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.

$10 million withheld from Toronto's Housing Accelerator Funds. Congratulations to all of the councillors who confidently assured their colleagues that this wouldn't happen when they refused to allow sixplexes in their wards. www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/media-newsro...

Wtf is TRBOT talking about? The city doesn't run a structural deficit, it runs a structural surplus, and the reserves are exploding, not depleting. Who did they pay to write this?

I really think we need to grapple with something as a city: doing the painful lot-by-lot public consulted to death in-depth planning that some people ask for took 8 years for 175 of the Toronto's 63,310 hectares of land and it is not a scalable or desirable process. We must abandon it.

I do get grumpy about the housing reform = deregulation line of thinking. A neighbourhood with a height limit of 14 m isn't "less regulated" than one with 10 m. They have the same amount of regulation. That would only not be the case if more housing was analogous to pollution, which it isn't.

One frustrating thing about governments now saying "Housing isn't our fault. Developers just aren't building!" is that, years ago, I met with multiple politicians who assured me that it was fine to add requirements and costs, saying "Do you really think developers are just going to stop building?"

It's -13°C and the middle of a snowstorm and there are hundreds of people in Bellwoods. Sledding, skiing, chatting, laughing, and having fun. And to me it's just another example of the power of urbanity.

The MTSA zoning *should* be a confirmatory exercise but it will still be important to have pro-housing voices show up to make sure that happens. Find the public meeting closest to you.

One thing that really strikes me about people who shallowly argue for trams in N-America is how little they realize that the way we manage traffic here will seldom produce the level of ease of access they experience in European trams and long for Example: accessibility of stops, Paris vs Toronto

Just a gentle reminder that we've been there to support rent-geared-to-income housing, and affordable housing, and city-led housing, and homeless shelters, and supportive housing, and non-profit developers, and student residences, and multiplexes, and garden suites, and, and, and...

MTSA zoning cannot come fast enough to Glencairn station.

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/

It may seem like a small thing but was actually relieved at how nice it is to make these kind of basic charts quickly and easily. Big recommend.

I think the answer to Lorinc's question here is no, and that it's useful to walk through why I think the answer is no because I've seen this logic used recently by the TTC to slow down Finch LRT and I think it's not the correct interpretation of the dynamics at play. 1/ spacing.ca/toronto/2026...

A run through Eglinton-Lawrence tonight reinforced to me that the biggest impact of the neighbourhood retail by-law won't be the few places where corner stores are allowed inside neighbourhoos, it's the retail that will now be allowed on capital M Major Streets in the inner suburbs.

Weird Fletcher-initiated attempt to scuttle garden suites on Craven Road deferred again so we can waste even more staff time on bespoke zoning for one type of building on *one segment* of one street. Staff aren't an unlimited resource. Do we know this?

Continue to be happy that I don't need to care about stuff like this.

Good piece for people to think through. If you want housing prices to stay where they are now or (gasp) decrease further, we need to reduce construction costs and so you have to pick the pathways to push on. Your menu of options is here.

If you or anyone you know lives in Edmonton, pass this along.

The ghost of Garrison Creek.

Obviously distracting things going on right now but Canada should sign this.

I take Keenan as fairly representative of the conventional wisdom of high information municipal followers and so it's a small bummer to see that the common understanding of the City's reserve funds remains completely backwards. www.thestar.com/opinion/star...

It's odd that the basis for Toronto's budget isn't what actually happened last year but what staff predicted would happen. We already know that, 2 years ago, predictions were off by billions. I don't expect perfect agreement in unpredictable times but surely we should use the best info as a start.

Progress Toronto's top target for 2026, a year where there's a municipal election and not a provincial election, is... Doug Ford??? Could we maybe target some more councillors? www.instagram.com/p/DTYUdD4EX-...

My personal synthesis of the Transit City Wars is that all three Toronto mayors who spent their time debating mode were frogs being boiled alive by the cost spiral and incompetent execution *after* the mode had been selected. www.tvo.org/article/anal...

Every map of Toronto is the same map of Toronto: an ongoing series. (To be clear, this is not a criticism of the research, which literally notes that there is a correlation with socioeconomic status.) www.thestar.com/news/gta/pla...

I want this to be true but I don't think it is. Shelter and Support Services capital budget is twice this value and the Housing Secretariat's capital budget is $3.37 Billion. Both trouble to spend half their budgets every year due to local obstruction and city rules. www.thestar.com/news/gta/can...

Soon.

5 digits in January.

Boy it sure would be embarrassing if these projections in briefing note 11 of the Toronto budget were off by billions of dollars in the opposite direction. Would really undermine public trust in the budget documents wouldn't it?

Worth looking back at some previous years of debt servicing ratio projections to give you a sense of whether this is reliable or not (it's not).

This forecasted opening pressure is less than the actual operating variance from 2024 (2025 variance won't be known for 6 months). This big discrepancy between the predictions of what's needed to balance the budget and what actually happens has been common in recent years. medium.com/@henrikbechm...

Charts in the Toronto budget presentation that drive Damien insane pt. 1: it is not a problem that the federal and provincial governments receive more tax revenue than municipalities, they do way more stuff.

The ruling "said something more important — that governments must justify restrictions on expression with evidence, not assumptions." Lot of that going around these days. (This reminds me of the bike lane ruling, so we'll see if it's similarly misinterpreted.)

If I were lawn sign by-laws, I'd be quaking in my boots right now.

Budget documents aren't out yet this morning but as you read them I'll give you my usual warning: the estimation of reserves spend down is wrong, the estimation of current reserves is low. And always read what % of a division's budget has been spent over the last 5 years.

Encountered a Bike Share problem I haven't seen before: the weather has been so bleak for so long the solar panels can't charge the battery of the dock.

My BS alarm is going off like crazy.

So 2.2% seems broadly fine to me. There's no new or expanded programs. What I don't understand is why you wouldn't revise down the City Building Fund increase and allocate more to ops given that the reserves give us a ~3 year backlog on the capital budget funding. www.thestar.com/news/gta/tor...

That stupid Craven Road garden suite thing from last fall is coming back next week. www.thestar.com/real-estate/...

Already read my first "property taxes will be completely unaffordable once property assessments are updated" completely incorrect take of the Toronto Budget season and the draft budget isn't even out yet.

Not sure how much it's been remarked on but as King West and its surroundings have added more residents, the number of clubs has been dropping and replaced with a more balanced set of businesses and the street is getting... dare I say pleasant? I'm sure some people are upset about this but not me.

I don't know what Mayor Chow plans to run as a platform but considering Toronto Builds (the "new" policy framework for affordable housing on city land) was the big thing in her first term housing policy, I hope she and her team take a long hard look at how the city can speed up these projects.

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...

I cannot emphasize enough what a bad assumption this is

Very interested in what the 2026 census will show for active transportation share in Toronto.

It's more or less what you'd expect for Toronto

I see Bradford stepping into the transit city debate so I'm just going to say: the age of the Mayor of Toronto having any power over rapid transit construction of any kind is long gone. We've cost spiralled ourselves out of even upgrading the subway. The election must be about surface transit.

2. @dylanmatt.bsky.social: "I think the evidence shows that Americans at the 10th percentile of income are living vastly better lives in 2025 than they did in 1975, and the absolute poverty trends reflect this..." dylanmatthews.substack.com/p/so-its-com...

Toronto ended 2025 with 44 homicides, which is a more than 20 year low.