Zoning Reform Ideas

[Northern Light]

As promised, a look at what else passed/didn't in relation to the Mayor's Housing Report request.

First, a look at what passed.

Deputy Mayor McKelvie asked for lots of worthless reports as it pertains to multi-tenant {rooming houses).

There's more, but I'm editing for clarity....... item F is the one that got my attention. Yes, she would like a report on how much a Rooming House depresses the value of the neighbour's property. What exactly will she do with this information? Hmmm

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Councillor Cheng asked that the City formally request the province to extend inclusionary zoning powers beyond MTSAs. (fine, but entirely up to the province)

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Councillor Bravo asked for a few things:

The targets bit is fine, I suppose, though Housing Now has had plenty of targets it simply misses without anyone being penalized; the rest is all amorphous nonsense as it its non specific to mean anything or change anything.

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Councillor Bradford's motion on increasing density at Housing Now sites and 140 Merton also featured this:

Fine, we all support this, but its yet another strategy development request instead of a 'do something' request.

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Councillor Holyday managed to get one motion passed, the goal of which appears to be to help middle income people goose the housing market further at City expense:

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Councillor Fletcher would like you all to know she asked for a status update on affordable housing on Villiers Island:

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Councillor Saxe got a motion passed focused on how to shut down troubled rooming houses (I mean ok, that may need to be done, but its not going to create new housing supply)

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Councillor Malik is busy telling the City to develop a strategy to thwart the province if it removes the City's right to have a rental replacement policy...........(umm, I agree this is an important policy, but I'm not sure the motion achieves anything)

She's also seeking to keep an existing program of residential property acquisition going (was there any risk of it being nixed?)

Finally she wants to apply the rental replacement rules to rooming houses. Sure, fine, assuming we still have rental replacement rules.

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Councillor Fletcher got a motion through telling the province to intensify LCBO store sites its owns. To which I say hear, hear; and the motion will achieve virtually nothing, LOL.


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Councillor Myers made/passed a motion that essentially says the same as #2 above; and also adds lots of more study/cttees on Rooming Houses:

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Another motion from Cllr. Bradford, other than exempting Frats and Sororities from the licensing by-law, its just more report requesting bafflegab that goes nowhere of consequence.

Back to Cllr Cheng whose motion seeks to pair necessary infrastructure development with new housing:

Fine, but note the use of the word 'explore' and the absence of any specific type of infrastructure or any means to pay for same. Fluff.

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I'll cover what lost, later, in another post.

 

[allengeorge]

@Northern Light This is an ignorant question, but how consequential was the motion yesterday? My take is that no one should celebrate until actual implementation actions are put to Council and passed (since there’s plenty of opportunity to water them down). Is this pessimistic?

 

[Northern Light]

@Northern Light This is an ignorant question, but how consequential was the motion yesterday? My take is that no one should celebrate until actual implementation actions are put to Council and passed (since there’s plenty of opportunity to water them down). Is this pessimistic?

In respect of legalizing rooming houses, it is a material step forward; though, with the setbacks I noted that have watered down its potential.

In respect of the Report due in March, nothing has actually been approved or altered in any substantive way to date.

Some of the requested report elements will be actionable, and I have some faith that some will move forward; but many are fluff in that they are requests for strategies that don't bind the City or Council to anything.

So, in summary, the motion was of some consequence, but not nearly as much as its being made out to be; March could be more meaningful; but that's an open question pending what actionable items (as opposed to goals or far reaching timelines) come out then.

The motion was also not budgetary in nature, which means there's no resource allocation to make anything happen yet. Which doesn't mean that won't be forthcoming, but we lack evidence of that as yet.

 

[Northern Light]

As promised, one last thing to post on this in terms of original material.........what motions to amend the Mayor's Housing Report lost.

So the big one is Councillor Matlow's. I'll post the entire thing, the discuss it:

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Sooo, there's actually some decent ideas here............

Item 1 is not really one of them, and motion I noted that passed from Councillor Cheng was similar but less obnoxious w/its reporting requirements.

Its hard to argue that we as a city/province/country are promoting a level of population growth via immigration that we simply can't keep pace with or at least are not keeping pace with in terms of investments in healthcare, parks, recreation, schools roads, transit etc.

But more reporting requirements resolves exactly none of that. Hard, trackable targets sound good; until you ask........and what happens if we miss the targets? (oh right, nothing)........

Item 2 has some good bits but kicks off badly........with (my words) lets threaten the province to withhold something it wants if it does this bad thing.......(uh......heard of an MZO....the province can override this at will; I agree w/the rental replacement policy and have no trouble w/opposing the provincial move in principle, but lets not pretend the City can stop it)

Q and R are both worthwhile. Though the latter has a less than zero chance of passing Council and Matlow knows that. Psst, its highly questionable whether Matlow would vote for the supposed strategy his motion mentions, as the SFH voters who form the core of his base would be hard hit by any such move.

S is way too convoluted and likely ultra vires from a legislative/constitutional perspective.

T, U. and V all merit approval.

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Here's the problem........ I like a lot of what Matlow says, a lot of the time........but he comes across as 'useful foe'........to Tory. A 22-4 loss is complete wollop. Matlow can read tea leaves or giant cue cars the size of jumbotron just fine.
He knew with certainty his motion would not pass and it would not be close.

This is why he has a reputation as a grandstander.

If he wanted the better items in his motion to pass he should have broken them out into multiple motions, rather than one large omnibus motion. This would have made it more politically difficult for Council to vote 'no' in some cases.

The fact he chose to present these ideas in a form he knew would lose handily........well, draw your own conclusions.

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Next, we have Councillor Bravo, whose motion did not read as grandstanding, and seemed substantively useful and reasonable and I would argue, on point.

Except...........it wasn't a report request........it was a directive...........and therefore, being substantive, was ruled out of order, by the Mayor's minion. LOL

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Councillor Perks lost his motion.........as I would argue he should have............

Why spend money building housing, when you can create another job in bureaucracy for the same money? (to be clear, the City has plenty of policy experts/advocates for housing, and does not require another)

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Councillor Holyday lost his motion......... well, good to see the man continuing to do what he does best (losing); too bad it doesn't extend to elecitons:

In respect of the above:

1 - don't be bold or exceed the bare minimum

2-a) do stuff you're already doing but make yet another report to another committed of Council cause we don't have enough of those

2 b) yup, the infrastructure thing again..........not a bad idea..........in theory, but the meaningless, no teeth version of this proposed by Councillor Cheng already passed.


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There ya go, you're all up to date!

 

[Undead]

Reminds me of Norman Mailer's "I don't want to grandstand unduly,' he said, grandly but barely standing."

 

[Northern Light]

Reminds me of Norman Mailer's "I don't want to grandstand unduly,' he said, grandly but barely standing."

If you truly support 'x' why include a poison pill 'y' in your motion you know is sure to get defeated..............

Oh....maybe you weren't so into 'x' after all.......

 

[Undead]

Makes you think, dunnit

 

[allengeorge]

An interesting tweet thread on the parking minimums addition to rooming houses:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603524703389466624

I don’t know enough to say whether these points are valid or not, but the points made are:

• We should celebrate the win, knowing that it gets us closer to our eventual goal (I buy that)
• It was actually a staff recommendation in response to feedback and the different types of rooming houses (student vs. deeply affordable)
• There is the opportunity to change this later based on reports
• It’s not as much of a poison pill as we think (most houses in Scarborough have the 2+ spaces required already)
• Parking concerns are top-of-mind for residents in the inner suburbs, and people very low on the income spectrum can’t afford the ticket that comes with on-street parking
• Transit is not as frequent or dense in the inner suburbs

 

[Northern Light]

An interesting tweet thread on the parking minimums addition to rooming houses:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1603524703389466624

I don’t know enough to say whether these points are valid or not, but the points made are:

• We should celebrate the win, knowing that it gets us closer to our eventual goal (I buy that)
• It was actually a staff recommendation in response to feedback and the different types of rooming houses (student vs. deeply affordable)
• There is the opportunity to change this later based on reports
• It’s not as much of a poison pill as we think (most houses in Scarborough have the 2+ spaces required already)
• Parking concerns are top-of-mind for residents in the inner suburbs, and people very low on the income spectrum can’t afford the ticket that comes with on-street parking
• Transit is not as frequent or dense in the inner suburbs

I like Kevin (author of the Tweet thread); and agree with the take 'Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good'.

He's right, that for the most part, the parking minimum isn't an issue for the 6 unit/person cap in much of Scarborough (though this also about NY, and Etobicoke). Where the parking cap is an issue
is getting beyond 6 units. The staff recommendation would have allowed 12 units in the right circumstances, as is the case in the old City; that would require 4 parking spots, while 20 units, permissible in rare cases in the old
City would require 7 spots.

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Beyond that, there was discussion going on the Panda Markham thread about parking minimums being high, but transit being mediocre and how one handles the chicken-egg scenario. While I certainly agree it would be ideal
to have better transit first; I also understand that you need to have voters who NEED transit and will complain loudly if they don't get it, in order to motivate pols to ensure its available. If that political time and attention goes instead to parking
and in turn roads/traffic jams, what you tend to get is more of the same on transit. The cycle does need to be broken.

 

[A Torontonian Now]

I am not a fan of Matlow (whom I see not just as a grandstander, but an enabler of NIMBYism amongst some of the City's wealthiest and most privileged residents), but item V is one I have often thought should be implemented. I would call this a case of a broken clock being right twice a day

Changing zoning is a good first step and will be all that is needed for the most determined developers to start working on multiplex projects. However, I would like there to be a groundswell of multiplex development in existing yellowbelt neighbourhoods, with units popping up like mushrooms. For that, we need a more concerted effort: it needs to be not just possible to build these projects, but easy.

Making it easier for individual investors, small-time, first-time and bourgeoning developers to build these projects is key. I could see a whole new wave of developers growing up on these projects, with firms that specialize in flipping houses or renovations slowly becoming small-time developers of multiplexes, with the best ones moving up the food chain. This could be an exciting case where market forces can address the housing shortage.

But only if the bureaucracy is not an impediment, but an assist to this sort of development.

I would add that there could be property tax grants or development charge rebates for appropriate small-scale developments, particularly where affordable and/or family size rental units are part of the mix. This could also be administered by the dedicated City Unit for multiplexes.

 

[AlexBozikovic]

This is an excellent point – that the small scale projects aren’t going to happen unless government makes it easy for amateurs to do so.

At the same time, one can ask: why should government go out of its way to help an amateur developer approve three apartments, while also presenting serious and unpredictable obstacles to a professional developer who wants to build 300?

Some people view amateur and small scale housing development as inherently better. That viewpoint is often implicit and it needs to be made explicit. What does the city value more: making sure new buildings are small? Or delivering housing in volume?

 

[Northern Light]

This is an excellent point – that the small scale projects aren’t going to happen unless government makes it easy for amateurs to do so.

Yes.

At the same time, one can ask: why should government go out of its way to help an amateur developer approve three apartments, while also presenting serious and unpredictable obstacles to a professional developer who wants to build 300?

Not so much help; as ease the regulatory framework and complexity to align w/the resources of the likely builder. The large-scale builder with in-house legal and planning simply isn't going to spend much time, if any, looking at this scale of project.

But if you're going to attract a new generation of multiplex sellers/landlords you're going to need to make sure the barrier to entry isn't prohibitive.

We can rightly discuss silly/arbitrary barriers for bigger developers, but we do need to note, those barriers almost never stop Tribute/Tridel/Menkes/Minto/Greywood/Centrecourt etc. from building. They may slow them down some; or to some degree force the cost up through delays; though in truth the final price/rent is almost always set by the market, not by raw costs. (obviously they have an effect, but when margins are healthy, it tends to be more marginal).

Some people view amateur and small scale housing development as inherently better. That viewpoint is often implicit and it needs to be made explicit. What does the city value more: making sure new buildings are small? Or delivering housing in volume?

The City should be agnostic on who builds; the City should not be agnostic on what is built.

Where there's room for fair debate is whether the City (within its provincially-limited tool set) focuses on the right things.

Certainly, that is not always the case, and we could list countless examples. On the other hand, in fairness to the City, many dumb rules come back to precedent and the OLT. If we allow it for this one, the next applicant may abuse that and give us 'x'.

But to bring this back to focus, the sheer complexity of and numbers of rules and policies and requirements can be daunting if you can't afford a team of professionals to guide you through it. So I think its fair, as an idea to see what can be done to ease that burden for those for whom it is a key barrier; where a type of development deemed desirable won't get done any other way.

 

[A Torontonian Now]

This is an excellent point – that the small scale projects aren’t going to happen unless government makes it easy for amateurs to do so.

Glad we agree on this.

At the same time, one can ask: why should government go out of its way to help an amateur developer approve three apartments, while also presenting serious and unpredictable obstacles to a professional developer who wants to build 300?

There's two answers to this.

The short answer, taking your rhetorical question literally and at face value, is that they shouldn't.

The more nuanced answer is that I do not view this as an either / or situation. The City can and should make it easy for amateur developers to approve three new units while simultaneously improving the draconian system faced by professional developers on large projects. We should be holding the City to a high standard on housing development and I see no real impediment to them being able to walk and chew gum by making processes for both these types of projects smoother and more predictable. But these two very different scales of projects require different, and I would argue, compatible, solutions.

Creating a dedicated multidisciplinary City Unit for multiplexes could also have the benefit of improving response times of the planning and building departments, and others, to the larger developments. With both large and small projects funneled through the same overworked staff, a 300 unit development might be held up in line to wait for a planner to pick apart the details of a 3 unit one. Separating the streams will allow for specialization of staff that could improve the efficiency of their work on the larger files.

Some people view amateur and small scale housing development as inherently better. That viewpoint is often implicit and it needs to be made explicit. What does the city value more: making sure new buildings are small? Or delivering housing in volume?

Again, I think this might be a bit of a false dicotomy. The City should value both.

I think particular attention needs to be paid to making the small-scale developments easy, though, because unlike the larger developments, which are happening despite the current obstacles and will continue to, these smaller projects represent net-new development. I think it is a different class of investor and developer that will be involved in these than are currently deploying capital and energy into the development industry. If a dedicated City Unit can push along 100 3-unit developments, is that not as good as 1 300-unit one?

Or, to be more explicit, perhaps there are some ways in which 100 3-unit developments are superior to 1 300-unit one. The unit sizes are likely to be larger in multiplexes, the impact more distributed across the city, and the density more likely to be added to yellowbelt neighbourhoods that are overserviced (both in terms of utilities but also things like public school spaces) rather than those struggling to maintain service levels in the face of significant development.

But I am all for the City making it easier for large developments to be approved, and indeed improving the economic viability of such projects as well (easy wins such as upzoning arterials as-of-right and relaxing the mid-rise guidelines in terms of angular planes come to mind). However, the reality is that a 300-unit building will require specialized planning and design considerations that are not in play for a very small development. They will also have larger impacts, which is why I am alright with higher development charges against established players working on large projects than small players for whom this might deter from developing their land.

 

[Northern Light]

Glad we agree on this.



There's two answers to this.

The short answer, taking your rhetorical question literally and at face value, is that they shouldn't.

The more nuanced answer is that I do not view this as an either / or situation. The City can and should make it easy for amateur developers to approve three new units while simultaneously improving the draconian system faced by professional developers on large projects. We should be holding the City to a high standard on housing development and I see no real impediment to them being able to walk and chew gum by making processes for both these types of projects smoother and more predictable. But these two very different scales of projects require different, and I would argue, compatible, solutions.

Creating a dedicated multidisciplinary City Unit for multiplexes could also have the benefit of improving response times of the planning and building departments, and others, to the larger developments. With both large and small projects funneled through the same overworked staff, a 300 unit development might be held up in line to wait for a planner to pick apart the details of a 3 unit one. Separating the streams will allow for specialization of staff that could improve the efficiency of their work on the larger files.



Again, I think this might be a bit of a false dicotomy. The City should value both.

I think particular attention needs to be paid to making the small-scale developments easy, though, because unlike the larger developments, which are happening despite the current obstacles and will continue to, these smaller projects represent net-new development. I think it is a different class of investor and developer that will be involved in these than are currently deploying capital and energy into the development industry. If a dedicated City Unit can push along 100 3-unit developments, is that not as good as 1 300-unit one?

Or, to be more explicit, perhaps there are some ways in which 100 3-unit developments are superior to 1 300-unit one. The unit sizes are likely to be larger in multiplexes, the impact more distributed across the city, and the density more likely to be added to yellowbelt neighbourhoods that are overserviced (both in terms of utilities but also things like public school spaces) rather than those struggling to maintain service levels in the face of significant development.

But I am all for the City making it easier for large developments to be approved, and indeed improving the economic viability of such projects as well (easy wins such as upzoning arterials as-of-right and relaxing the mid-rise guidelines in terms of angular planes come to mind). However, the reality is that a 300-unit building will require specialized planning and design considerations that are not in play for a very small development. They will also have larger impacts, which is why I am alright with higher development charges against established players working on large projects than small players for whom this might deter from developing their land.

Excellent post, on which I cannot improve one whit!

 

[AlexBozikovic]

If a dedicated City Unit can push along 100 3-unit developments, is that not as good as 1 300-unit one?

This is the crux of the matter: They can’t. Triplexes are a minor side dish when it comes to new housing supply. Right now the proportion is under 1% IIRC.

If Toronto is going to build 35,000 units a year, these will overwhelmingly be in big buildings. Even if 10% of that number were in converted houses, that would be a huge increase - like 20x - from what’s happening now.

Plexes are good, yes. And missing middle and towers are compatible! But in politics, people will claim that they aren’t. “You don’t need more towers if Toronto gets missing middle.”

This was Gil Penalosa’s housing platform. We will hear it again. It’s a false argument that only serves NIMBYism.

I’m not suggesting that anyone here is pushing that agenda. But other people do and will.