Question about Toronto proposals
 

Relatively new forumer here, so I apologize if this is in the wrong place.

So I can’t help but notice that the diagram for Toronto here on SSP has 298 drawings of buildings in the ‘proposed’ category, and 426 buildings overall listed as proposed in the database. Now I know SSP is a Canadian website (so there’s obviously a home-field advantage in terms of which buildings Canadian illustrators are going to choose to draw), and I know Toronto is currently going through probably the largest building boom in its history. For comparison’s sake, NYC has something like 3x the population of Toronto, and is also going through possibly the largest building boom in its history, but it only has 201 buildings listed as proposed total, drawn and undrawn buildings included. It really seems unlikely to me that there actually is twice the demand for real estate in Toronto vs. NYC, given Toronto’s smaller size, lack of geographic constraints compared to NYC, etc. but I’m not particularly familiar with Toronto so I suppose it is somehow possible.

So my question for you guys is, how many of these ‘proposed’ buildings in Toronto are serious proposals that will actually get built, and how many are just speculative projects that may or may not move forward?

most will get built. Not all, not all soon, but eventually.

There is a huge difference between the US and Canadian markets - that is that the vast majority of new build houses in the Toronto metro region are condos. Even in NYC, a significant amount of growth is in detached housing on the edge of the metro region.. Which means that 100,000 new people moving toronto means more condos and highrises than 100,000 people new people moving to NYC.

Thanks for the reply! It’s interesting that the Canadian market is geared more towards condo development. Is that because of planning policies that favor increased density, or did the market shift that way on its own?

Also, as someone who actually lives in the NYC metro, I can confirm that in addition to all the towers being built in NYC itself, there is a pretty good amount of ‘spillover’ development going on in the suburbs as well. It’s crazy that 5 years or so post-recession, suburban developers here have gone right back to blasting away hillsides to build McMansions. Makes me sort of jealous of all the new highrises Toronto’s gonna end up with instead.

What's more important than metro size is the demand for housing, office space, institutional buildings, etc. Toronto builds a huge amount due to the demands being placed upon it. It's one of the fastest growing cities in the developed world.

US cities like Houston and Dallas add as many people each year but their growth is far more focused on suburban sprawl. Toronto (and Canadian) urban planning policies encourage increased density and urban development. Predictably Toronto sees lots of high rises built. You see the same thing happening in Vancouver and even smaller cities like Calgary that are beginning to build up rather than out.

Toronto has more active database contributors. It also boils down to proposals being not much more than paper and how publicly accessible that paper is. In Toronto, everything over 4 storey is mandated to be publicly debated. New York has a lot of as of right zoning. It's the developer's discretion whether to make his plans public.

I do frequently delete Toronto proposals that haven't shown any activity for several years. This year, it was about 20. At least half in the database won't be built to spec. They will be adjusted to meet zoning requirements or sold off or are part of long term projects that will be revised with the times The majority of these sites will be built out in time as insertnamehere has put it. Of course, only so long as the real estate speculative boom continues over the course of the next decade or more.

Toronto's condo market has been larger than New Yorks for a long time (Note: units sold over market value) For what it is worth, SSP has Toronto having built 2003 high rises since 1965 to New York's 2255. It's pretty damn close figure for a simple number of buildings built comparison.