps Significantly better than the version with all the lines…
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@integrity_to @gordperks Just Between liberty Village, Queen & Gladstone, Duff Mall, Galleria, Yorkdale, and Downsview over 100,000 new homes are coming to Dufferin Street. You’d need 4 more car lanes to put a dent in that.
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Councillor @gordperks claims that according to “research”, 21,000 people will ditch their car for the bus as a result of the new Bathurst and Dufferin RapidTO bus-only lanes. He states this is a key priority to fulfill Toronto’s “zero carbon” agenda which was not subject to any citizen consultation or referendum.
Do you think this attempt at behavioural engineering will be successful?
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@RishiKBakshi @danielfoch It’s both, utilities and property taxes are direct costs, obviously. Transportation is hard (vehicle costs + time) but roughly, owning a car adds about $250,000 to cost of living over the life of a 25 year mortgage.
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@jeffranson @danielfoch Absolutely. Great points. I just think those points would pivot the conversation from affordability to livability. Still a very valid report, just a different intended outcome.
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Mortgage payments for typical home now exceeds 50% of after-tax family income in every Ontario urban centre; 110% in Toronto
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@RishiKBakshi @danielfoch You also need to factor in property taxes, utility rates and transportation costs to fairly compare cost of living. And should look and municipal infrastructure deficits to know if affordable cities are actual solvent.
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@danielfoch I took a read, and it looks like their methodology has some holes in it.
x.com/RishiKBakshi/s…
Rishi Kumar Bakshi@RishiKBakshi
🧵 Not too keen on this report. The methodology does have some holes in it. There are 2 big reasons why the methodology may be flawed. 1/
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@donnelly_b But can we fix the three doors? This is giving me trypophobia.
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Example of what’s wrong with planning in Toronto: Committee rejects low-rise housing proposal 5 minutes from a subway and now the community is aiming to create an area heritage designation as a weapon against any future housing attempts. torontotoday.ca/local/real-est…
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@MikePMoffatt Gen X has been waiting to ‘get theirs’ under the shadow of the boomers, but the progressive wave of politics plus the inter-generational wealth transfer from boomers will jump right over them to help the boomers’ kids. Stuff like $10daycare and first time home buyer credits…
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I'm increasingly coming around to the idea that the group that is becoming the most radicalized around the breakdown of Anglo-American systems and economies isn't young people, but Gen X. And it's often manifesting itself in some pretty ugly ways.
Tom Calver@TomHCalver
Polling lead by age group, November 2025 18-24: Greens 25-34: Labour 35+: Reform
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@ChrisSpoke @PlannerSean @MikePMoffatt During the recent inflation when grocery stores were raising prices and food packing companies were doing shrinkflation, it wasn’t an indication that people were less hungry and looking for smaller portions…
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@ChrisSpoke @PlannerSean @MikePMoffatt I think you’re overstating the demand signal as a sign of habitability. As a necessity, demand for cheap housing when there’s massive under supply of affordable, housing is just an indicator of what the market can afford not what it wants and needs.
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New MMI piece: We look at the 3.5 million people in Canada who live in a home that is too small to meet their needs, and how a mismanaged push by governments and urban planners towards densification is at odds with the human right to housing.
Read here: missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/families-are…
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@ptpark @Prominent_Bryan There are those people, but there's also a lot of people who have abused welfare their entire lives - and we expect young people to pay for their GIS? I don't see how that's fair.
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If a senior couple make 100k, they might not be 'wealthy' but they also shouldn't receive full OAS (which is really a form of welfare)
There's a big range between 'wealthy' and 'deserves to receive welfare funded by the taxes on young people'
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@trumwill And despite property tax rates in Houston around 2% (vs. 0.6-0.8% in SF, NYC, etc...) its also broke, so maybe it should think more about what it builds and where: strongtowns.org/journal/2024-4…
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@trumwill Sure, but Houston also has the highest per capital transportation costs of US Major Cities: smartcitiesdive.com/news/transport….
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Zillow assesses my childhood home at $307k. In 1990 or so, the value was assessed at $120k, which in today's dollars comes out to $305k.
The population of the Houston metropolitan area increased from 3.3m to 7.6m.
But they built the housing, so prices did not skyrocket.
Derek Thompson@DKThomp
Here is a showcase in the gap between the politics of immediacy and wise policy in housing. Housing affordability is playing a starring role in politics right now and for good reason. Many Americans, esp. young ppl, feel shut out of the housing market. In many cities, folks see "luxury condos" going up and ask, reasonably, how in the world is a condo building that they can't afford an answer to the fact that housing is too expensive? Voters might prefer politicians who support a price control—say, a rent freeze. But here's what often happens, over time: 1. As cities add new/nicer housing, it can reduce the price of old/less nice housing. Look at the tweet below: In markets with lots of new housing supply, rents are "plunging" for older apartments. Supply-side policies, which might appear indirect in the short term, tend to work in the long run. 2. Rent freezes or rent controls "work." They cut rents for covered units and tenants stay in those apartments for longer. But, on their own, rent freezes tend to get landlords to convert more apartments to condos, or sell them to skirt the policy, or reduce maintenance. Housing quality goes down, rent supply goes down, and it pushes up rents for the rest of the city. The price control policy, which might appear attractive in the short term, tends to fail in the long run. There's just no rule that says "every good idea is automatically popular with voters, and every idea that voters like is automatically a good idea." One thing I try to say about abundance ideas—although maybe I don't always say it clearly or well—is that it's my job to popularize the ideas that I think are good. If policies that work are less popular than policies that don't work, that doesn't mean it's smart to ignore the difference between good and bad affordability ideas. It just means ... I have more work to do!
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@MikePMoffatt Not ideally, necessarily - just with different degrees of urgency. I appreciate that we’ve maybe crossed some absolute minimum threshold on housing. Maybe we’re not there yet on climate but many would disagree. Maybe without housing we don’t have capacity to face climate change…
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@jeffranson Ideally, yes. But human rights should be a higher priority than municipal bond ratings. The fact that the human right to housing is the lowest priority should concern us all.
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