Interested in more housing a short walk from the subway? Mid-rise apartments off of arterial roads? Wonder what's up with the low-rise areas around the Danforth? Consider attending a meeting to support the Major Transit Station Areas policy implementation. www.moreneighbours.ca/news/getting...

North America’s Best Housing Reform is Under Attack

Single stair designs are vital to making more spacious, livable apartments on small sites at lower cost. With an "alternative solution proposal" that outperforms what's set out in the building code, plus a push from the mayor's staff, Toronto's first such design was approved.

Great article on single stair buildings and my Toronto sixplex. With multiplexes now as-of-right, single stair solutions offer huge potential for simple, high quality, livable, replicable buildings within neighbourhoods. I hope many others will be encouraged to pursue this potential.

The combination of the MTSA approvals and a supportive councillor being felt here. It's not too long ago that these type of weak arguments from nearby Cabbagetown NIMBYs would have won the day. They'll adapt with new ways to thwart housing but for now they're on the back foot.

Some great follow-up analysis on missing middle in Edmonton. You need the zoning. The mass transit helps. But there's also the quirks of how government programs define affordability.

Zoning in theory: You can’t build housing next to the pollution source 😊 Zoning in reality: You can only build housing next to the pollution source, also daycares are illegal

Yes in my backyard

Still two days left for people to contribute their thoughts and ideas on the future of the Marlee-Glencairn area. www.toronto.ca/city-governm...

The 1912 apartment ban in Toronto features prominently in a lot of histories of moral panic and exclusion in the city. But I'd never seen the wording to know what the by-law actually did or how it worked in practice or what ever happened to it. So I asked for a copy from the archives 1/

Honestly if you describe how zoning works to normies it sounds legitimately psychotic. Like, daycares are presumptively illegal in most parts of most cities. Hell, until recently in Ontario daycare was not a permitted use *in schools* as a rule.

Very rarely in the building codes/ standards world will you see a map with this stark of a contrast.

📢 Calling all Calgarians 📢 If you don’t want to see Calgary’s housing strategy get rolled back, join us on January 24th! RSVP: www.eventbrite.com/e/save-the-h... #yyc #yyccc #housing

Still no word on what will happen with Toronto's Housing Accelerator Funding, but we've summarized the progress so far. Toronto has completed 20/29 milestones due by Dec 31, 2025, but only 13 on time. Another 2 milestones were completed ahead of schedule. www.moreneighbours.ca/news/reports...

A remarkable transformation that will have big impacts into the future. Housing policy is climate policy. Keep an eye out for our posts about MTSA (Major Transit Station Area) zoning implementation later this year to make this happen in Toronto.

Happy new year - it's "back to work" in more ways than one! Make it a new year's resolution to get out to more IN-PERSON consultations in your area! Not sure where to start? Use our Consultations 101 video here for tips to get your foot in the door! www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvUc...

Taking the next step with Canadian Civil in 2026 https://site.canadiancivil.com/what-is-canadian-civil/

My Toronto housing top 5 of 2025: 1. MTSAs approved by province 2. Avenues Policy Review/New Avenues 3. Major Streets approved by OLT 4. Sixplexes allowed in TEYCC 5. Cheating to combine several DC items (freezes, waiving for sixplexes, garden suites, some affordable projects and then also Bill 60)

Taking a parody spin on this document, but substituting for residential density: 🏘️ The housing "crisis": Residential density is being shoehorned into neighbourhoods with little foresight, causing "escalating noise" and neighbour backlash.

MNTO member Hana Suckstorff has penned a reflective piece over a small apartment proposal that lost at CoA and is now being appealed at TLAB. On the nature of "neighbourhood character", and what is lost when we apply it only to built-form. hsuckstorff.substack.com/p/saving-the...

Allowing Small Single Stairs building in Toronto would unlock many more homes to be built And now the State of Minnesota found that these buildings are also safer.

City zoning workplans shouldn't look like your document drafts folder. (We're still quite happy that it passed)

"Constance Williams, who lives near infill development, says she’s prepared to chain herself to a tree to stop an empty home from being torn down and turned into an infill eight-plex." edmonton.citynews.ca/2025/12/16/w...

Consultants contracted by Minnesota found that an eight-story single-stair building with 6,000 sq. ft. per floor (building 4) has dramatically lower fire risk than a same-height code-compliant two-stair building with a larger floor plate (building 1) www.dli.mn.gov/sites/defaul...

Toronto is planning major changes for the Marlee-Glencairn area to meet new density requirements. The City is considering two options—and Option 2 is a real chance to build something special for this neighbourhood. A thread 🧵

2nd: Thanks to @sarahkirbyyung.bsky.social for promoting and all of Council for supporting compact egress stair options for small lot apartments, including an assist from @lucymaloney.bsky.social asking for zoning that will fully legalize these important typologies... 1/2

Ontario's story largely mirrors Toronto's: some ok attempts to increase supply (so much effort involved to get this) combined with sleepwalking into absolutely enormous taxes on new housing.

Last week it was 10 units on Oakwood, and today I am happy to have gotten my client approval at CoA for a 6plex on a very unusual triangle-shaped lot in East York. 3x4 bedroom units above 3x1 bedroom units.

Today the Finch West LRT opens, connecting Finch West station to Humber College. To mark the occasion, we mapped the route alignment relative to surrounding land-use patterns and examined how population has grown and declined along the route over 25 years https://ow.ly/qNiS50XENwc

Come to our events and meet famous urbanist influencers. (perhaps you too could become a famous urbanist influencer. Check out our MNTO Gigs program: www.moreneighbours.ca/get-involved...)

Appreciate these clear statements from CMHC. It's got some good insight. "As a country, are we comfortable with the implications of using a “growth pays for growth” approach in municipal development financing? And what are the alternatives?" www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/observer/202...

For years, I’ve heard Toronto people claim that heritage doesn’t stop new housing. That has always been nonsense. Now the city is *openly, explicitly* saying a rich area shouldn’t be rezoned because heritage is more important than housing. www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis...

This is really wonderful to see! CMHC is now releasing data on development charges across Canada. Must read piece.

"The chair of this committee frequently says that in Ontario, we zone for buildings, not for people. But when we have a report that says adding new buildings will create complete communities and we couldn't possibly do that in Rosedale, I wonder if that's true."

This item was basically a request to endorse the directions in the report and move forward to the next stage of engagement. It looks like Committee will defer at Councillor Cheng's request. This would be a deferral on the proposed community engagement until more community engagement is done.

Talking to housing advocates in the last few weeks has gotten pretty bleak. Various versions of "everyone's acting like the crisis is over, and it's really really not." www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Continuing to go through the item for as-of-right zoning impementation for avenues for wards 9 and 11 and I'm not sure how many more Toronto City Planning Equity Statements I can read in reports that do things like exempt streets in Rosedale from change because it's a heritage conservation district

NEXT WEEK, come to our AGM and Holiday Party! Sat, Dec 6 6pm AGM start 7pm-ish Holiday Party start luma.com/maiqged9 👓Geek out with you local neighbourhood urbanist nerds. 🎶Guess the next song on our housing themed playlist. ❄️Eat, drink, and be merry as we pull into the holiday season.

Un exemple, pour les autres

Small 4-6 unit multiplexes shouldn't require the same governance and reserve requirements as 200-unit condos. Other jurisdictions (including BC) have simpler, more lightweight ownership structure for small multi-residential buildings. ON and Toronto should take a look!

Pie and YIMBYism. Yum.

Renters are the backbone of the rental market. Don’t get it twisted.

Handy feature from the City Hall Watcher newsletter (consider subscribing if you're city politics nerd!) on where Toronto's housing growth is going. You will not be SHOCKED where it's concentrated.

Local Toronto root-rock band, @jenschaffer.bsky.social, is sharing the holiday love with us and some other housing focused organizations! Their new song, "Homes for the Holiday", is being dedicated to shine a light on the work being done by us, @housingrightsca.bsky.social, and the CAEH (caeh.ca).

We support housing of all types. You can too.

The first single stair approval under Toronto's Alternative Solution Proposals! This will allow more livable space in the units while maintaining fire safety through sprinklers and other measures. Thanks to @pamelablais.bsky.social for persisting & everyone at the City who helped to make it happen.

I told my students about the north york secondary plan last week on our field trip up there. I should be applied to the whole city. Where condo meets sidewalk can be actually great cuz of it.

If you're interested in making this spine a little chunkier, the latest on the North York Secondary Plan should be at Planning and Housing Committee on December 3rd. No new details available yet but opposition from the low-rise Neighbourhood is expected.

queue the lamentations for the "heritage parking lot authority that's the heart of our community"

Last week: Neighbourhood retail is maintaining pre-amalgamation divides in Toronto. This week: Minimum lot sizes are an outdated artefact of pre-amalgamation zoning that divides Toronto. We wrote to the province on Bill 60 to support the removal of minimum lot sizes.