“When Monopoly was invented at the turn of the 20th century, landowners in the US could win the capitalism game without much effort, which is still true today. If you are lucky enough to buy land in a place gaining population and popularity, you can make a fortune without lifting a finger.

Walking the dog and checking out the latest iterations in the neighborhood.

Gutting the planning and sustainability depts and freezing the permitting dept - wtf. Those jobs are the fulcrum for our development, innovation, and int’l reputation. “Back to basics” just means going backward. Even our more dysfunctional past councils didn’t try to pull this #%^.

Here are stacked flats, 6 storey single stair, combined with 3 lane fronting townhouse units to make a courtyard space. 70'x122' lot. We're trying to see if this approach can compete with the typical Vancouver RM-4 building that would completely fill the lot and have more units.

Imagine Vancouver having a mayor this popular…

No cuts until the next election. This is crazy city management. If you have an election mandate for cuts, then fine, but tagging this on now - seemingly on a whim - is trumpian in it's wanton destruction.

Every single county in Virginia shifted Blue.

Vancouver recently adopted a plan to create simplified apartment zones in parts of the city (broadway and cambie mostly). We've started looking at what might be possible with single-stair buildings. Here's an R3 zoned site comprised of two 33x100 lots. The zoning allows ~2.2FSR and six storeys.

As a zoning rule to manage floor plate depth I’d suggest: “There shall be no interior point less than 7m (23’) from an exterior wall that is not a party wall.” The language would have to be massaged, but in theory this would allow a range of floor plans with a max plate depth of ~46’.

😎😎😎😎 GOOD THINGS CAN STILL HAPPEN 😎😎😎😎

50% melt in 2 months … that’s a tad disturbing

#singlestair thread

The second egress stair in modern missing-middle housing is like your appendix; It's a remnant from long ago that no longer serves a purpose and sometimes creates real problems.

#tinyhouse www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Moonrise and skytrain on the walk home

in q&a, the kelsey's allie cannington mentions they are excited about single stair and elevator reform - and mention how it can help get elevators into smaller projects. wow. cc @edmendoza.bsky.social @stephenjacobsmith.com @markasaurus.bsky.social thekelsey.org/learn-center...

cc @rebeccaleebligh.bsky.social @kareem42.bsky.social @jwhiteyvr.bsky.social

The second egress stair in modern missing-middle housing is like your appendix; It's a remnant from long ago that no longer serves a purpose and sometimes creates real problems.

Here are some of my original diagrams, drawings and sketches for the Rainway (originally “st george creek” circa 2004 to 2008) www.slideshare.net/slideshow/st...

Well, that’s one way to do it

6 storey single-stair buildings - with quiet green courtyards - this is what a true “eco village” would look like. The book “Impossible Toronto” imagines how it could happen. My copy arrived Friday - thanks @zoecoombes.bsky.social ! www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/art-...

Not your regular OSB wood chip panel. We got a few coaster samples at the office from www.plantdmaterials.com They’re making building materials from rapidly renewable prairie grasses (not trees). If anyone in Vancouver wants one, pop by the office.

When it rains a lot I go to the St. George Rainway to watch water going in and out of things. So, here’s a thread for those of you similarly enthralled… @greenestcity.bsky.social @cityofvancouver.bsky.social

Erica Alini’s new piece in the @theglobeandmail.com is a wide ranging tour of Missing middle housing: code, zoning, economics and design. The goal? Figure out how we build family sized, affordable and accessible homes in the city. (Our work makes a cameo) www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/pe...

Update - it was just to save a few bucks. smh Anyway we’re headed to Mountainview now to recreate, in some small form, what was lost.

Continuing to experiment with AI renderings of our sketchup models. It still has a fair bit of randomness, but is somewhat more faithful to the design drawing, and the people are less weird.

Today the kiddo and I remember his mama, Kamala Rao on what would have been her 53rd birthday. Now, 8 years later, the two of us bike commute to school every day on the Central Valley Greenway (one of your projects as a planner at TransLink). I’m glad he gets that experience.

Deeply disappointed to see @cityofvancouver.bsky.social terminated the All Souls Nights at Mountainview Cemetery. This event has been a tradition for us for the last 6 years, and the event has been going for 20. I’ll quote the statement from nightforallsouls.com In a thread:

Compressed straw panels for exterior insulation … (unfortunately they’re in Aus and not the Prairies) durrapanel.com

“The hope is that this can be a tool for left-YIMBYism, drawing on the lessons of Québec's actually-not-missing missing middle housing stock and universal rent stabilization policies.”

@cityofvancouver.bsky.social has a new portal for building permits, licenses etc. aimed at speeding up permitting. "You can now use the Development and business services website to apply for development, building, and demo permits for new duplex, single detached house, and laneway house projects."

A tale of two Todds

Lane house with a view. Work in progress...

Throwback to that time that thieves tried to break into one of our passive house projects, and learned it's actually quite hard to break into a #Passivhaus. @vettawindows.bsky.social

@dannyoleksiuk.bsky.social writes for @sightline.org about the potential to bring back small lot apartment buildings. #singlestair code changes can unlock this option for the first time in a century. Let’s go! www.sightline.org/2025/10/28/t...

“It will take time for scientists to determine exactly how much #ClimateChange supercharged #Melissa, but they can already say the storm has been feeding on warm ocean temps made up to 800 times more likely by global heating…The hotter the ocean gets, the more energy that can transfer into a storm.”

Our current triplex building permit submission in Vancouver includes 43 different documents. This is project is going for a zero emissions density bonus, so there are extra docs for that, and the lane building needs separate docs from the front building... but oh my

Good to see Vancity delivering plex-specific financing. This will help projects move forward. dailyhive.com/vancouver/va...

Well insulated, Vancouver made, with reclaimed natural fiber. Not unlike our houses…

Tis the season for thermal bridging, poor glazing, and limited ventilation (Aka business as usual for most older homes)

Experience > Expedience I like this framing

@cityofvancouver.bsky.social has expanded their eCheck automated plan checking system so that it now works for multiplex (in addition to lane houses / houses). This should allow us to pre-screen our drawing sets for compliance with zoning and building code (in theory).

Interesting to see how Port Moody does 3 units per lot... One the one hand, wow, only $660psf sale price. It would be 2x that in Vancouver. I'm not sure how that's even possible. On the other hand... fully subterranean basements and fully paved rear yards are just awful.

Canada has a housing crisis but it doesn’t affect everyone equally, a new report by our racial equity researcher @verosioufi.bsky.social shows. The crisis affects Indigenous, Black, racialized and immigrant communities more than the population at large, she explains.

Here's a consolidated thread with some of our more recent #SingleStair explorations. We've been doing these with the aim to influence vancouver zoning and building code deliberations, and because we want to understand what the potential is. First up: 33x122 lots, 4 and 5 storey, fronting a park

As a follow up, here are some of the other details from the Solis passivhaus apt building in Seattle. 1. translucent solar power awnings 2. Large HRV (1 per floor, serving ~9 units) 3. Shared HRV closet next to the elevator 4. Heat pumps in the parkade, 1 per unit. Upper floor units go to the roof.

I had a chance to tour the Solis passive house apartment building in Seattle this past weekend. It's interesting as a #passivhaus in the middle of Capitol Hill, with a view to another green building icon, the Bullitt Centre >> The passive part is great, but what caught my eye was the stair. 🧵

Interesting evolution in bridge design www.cnn.com/science/diam...

Big news out of Vancouver council: a proposal Ken Sim has long championed to create a city-owned business to develop sites for market rental housing has FAILED. It required two-thirds majority because it involved selling land, but failed to get the support of the four opposition councillors.

I had a chance to tour the Solis passive house apartment building in Seattle this past weekend. It's interesting as a #passivhaus in the middle of Capitol Hill, with a view to another green building icon, the Bullitt Centre >> The passive part is great, but what caught my eye was the stair. 🧵