What I meant was that the TO Council reform measures didn’t cause much of the steep drop in rental unit construction shown in Jeff’s chart in the mid-1970s. But it did have longer-term impacts by affecting the political culture around urban development and planning policy.

Even so, agree it did have long-lasting effects on Toronto planning culture and local politics, as you point out.

I’ve come to the view that the 1970s height restriction + reforms probably didn’t actually affect growth much in TO. It happened to coincide with cancellation of v successful fed tax incentives + rent control, & rental construction tanked not only in the old City, but Scarb, NYork + Etobicoke too.

The reform Council policies for sure had some impact, along with fed and provincial legislative changes imo. My guess is the rental construction party was already breaking up when TO got Crombied.

Yup. However, Jeff’s chart includes what were former independent munis. Their rental construction collapses too, even tho they were not subject the Crombie height limit. North York, eg, added almost 55,000 rental units 1960-79, and only c.2400 1980-99.

North York, eg. went from building almost 55,000 total rental units between 1960 and 1979, to about 2,400 in the 1980-1999 period.

The fact that rental housing collapsed across the now-city, including in Scarborough, Etobicoke, North York, which unlike the old City had no sudden height restriction imposed, suggests factors in addition to zoning, esp. cancellation of fed incentives and legislation permitting condos.

Jeff presumably data in this chart represents what is now the City of Toronto, but for earlier years Metro Toronto?

That was part of it, for sure, but also cancellation of very effective federal incentives for rental construction, and the introduction of condo legislation.

Here, it seems, vestibules or a corridor are required with shared-use stairs.

Thank you. All our units open directly into the stairwell. We accepted pressurization in lieu of the usual vestibules or corridors, as that option would have have too-negative impacts on our units and layouts.

Many thanks to our consultant Jack Keays at Vortex Fire as well as @conradspeckert.bsky.social, and to those in TO Buildings and Fire Services who revisited our alternative solution proposal and saw their way to an approval. 6/6

This is a good, reasonable outcome, and an important step toward more livable, accessible and viable missing middle housing.

I hope our experience makes the process smoother for future single stair ASPs in low rise buildings in the City. 5/6

Those requests were disproportionate to say the least given the small building footprint, low occupancy and risk levels.

Now 3 of those requests have been dropped. We have agreed to stairwell pressurization. 4/6

These 4 additional measures were:
- a pressurized stairwell
- vestibules/corridor between every unit and the exit stair
- a stair wider than 1200 mm
- balconies constructed with appropriate Fire Resistance Rating from the adjacent floor areas. 3/6

Recall that after a resubmission and 6 mos review, Buildings was still requesting 4 additional measures for my 3 storey sixplex (on top of those already agreed by us: sprinklers, increased fire rating of materials, widened stair, protected balconies etc.) 2/6

Congrats! Interested in the developer’s decision to go with what seems like 10 private entrances/stairs, rather than 2 common stairwells (or potentially a single stair but understand the difficulties with that!).

Because of these two posts, and considerable bitter experience. Even if you design the regulations the right way, the silo-cultural nature of our various building/zoning depts means they will still use discretionary authority to escalate details, demands and requirements.