A bunch of people at Toronto and East York Community Council claim to support gentle intensification and midrise but are speaking against a 7-storey proposal over concerns about street parking, even though the new building residents will likely be forbidden from getting street parking permits.

I want to show my students some examples of advocacy orgs in Toronto (or other Cdn cities) that have affected change / made a difference in the city. Somewhat measurably. Like Cycle Toronto & the bike lane injunction. Ideas? I've got some examples but want to cast a bit wider. Thx!

When the City does an "overall planning approach" (multiplexes, rooming houses), they often keep change small, saying that anyone who wants to build more can apply for an amendment. But residents view the OP as sacrosanct and amendment applications as an attempt to "break the rules."

I think the minimum lot size change is a really big deal. It's not completely removed but I think it eliminates it as a practical limitation everywhere. This has been a huge source of new housing in other places where it's been reformed (New Zealand and various American states)

Big changes are coming to the Planning Act: -The province is creating a standard set of land uses -Setting a limit on minimum lot sizes in urban areas of 175m2 -Requiring standardized Official Plans within 2 years -Further removal of mandatory green standards ero.ontario.ca/notice/026-0...

Why is that apartment in Etobicoke helping fund the Spadina subway extension, library branches across the city, affordable housing, shelters, and long-term care? (because it’s easier to tax new housing than to raise everybody else’s taxes, that’s why.)

Important sign of spring: my workplace has put the bike racks in pretty much the most inaccessible place possible and is storing construction supplies in the BikeShare.

Wow. This is an attack on our institutions. If you don't think that you can learn French from a talking pineapple and a couple of guitar-playing skeletons, I don't know what to say.

Seeing snark that this is a developer giveaway. I would encourage people to look at rental market changes since the feds cut PBR HST a few years ago & province reduced rental DCs. Record rental starts, higher vacancy, slightly lower rents. You can say it's not enough but it does change the market.

Very exciting. A little odd for Ford to announce this days after saying "not going to happen" about tall buildings on the waterfront. Chow specifically talked about the Port Lands being "fully developed" in the press conference.

Part of today’s federal-provincial-municipal announcement: a funding agreement, at last, for the Waterfront East LRT. $3 billion divided three ways. news.ontario.ca/en/backgroun...

Hoooooo boy. 🤞

There's more to this story (apparently tenants wouldn't allow interior photos??) but, just on the basis of the headline, I think it's good that people can pay less for housing because they don't need to buy space for a car. Options are good. www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/...

Great episode about Senakw www.npr.org/2026/03/27/n...

Mount Dennis residents say school zone where boy was struck, former speed camera site, needs safety improvements

This remains a bad use of nearly $7B per year imo. I know people out there think the subsidy is good for driving electrification but I'm pretty skeptical and I think we're probably just pushing up our natural gas peaker usage for little reason.

Just development charges, parkland dedication, community benefits charges, land transfer taxes and, the unthinkable, property taxes. Other than that, nothing.

I have nothing but snark left today, so let's speculate based on the Ford government's typical vision. Maybe they will turn the surface parking lot into a 2-storey parking garage? Sell beer in one corner of the lot? A detached home that one lucky Billy Bishop passenger wins the chance to stay in?

Nobody cares about who-does-what. People want a vision. That vision already exists. Speak up. Defend it. Explain it. The waterfront is for people. www.waterfrontoronto.ca/our-purpose

Some wildly poor economics from Calgary's blanket rezoning. 1. If no one will buy it, you've priced it too high and it's not a starter home. 2. If no one buys such houses, no rowhome conversions. 3. Ask your grandkids if you should spend $20k to block their friends without inheritances from homes.

Energy crisis solution still holding up well.

It is okay for people to encourage politicians that you don't like to do things that you do like. Send skeet.

Is it bad if the Premier can't think of a reason that someone might build housing in Toronto other than to thwart him? Inventing a conspiracy theory so that you don't have to answer a question about your plan's impact on 9 years of work for 9000 homes seems bad. www.torontotoday.ca/local/city-h...

The last few weeks in Ontario housing: * Strong mayor powers used to veto fourplex zoning in Markham * MZO to restrict height at 1875 Steeles W; developer says they can no longer build apartment * Premier crticizes big, long-planned housing in Port Lands because of his pet airport project

Nice to see some positive coverage of third spaces lately. “People joke about going there to find their soulmate. You’ll see young people but also uncles having chai talking about politics. Moms and teens splitting up because they all want to eat different things...” www.thestar.com/news/gta/a-n...

Avenues zoning got complicated but this article is simply wrong. Toronto did not allow 14-storey buildings along Ossington. They allowed 6 (maybe 8 in a few spots). Locals often believe that the by-law says something it doesn't; reporters should check! toronto.citynews.ca/2026/03/21/t...

When I first rode the Yonge St pilot, a delivery driver exited his correctly-parked vehicle, gestured at another vehicle in the bike lane & said "Why?" It struck me then: delivery scapegoating was like 10x people telling cyclists they don't deserve respect because another cyclist ran a stop sign.

Vancouver gets spring *and* Senakw? No fair.

A Canadian icon who did almost none of her work in Canada because of the scarcity of research positions here, particularly for women.

23% funding cut to Global Affairs Canada. Massive slashes to foreign aid and the soft power it buys us. The gap between rhetoric and action with Carney on foreign policy is nowhere near as stark as Trudeau, but this feels a little too close to the usual talk > action reputation we've earned.

“Yes, you absolute fool, buying a home now is obviously exactly the same as in the 1980s” If that were true the line in the below chart would be flat. Chart courtesy of @alexbeheshti.bsky.social ‘s research for OREA www.orea.com/advocacy/Dev...

"Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria's office declined to comment." Everyone along Eglinton stands ready to welcome you all to the "WTF Metrolinx?" table. On Wednesdays, we wear pink.

I did not expect a digression about development charges in an article about FOI law but I am 100% here for both parts.

Gallup attributing the decline to Canada and Great Britain's "foreign policy goals and actions" rather than Trump/Vance's rhetorical hate campaign is something. They acknowledge that Republicans think backing the US means opposing Canada but have zero thoughts about where that idea came from.

Periodic reminder that the Environmental Assessment we did to add fully separated cycle tracks along the length of Eglinton was completed 12 years ago. secure.toronto.ca/council/agen...

Very silly. The most Toronto thing would obviously be to open a raccoon cafe but then have it shut down by complaints from joyless neighbourhood NIMBYs who hate whimsy. Now, do I mean a cafe that feeds raccoons or a cafe run by raccoons? Who can say?

Apparently they want to make the changes apply retroactively to existing requests that haven't been completed yet. Someone requested something good.

Peut-être une solution?

A questioner from Scarborough at the midrise design guideline meetings claims that there are many affordable homes in Scarborough but they're being bought up by consortia and converted to rooming houses and multiplexes and that makes them unaffordable. You can really just say anything, I guess.

Markham’s mayor for the first time has used his strong mayor powers… to block city-wide 4plexes that council approved. Presumably this puts in jeopardy the federal housing money the city has already agreed to, as this was a condition of those funds. www.markham.ca/sites/defaul...

Side research find: the president of the Leaside Property Owners Association made it clear in 1970 he really didn't want new residents in his community...especially if they were "new groups." G&M, July 7, 1970 #TOHistory

I regret to inform you that the Residents Associations are at it again. They found out that the Major Transit Station Areas passed by Council in 2022 would allow more homes near Yonge and Bloor. They're asking for a heritage study to prevent that awful fate. www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis...

I'm sorry WHAT

My first visit to our local parkette since it reopened and I'm pleased to learn about our commitment to equal opportunity cowbells. Cowbells for all*! *Not actually because noise bylaws

One thing about planning is they'll have a 113 page guide for mid-rise buildings that they'll say is because they care about sunlight and sky views. So then you ask "Oh, so you're mixing the mid-rises into low-rise areas with more sunlight?" and they're like "Absolutely not. What's wrong with you?"

Mayor Chow, Councillor Bravo, and Chief Planner Thorne came by to give Finch their business license. Surreal, delightful, lovely.

On the one hand, the agenda for the first Exec Committee meeting in 3 months appears to be driven by a need to make a pre-election show of "doing something." On the other hand, if we didn't have cynical pre-election agendas, maybe we would never get anything done?

passé: burrito taxi in vogue: boba train

I'm not going to stop anyone from blaming PEI but you can do this with 2021 census numbers for Toronto's wards (which are locked to Ontario's ridings, which are locked to the *old* Federal boundaries) and they come out worse than 3 of these countries. So please blame zoning and Ford a little bit.

Kind of interesting because the first thing I thought of with the "too much public service" takes was how many of the same people just a few years ago were lamenting the death of Connaught labs during vaccine panic. They were privatized in 1986. COINCIDENCE? Maybe but also Mulroney soooo.