Gabriel Diamond
@gdiamond87
Real Estate, Sports, & Business
We have officially launched our 18th summer of @Truenorthcamps! Join us for baseball, basketball, soccer, flag football, and multi-sport in Toronto and Etobicoke #playallday truenorthcamps.com youtu.be/CJFnc86dPfQ
This is such a niche issue yet such an important reform. We really can’t make small apartments/flats work between 4-8 storeys without elevator rule reform in Canada. It’s time to legalize small elevators and the European elevator code in Canada.
Opinion: Canada’s outdated elevator rules are adding to the housing crisis theglobeandmail.com/opinion/articl…
Toronto doesn’t need a “Traffic Czar”, it needs political leaders with a spine. Want to know how to fix Traffic in Toronto? - Eliminate on-street parking on Arterial Roads - Dedicated Streetcar/LRT routes with signal priority, dedicated BRT lanes for major bus routes - Variable…
Fantastic article by @cselley and glad to see publications across the political spectrum call out Toronto’s crass failure to allow sixplexes (which it agreed to do) and demand federal money despite it. Simply put, @gregorrobertson and @MarkJCarney need to put the line in the…
Chris Selley: Toronto dares the Carney government to punish it for ignoring housing demands nationalpost.com/opinion/chris-…
“After the sixplex vote, any lingering belief about Chow’s ability to solve the housing crisis should be dead and buried. Toronto needs a pro-housing mayor for today and tomorrow, not one stuck in the past.”
The idea that Olivia Chow was going to be Toronto’s housing champion was always a fantasy. Chow’s brand is progressive, but she’s remarkably regressive on housing. Her failure on sixplexes should be the final wake up call. My latest for @TorontoStar: thestar.com/opinion/contri…
Retrofit and extension of 32-36 York Street Sydney, by SJB Architects Before After
Toronto got $471M in housing accelerator funding. The result? ⬆️ 40% increase in homebuilding taxes ⬇️ 58% drop in housing starts. ⬇️ A broken promise on sixplexes. The latest housing minister calls this a success... It’s not. It’s a warning. We need to cut the red tape, lower…
Here's one of my favorite urban townhome projects: • 20 units on 25,000sf lot • 1 parking space per unit • 1800sf, 3-4BR/2.5BA But the best part is that each set of 5 units has their own small gates garden courtyard
This would be a meaningful win. In fact, I don't think a single fiveplex or sixplex gets developed unless this or some comparable update to DC exemption rules is passed.
Big Housing News🚨🚨 Councillors @CllrJamaalMyers and @JoshMatlow have introduced a motion to the Planning and Housing Committee (PHC) that seeks to: 1. Remove DCs for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th units in multplexes up to 6 units. Previously, there was a policy cliff where if you…
Daily reminder that the city has no interest in making housing more affordable. 2023: IF City of Toronto increased property taxes 23% overnight this would equal the annual infrastructure budget paid for by Development Charges ("DC"s) 2025: Toronto has increased now property…
Discussed this with our team - Housing collapse will have major impact on unemployment. Not just construction! Planning, marking etc - What is 100% of nothing? Cities relying on DC revenue need to look at expected values of 0 development missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/torontos-hou… @MikePMoffatt
Tokyo has the wildest real estate This is a new 14 storey office tower with a *total floor area* of 813m2. Most of the floors are around 50m2! Designed by Koichi Ogawa City Architectural Design Office
Cc @MapleLeafs
Interesting innovation that Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez say will be available at Wolves home games next season: an in-game “reverse auction” for seats, where people in the upper bowl at Target Center can bid on seats that are left empty during games by early-leaving patrons.
Longer term leases - even 2 years - also benefit the landlord/developer as it can help get over that hump of the “second” lease up
In terms of “housing for families,” I’ve been thinking a lot about the buy vs rent dilemma, and how at its core, it’s a question of stability. One of the main reasons families buy homes is to gain control over how long they can stay. Moving is always disruptive, but it becomes…
In the Anglosphere, our systems only consider the downside of action, not the downside of inaction, which incentivizes doing nothing.
In 1937, London built 80,000 homes. Last year, it built less than half that. To find out why, I looked at two different planning applications for a four-storey block of flats from now and back then. 1937: 3 pages long. 2025: 1,250 pages long.
In terms of the labour market, it’s not just construction. It’s the entire development team. Brokerage, architects, planners, engineers etc. Few weeks ago a top real estate marketing firm closed its doors.
Spoiler for tomorrow's piece. It should turn some heads. Unless governments act quickly, they will experience a massive drop in housing-related revenue, including lower land-transfer taxes, development charges, and the like.
When did we become so ridiculous as a culture?
ICYMI: Schools need to rethink graduation awards, child psychologists say cp24.com/news/2025/07/0…
I wonder what real cities do when they are hemmed in by water and mountains?
This is idiotic. West coast cities are hemmed in by water and mountains. SF vs Dallas below.