City of mass construction: Toronto’s unstoppable condos show no signs of slowing down

[M II A II R II K]

City of mass construction: Toronto’s unstoppable condos show no signs of slowing down


Jan. 21, 2011

By Suzanne Wintrob

Read More: http://www.nationalpost.com/homes/City+mass+construction/4145560/story.html


Brad Lamb believes Toronto’s downtown condominium market is out of this world. “There’s no other place on the planet where all this [activity] is happening,†says the president of Brad J. Lamb Realty, who specializes in downtown condo sales. “We have a large immigration of people coming to Toronto every year. We have a diverse economy that can support a reasonably affluent lifestyle. And we have a very stable Canadian economy. Everyone is recognizing how great Canada is, and Toronto is the centre of Canada.â€

- Twenty-two per cent of GTA’s new condo sales took place in what RealNet calls Downtown West, between University Avenue and Dufferin Street, which RealNet president George Carras says totalled more than all of Calgary’s new condo sales in the same time period. With interest rates low and close to 100,000 new immigrants arriving on Toronto’s doorstep every year, 2011 is expected to continue drawing in the masses.

- Given the size of starter condos, one would think first-time buyers are fuelling the market. Not so, say the pundits. Sure, 400- to 500-sq.-ft. suites are common, and they will always have an allure for younger buyers, who rarely spend time at home yet want to live where the action is, says Ben Myers, Urbanation’s executive vice-president. But today’s imaginative architects and interior designers are whipping up wee spaces that are much more functional and feel quite spacious.

- “You’re going to have rooms that are multi-use, like a den/dining room that converts into a bedroom with a Murphy bed. Europeans have been doing this for a long time and the same holds true in a lot of Asia. The flexibility of a space is going to be key, going forward.†Mr. Lamb concurs. A decade ago, he says, a new breed of developers began building “hip cool projects with hip cool architects.†Today, those same developers have upped the ante considerably, with 500-sq.-ft. units “that will blow your socks off†and countertops, finishings, floor-to-ceiling windows, amenities and even lobbies that are more beautiful and thoughtful than ever.

- Also getting attention in 2011 are empty nesters and second-time condo buyers. Riz Dhanji, vice-president of sales and marketing at Canderel Stoneridge, which is building 75-floor Aura at College Park and DNA3 in King West, says many empty nesters are downsizing from large family homes and choosing a downtown condo as their weekend escape. And as the price of single-family homes escalates, first-time condo dwellers with kids in tow are choosing to upgrade to larger units rather than buy a house. Mr. Dhanji expects the trend to continue through 2011.

- But perhaps the biggest demographic that will continue to drive sales this year is the investor market, both local and international. Mr. Lamb says there are few developers building rental towers any longer, in part due to the city’s rent control laws, so investors hold the key to rental accommodation. He says it’s not uncommon for 40% of a building to be owned by investors, with most rentals situated below the fifteenth floor because they are less expensive than those with a brighter view. Mr. Myers estimates 50% to 60% of downtown condo units are owned by investors who rent them out.

- “It will make us a more cosmopolitan city when we have these large brands like Ritz-Carlton, Shangri-La, Four Seasons and Trump,†Mr. Dhanji says. “It’s going to have a great impact and make us more of an international city. … It’s going to shape the downtown core even more. The next few years are going to be great on the skyline of Toronto, once all of these projects are completed.â€

.....




Toronto, as seen from the new Thompson Residences and Hotel. A total of 5,500 condo units are being built this year in the core.

 

[Admiral Beez]

I keep considering buying a condo as a rental investment, but then think the market might collapse due to over supply.

 

[Torontovibe]

With all these new condos going up and no public transit or new roads being built, I think we are pretty much screwed!

I can only see traffic getting worse and public transit becoming unbearable. We already have the longest commute time in North America, yet nobody sees it as a real serious problem. What is it going to take to make people realize, we have no options here. Yet, we just continue to have political games and talk, talk, talk.

More people=more condos=more transit users+more cars. That's not going to just go away by itself.

How much longer can we afford to do nothing?

 

[EnviroTO]

How much longer can we afford to do nothing?

Take a Condo Guide and open to the maps of red dots which very roughly indicate the location of condos being built. Then think where subways are likely to be built. We can afford to do nothing more than we can afford to the the something that current politicians have planned for us.

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

Canadian cities have pretty much done nothing for the past 20 years and it has not hurt urban growth in the slightest. It is somewhat remarkable just how much cities like Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal (though especially Toronto) have changed since 1990 with minimal investment in public transit. And though it is not as though city and provincial governments have not played a role in attracting development through tax breaks, investments in public projects, etc, there have been far fewer gimmicky urban renewal plans in Canadian cities then there have been in American ones.

And I would bet that these same cities could avoid major investments for another 10 or 20 years. This isn't to say each city does not have a project that is a priority and super important (Electrified regional rail in Toronto, LRT in Ottawa, better North and South Shore connections and some electrification in Montreal). And it isn't that these projects are not cheap. But urban development is fundamentally different than suburban development in that is a more efficient use of space and resources and requires less infrastructure investment. And since a lot of urban space is still inefficiently used (parking lots, low density buildings in high density neighbourhoods) there are a lot of chances to keep developing and enhancing urban areas without too much overhead at the moment.

Slowly but surely investments in public transit and rail will come as critical masses of density and potential riders mix with homes and employment centres that become increasingly linked by transit. Until then (and those moments are starting to happen even as we speak) just chill out and enjoy some of the good things that are taking place in Toronto and other cities.

 

[oreoshack]

Toronto = Win.

Rest of Canada (Buttfuck nowhere)= Lose

 

[GenerationW]

Toronto = Win.

Rest of Canada (Buttfuck nowhere)= Lose

You = In need of a giant enema

 

[Hipster Duck]

Canadian cities have pretty much done nothing for the past 20 years and it has not hurt urban growth in the slightest. It is somewhat remarkable just how much cities like Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal (though especially Toronto) have changed since 1990 with minimal investment in public transit.

You know, you make a good point here. Downtown Toronto became a much more worldly, busier place in the last ten years despite the fact that transport - not just transit, but all modes of transportation - investment was essentially zero. There's no sign of downtown Toronto suffering from this lack of transit investment in the future, either. The mixed use nature of downtown means the city can still build tens of thousands of condo units downtown before the internal transport system of downtown gets crippled.

I foresee that in the future, downtown will be the only part of the City that receives any investment and there will be a huge wealth and influence gulf between the downtown and the inner suburbs. This is already happening, and I'm not exactly a prophet for revealing this, but I think it will widen and become even more pronounced. To be somewhat controversial - and I'm not saying I endorse this - the only transport investment Toronto needs to maintain its current growth patterns is a high quality rail link to the airport. This basically connects the global centre that is downtown Toronto to the rest of the world, bypassing the inconvenience of a rapidly declining inner suburbia whose citizens matter less and less in a neoliberal world. In a way, the Island Airport serves this sort of "window to the world" role for downtown Toronto already - connecting the downtown elite with other downtown elite in global cities that are at least a short haul flight away: New York, Chicago, Montreal, Boston, etc.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Hipster:

You will find Splintering urbanism : networked infrastructures, technological mobilities, and the urban condition by Stephen Graham interesting.

AoD

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

I foresee that in the future, downtown will be the only part of the City that receives any investment and there will be a huge wealth and influence gulf between the downtown and the inner suburbs. This is already happening, and I'm not exactly a prophet for revealing this, but I think it will widen and become even more pronounced. To be somewhat controversial - and I'm not saying I endorse this - the only transport investment Toronto needs to maintain its current growth patterns is a high quality rail link to the airport. This basically connects the global centre that is downtown Toronto to the rest of the world, bypassing the inconvenience of a rapidly declining inner suburbia whose citizens matter less and less in a neoliberal world. In a way, the Island Airport serves this sort of "window to the world" role for downtown Toronto already - connecting the downtown elite with other downtown elite in global cities that are at least a short haul flight away: New York, Chicago, Montreal, Boston, etc.

Your point reminds me how we very often look at the past in a nostalgic way, forgetting many of the realities that existed at time, something which people who write about cities do all the time. Subways too the suburbs are almost already an antiquated way of thinking...though do very little to create a competitive city for the amount of money they cost to build. Airport rail links, regional rail, efficient airports....those are the transportation projects that matter right now.

And what drives the kind of investments today are not much different than what drove them 50 years ago. Its about economic growth and creating a competitive, desirable city. Highways were about creating an automobile industry and suburbs fit into that development perfectly. At the time these 'affordable' suburbs seemed like the future and everyone ran with it. Now, we can see the flaws that existed with them. People didnt start moving back to cities because governments or corporations were pushing that ideal. They moved back in-spite of it. And just as back in the 50s and 60s when policies started to shift to support suburbs on a massive scale as a way of creating what was thought to be a better way of living at the time, the same is starting to happen with investment towards urban areas.

I think the big difference is that now it is not Toronto competing with Hamilton or Mississauga or even Montreal. Its the GTA competing with other city/regions across the world. And you can champion accessibility and sustainability and social democratic ideals all you want when it comes to transportation investment but in the end it will more than likely be global competition that is the driving force (what are other cities doing, how are they moving people, how are they beating congestion, how are they creating places and business atmospheres that people want to invest in).

 

[GraphicMatt]

Not to pull a Glen, but too much residential growth downtown without corresponding business growth is bad. Downtown-as-bedroom-community is an overstatement, but we need strategies to mitigate that kind of thing.

 

[lafard]

The lack of transit investment is a bit deceptive though. GO has been sneaking a lot of improvements in (31m pax in 1995, 44M pax in 2003, 55m in '09), and there was "spare" capacity on the subways that has since been mostly absorbed. When you look at the data, way more people are commuting into (or out of) the core than 10 years ago or so.

Also, the increasing importance of the reverse-commute (which is really an artefact of the condo boom the article talks about) has made more efficient use of existing infrastructure.

However, there are limits here, and because we've been lucky for 20 years doesn't mean we can be complacent now.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Your point reminds me how we very often look at the past in a nostalgic way, forgetting many of the realities that existed at time, something which people who write about cities do all the time. Subways too the suburbs are almost already an antiquated way of thinking...though do very little to create a competitive city for the amount of money they cost to build. Airport rail links, regional rail, efficient airports....those are the transportation projects that matter right now.

And what drives the kind of investments today are not much different than what drove them 50 years ago. Its about economic growth and creating a competitive, desirable city.

Absolutely. What "matters" is not what's just or what's fair, but what fits into the dominant mode of thinking when it comes to city development and, right now, that's how competitive you are. The only transportation project that I think will make Toronto more 'competitive', as opposed to be a more equal city, is the airport rail link. Regional rail, as you said, would be second because it ties various affluent parts of the region together that could serve as secondary places of investment to downtown.

From a 'competitiveness' POV, a LRT along Eglinton or a subway along Sheppard is an almost non-starter. Building these lines won't make Toronto any more of a place to invest: they don't travel through areas where wealthy people live or would want to invest in, and they don't help link Toronto with the region or, especially, the rest of the world.

It sucks that we prize what's good for business over what's good for people, but that's the way the world works. As you shrewedly observed with your excellent highway example, even during a pre-Reagan time when it seemed like the government worked for the people, it really didn't; building cars and developing suburbs was one big project to stimulate corporate consumption. The best we can do is to link a 'competitiveness' project with other goals, such as improving local mobility. In Vancouver, the Canada line was built to go to the airport and make downtown more competitive to both businesses and high end real estate development. However, it doesn't hurt that the Canada Line also serves as the major north-south link in the city and the best way to access Richmond. But if it weren't for the fact that it went to the airport, it would never have materialized. We have to do the same: if we get a rail link to Pearson, we need to guarantee that there is an electrified GO corridor that supports frequent regional rail service to Brampton.

Hipster:

You will find Splintering urbanism : networked infrastructures, technological mobilities, and the urban condition by Stephen Graham interesting.

Thanks for the tip. The economics and politics of megaproject planning is fascinating. Have you read Bent Flyvbjerg? He was one of the first planning theorists to basically point out that you can't plan a project and expect it to succeed unless you understand the power relations of the players who are involved (or against it). Not surprisingly, this led him to his second research focus which is on the reasons why transport infrastructure gets built.

 

[AnarchoSocialist]

It sucks that we prize what's good for business over what's good for people, but that's the way the world works. As you shrewedly observed with your excellent highway example, even during a pre-Reagan time when it seemed like the government worked for the people, it really didn't; building cars and developing suburbs was one big project to stimulate corporate consumption. The best we can do is to link a 'competitiveness' project with other goals, such as improving local mobility. In Vancouver, the Canada line was built to go to the airport and make downtown more competitive to both businesses and high end real estate development. However, it doesn't hurt that the Canada Line also serves as the major north-south link in the city and the best way to access Richmond. But if it weren't for the fact that it went to the airport, it would never have materialized. We have to do the same: if we get a rail link to Pearson, we need to guarantee that there is an electrified GO corridor that supports frequent regional rail service to Brampton.

I think there are a lot parallels between transit planning and urban development. That is to say that despite the lack of attention towards transit up until recently there are still people who are finding ways to make larger projects happen. If you look at GO, for all the criticism they take, some of it rightfully so, they have still managed to undertake a lot of important projects in the past years. Diamond and grade separations, track upgrades and infrastructure repair. Not very sexy, but all hugely important in creating the backbone for a proper regional rail network. If you think of how much time has been saved with all these little projects compared to if a regional rail network had been proposed 10 years ago its probably a substantial amount. Not too mention it cuts down the cost of the project making it more sellable to various governments and voters. Same situation is true (probably to even greater degree) with Ottawa and its LRT network.

In the end, people will tend to find a way if they are motivated enough. And maybe it is a bit frustrating at times when our favourite projects don't make the grade because they don't meet the needs of the business community or offer enough return on investment. But is that really bad?

High speed rail illustrates this really well. I will point out that I am a huge supporter of high speed rail (and rail in general) and cannot wait for the day it comes to The Corridor. And it can be a bit frustrating at times to see more and more countries start to develop it while we don't. But I think our time is very close and I think there are a lot of really good reasons why it should have taken this long. Yes studies have shown it would be cost effective to operate the service, but only when serving the most major centres, skipping most of the smaller towns along the way (small centres do matter and provide a significant number of passengers). It is great that city centres and business districts are well connected, but up until recently, how strong were those urban centres, and just as important, how many of the business elite and other generally well to do folk with disposable income and a tendency to travel on the train lived downtown or near one of the suburban stations? Yes, the train serves a wide range and class of people, but its going to be those business class travellers that really help sell the project....and tickets.

There are a host of other reasons too. The argument that since many Canadian cities have the same density as those in Europe is pretty much rubbish. Maybe in some cases across a large part of a metropolitan area they are similar. But distribution of these densities within the cities, transportation networks, travel patterns, all those sorts of thing are hugely important and can be quite different here than from what you see in Europe. There is the lack of an electrified rail network to connect to in Montreal and Toronto. And I would also add that most, if not all, of the plans developed have left massive areas completely unserved or even really considered (some of the suburbs in Toronto and Montreal being a great example). And though Canadian cities have always been urban, the difference in urban growth and general attitudes towards the city over the past 20 years are creating cities where a huge investment in high speed rail makes far more sense now then in the early 90's.

So what is the point of going through why high speed rail has failed? One, I think it's a great example of an infrastructure project failing to materialize due to the business community not seeing a real value in it. Once they say there is a need for this in strong numbers, it will almost certainly be a go. There is also the fact that again, despite there being no high high speed network, rail travel has managed to make gains and has done much better in recent years. City centres still grew. And it has also pushed creativity. VIA has had to find ways to increase passenger loads through better customer service, use of technology, WiFi on trains, new stations, etc, and is starting to make really good progress, in-spite of its current infrastructure constraints. And I think it will also push those who want a high speed rail network to really think about how to make it serve the most number of people, the most efficiently and be designed to serve those needs well into the future. If the end result is a rail service with the current VIA experience with high speed technology, I think you would have a system that is second to none and well worth the extra bit of time. And considering how massive and expensive the project would be, it should be held to a high level of scrutiny and be undertaken only when it can really make travel much more efficient and also contribute strongly to economic growth, something the business community helps achieve.

 

[BobBob]

Not to pull a Glen, but too much residential growth downtown without corresponding business growth is bad. Downtown-as-bedroom-community is an overstatement, but we need strategies to mitigate that kind of thing.

I see residential growth downtown as directly connected to the lack of infrastructure investment: if you fail to provide means for people to move around, they will relocate to where there is less need to (and infrastructure already exists).