Rechercher dans la communauté

http://www.thestranger.com/news/2016/05/04/24039262/more-growth-please More Growth Please The "Yes in My Backyard" Movement Builds in Seattle by Heidi Groover "Meditate on this," San Francisco activist Sonja Trauss tells a crowd in a conference room overlooking Lake Union. "What's the difference between being able to afford something that's not available... and not being able to afford something that is available?" The room sits in polite quiet. "Nothing," Trauss says emphatically. "There's no difference. These are both ways that [housing] shortage manifests." Trauss is preaching to the choir: a room of mostly white, mostly male Seattle developers working on plates of steak and green beans. You don't have to tell this group twice about the rules of supply and demand. But in another way, Trauss is screaming into the void. All across Seattle, small fights are playing out over whether new buildings—new housing—should be built. These are fights about the scale and height of new buildings, neighborhood character, and whether Seattle is losing its "soul." They are tedious and they are hurting housing affordability in this city. But for the most part, the only people paying attention to these fights are the people who want to stop the growth. People like the developers in this room, who believe Seattle needs more growth to meet its massive influx of new residents, rarely show up to advocate for new housing unless it's their own project in question. The rest of the city's residents—who, if recent city council election results are any indication, favor new density over parochial NIMBYism—don't often show up, either. Trauss, 34, is trying to change that in San Francisco and encouraging urbanists in Seattle to do the same. Trauss founded the San Francisco Bay Area Renters Federation, a blunt, tech-funded, grassroots organization that advocates for more housing in and around San Francisco and was recently profiled in the New York Times as an indication of that city's "cries to build, baby, build." The group is one of many across the country organizing under the banner of YIMBY ("yes in my backyard"). Next month, YIMBYs will convene in Boulder, Colorado, for a conference with discussion topics like "forging healthy alliances between housing advocates and housing developers" and "responding to anti-housing ballot measures." "You guys actually have some non-industry pro-growth people," Trauss tells the Seattle developers. "Seattle has a lot of urbanists. It's just a matter of Laura actually starting a mailing list, and pretty soon you'll have your own pro-development citizen group." In the crowd sits Laura Bernstein, a 40-year-old renter in the University District who recently quit grad school to spend this year studying urbanism on her own and figuring out how to expand the YIMBY movement in Seattle. Before becoming a middle-school teacher, Bernstein studied opera and plant biology. Now she spends her days having coffee with other urbanists, going to community meetings, and running the Twitter account @YIMBYsea. At this time last year, Bernstein wouldn't be showing up in a story about YIMBYs. Then, she was working for a city council candidate who embodies the "not in my backyard" movement—Tony Provine. (By the end of his campaign, Provine was sending out mailers depicting bulldozers threatening to tear down single-family zones across the city. He lost in the primary with just 14 percent of the vote in his district.) Bernstein says when she started working for Provine, she thought he could serve as a bridge between pro-density urbanists and neighborhood advocates afraid of change. With enough reasoning, she thought, anybody could be convinced to welcome growth in their neighborhood. "All of that idealism went right out the window the minute I started knocking on doors and talking to voters," Bernstein tells me over Skype while she's in Vancouver to see an interactive art exhibit about growth there. Knocking on doors is when Bernstein says she began "hearing how cynical of downtown, cynical of politicians, and so put upon [homeowners were], like 'They're doing this to us.'" By "this," the neighbors mean growth. It's a common refrain in Seattle's density debate that developers or city officials are inflicting growth onto neighborhoods. In fact, of course, new people will move to Seattle whether we build for them or not. The only thing we have control over—unless we decide to build a wall—is whether we're prepared for those new residents. But Bernstein is holding on to some of her idealism. She doesn't like to use the term "NIMBY" and is deliberate about trying to meet with people she disagrees with. That sounds cheesy, but it makes her a rarity among the city's hardcore urbanists. On social media, Seattle urbanists can be a condescending, dick-swinging crowd, dismissing the lived experiences of displaced and struggling renters because they're busy shouting about the faultless wisdom of the free market. ("NIMBYs are literally the worst," one tweeted as I was writing this story. "Economic terrorists.") The city's well-meaning pro-tenants movement, meanwhile, peddles tired caricatures of greedy developers and focuses almost exclusively on rent control as the solution to Seattle's housing crisis. It's an exhausting split that accomplishes little, except alienating everyone in the middle. A group like SFBARF, led by renters and fighting for growth, could bridge some of that divide. Trauss is wholly pro-development—all types of it—but she also supports increased protections to keep renters from being "economically evicted" (when landlords dramatically raise rents to push out low-income tenants) and temporary rent control while supply catches up with demand. Some local density advocates are skeptical of the YIMBY movement. "Look at the math," Ben Schiendelman, a Seattle tech worker and outspoken pro-density provocateur, says of Trauss's efforts in San Francisco. "They don't win fights, and when they do, it's like for a handful of units in a building. In the time it takes to win those fights, you lose thousands of people out of the city." Schiendelman, 34, believes the only answer in Seattle and San Francisco alike is to get rid of zoning altogether. (Trauss's group is trying to sue the suburbs for restricting growth; Schiendelman supports that and says he's working on a similar lawsuit against Seattle.) Killing zoning would allow all sorts of building all over the city, he argues, creating a denser, more transit-rich city where poor and rich people live alongside each other. He has little patience for community organizing like Bernstein and others are doing. "People are becoming NIMBYs at a faster rate than you could talk them out of it," Schiendelman says. "The rate at which you could possibly organize [pro-growth] people is slower than the rate at which the city becomes less affordable." But a look at the public reaction to modest moves toward more density in Seattle shows what an unwinnable fight getting rid of zoning altogether could be. Last year, Mayor Ed Murray's housing affordability committee—known as HALA—recommended upzones to make certain parts of the city denser, reductions of expensive parking quotas, and new requirements that developers include affordable units in new apartment buildings or pay fees to help pay for new affordable housing. The neighborhood backlash was immediate, particularly against the recommendation to allow duplexes, triplexes, and backyard cottages in some of the city's single-family zones—which make up 65 percent of land (including parks) in Seattle. Meanwhile, others opposed HALA for different reasons. Developer lobbyist Roger Valdez argued the affordability requirements would make housing more expensive. Jon Grant, the former head of the Tenants Union of Washington State and a member of the HALA committee, criticized the recommendations for not including rent control and not charging enough fees on developers. In the middle, a coalition of developers and housing advocates have joined to form a group called "Seattle for Everyone," which encourages lawmakers and the public to support the HALA recommendations. In response to neighborhood backlash, Murray, joined by Council Members Tim Burgess and Mike O'Brien (who claims to be the council's environmental leader), backed away from the HALA recommendations. It will be up to activists like Bernstein to force that discussion back onto the table. With calls to abandon all zoning set as the extreme, allowing backyard cottages and duplexes becomes the moderate position in this debate. Bernstein says she's focused on what happens after HALA is done. The YIMBY movement "is here," she says. "I think we're a super YIMBY city." Back at the developer dinner, Trauss urges builders to show up at meetings and comment in favor of each other's projects and to do an industry survey of their salaries to try to make the point that they're not all getting rich. In San Francisco, she's looking ahead to May 10, when she's asking YIMBYs to all show up and vote in an election on the same day to show that they're a real constituency. "At the end of the day, some people just hate growth and there's nothing you can do," she tells the room. "You're never going to convince that person, so that's fine. Don't waste your energy. You just have to say, 'See you at the ballot box.'" recommended Sent from my SM-T330NU using Tapatalk

http://www.icisource.ca/commercial_real_estate_news/ When NIMBYism is warranted, and when it isn’t Of course, the question is whether a proposed development, infill project or new infrastructure build really does pose a risk to these cherished things. Developers and urban planners must always be cognizant of the fact that there is a segment of the population, a fringe element, who will object to just about anything “new” as a matter of principle. I’ve been to many open houses and public consultations for one proposed project or another over the years. There is almost always that contingent of dogged objectors who invariably fixate on the same things: Parking – Will there be enough if the development increases the population density of the neighbourhood or draws more shoppers/workers from elsewhere? Traffic – Will streets become unsafe and congested due to more cars on the road? Transit – Will this mean more busses on the road, increasing the safety hazard on residential streets, or conversely will there be a need for more? Shadowing – is the new build going to leave parts of the neighbourhood stuck in the shade of a skyscraper? These are all legitimate concerns, depending on the nature of the project in question. They are also easy targets for the activist obstructionist. Full and honest disclosure is the best defence Why? Because I see, time and again, some developers and urban planners who should know better fail to be prepared for objections rooted on any of these points. With any new development or infrastructure project, there has to be, as a simple matter of sound public policy, studies that examine and seek to mitigate impacts and effects related to parking, traffic, shadowing, transit and other considerations. It therefore only makes sense, during a public consult or open house, to address the most likely opposition head on by presenting the findings and recommendations of these studies up front in a clear and obvious manner. But too often, this isn’t done. I’ve was at an open house a few years ago where, when asked about traffic impact, the developer said there wouldn’t be any. Excuse me? If your project adds even one car to the street, there’s an impact. I expect he meant there would be only minimal impact, but that’s not what he said. The obstructionists had a field day with that – another greedy developer, trying to pull the wool over the eyes of honest residents. This is a marketing exercise – treat it like one This is ultimately a marketing exercise – you have to sell residents on the value and need of the development. Take another example – a retirement residence. With an aging population, we are obviously going to need more assisted living facilities in the years to come. But in this case, the developer, speaking to an audience full of grey hairs, didn’t even make the point that the new residence would give people a quality assisted-living option, without having to leave their community, when they were no longer able to live on their own. I also hear people who object to infill projects because they think their tax dollars have paid for infrastructure that a developer is now going to take advantage of – they think the developer is somehow getting a free ride. And yet, that developer must pay development charges to the city to proceed with construction. The new build will also pay its full utility costs and property taxes like the rest of the street. City hall gets more revenue for infrastructure that has already been paid for, and these additional development charges fund municipal projects throughout the city. Another point, often overlooked – when you take an underperforming property and redevelop it, its assessed value goes up, and its tax bill goes up. The local assessment base has just grown. City hall isn’t in the business of making a profit, just collecting enough property tax to cover the bills. The more properties there are in your neighbourhood, the further that tax burden is spread. In other words, that infill project will give everyone else a marginal reduction on their tax bill. It likely isn’t much, but still, it’s something. Developers must use the facts to defuse criticism Bottom line, development is necessary and good most of the time. If we didn’t have good regulated development, we would be living in horrid medieval conditions. Over the last century and a bit, ever growing regulation have given us safer communities, with more reliable utilities and key services such as policing and fire. Yes, there are examples of bad development, but if we had none, as some people seem to want, no one would have a decent place to live. It just astonishes me that developers and urban planners don’t make better use of the facts available to them to defuse criticism. It’s so easy to do it in the right way. Proper preparation for new development public information sessions is the proponent’s one opportunity to tell their story, and should not be wasted by failing to get the facts out and explaining why a project is a good idea. To discuss this or any other valuation topic in the context of your property, please contact me at jclark@regionalgroup.com. I am also interested in your feedback and suggestions for future articles. The post Why do public planning projects go off the rails? appeared first on Real Estate News Exchange (RENX). sent via Tapatalk

https://austinonyourfeet.wordpress.com/2015/11/23/9-things-people-always-say-at-zoning-hearings-illustrated-by-cats/?utm_content=bufferc065f&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer AUSTIN ON YOUR FEET 9 THINGS PEOPLE ALWAYS SAY AT ZONING HEARINGS, ILLUSTRATED BY CATS November 23, 2015Dan Keshet If you watch enough zoning hearings, the testimony begins to sound pretty repetitive. That novel argument you’re making? The Council members have heard it a million times before. Here are 9 of the things we hear most often at zoning hearings, illustrated by cats. 1. I’M NOT OPPOSED TO ALL DEVELOPMENT. JUST THIS DEVELOPMENT. Those 1,000 times you sat on your couch to support developments far away from you surely counterbalance that one time you came out to oppose your neighbor’s development. If you’re opposed, just tell us why; don’t go on about how you’re not a person that opposes things. 2. NOBODY TALKED TO ME! The city notifies neighbors and registered civic organizations about upcoming permits. Developers seek out people they think might be affected. But it’s hard to know who is going to care and notifications are often thrown out. Don’t feel left out! If you’re at the hearing, you’re being heard. Just say what’s on your mind. 3. REALITY IS, EVERYBODY DRIVES A CAR. Usually said while proposing somebody build more parking. If you want that reality to ever change, you have to accept building less car infrastructure. 4. THESE GREEDY DEVELOPERS ONLY THINK ABOUT PROFITS Land development is a business. Like all businesses, sometimes you make money and sometimes you lose money. You just try to make sure that you make enough money on the winners to cancel out the losers. Focusing in on the fact that the developer is hoping to make money makes your testimony sound more like you oppose out of spite than a particular reason. 5. LET ME TELL YOU MY THEORY OF ECONOMICS If council members haven’t learned economics by now, they’re not going to learn it from your three minute testimony. 6.WHAT THIS NEIGHBORHOOD REALLY NEEDS IS A COFFEE SHOP, NOT MORE APARTMENTS For all the mean things people sometimes say about developers, a lot of folks seem to fashion themselves amateur land developers, with a keen eye on exactly what types of businesses will succeed or fail. As it turns out, those things coincide perfectly with the things they personally enjoy. 7. I’M 5TH GENERATION! MY GREAT GREAT GRANDFATHER MOVED HERE BEFORE THIS WAS EVEN ON THE MAP! That entitles you to one vote, just like everybody else. Now tell us what you came up here to say. 8. WE NEED TO RESPECT THE HUNDREDS OF HOURS SPENT CRAFTING THIS NEIGHBORHOOD PLAN Respecting people for volunteering time making plans doesn’t mean those plans should never change. Now tell us your reasons for or against this particular change. 9. THIS HOUSING IS TOO SMALL FOR ME! Different people have different needs and desires! Just because you don’t like a particular thing doesn’t mean nobody would like it. sent via Tapatalk

Interesting video about the new London skyscrapers http://www.archdaily.com/770542/london-is-becoming-a-bad-version-of-dubai "London is on the verge of being ruined for all future generations," says Alain de Botton – a Swiss philosopher, notable author and founder of The School of Life and Living Architecture. "With a whopping 260 towers in the pipeline no area is safe, as planners, property developers and the mayor's office commit crimes against beauty to create fun buildings." In a film for The Guardian De Botton explains why he believes we're right to be nervous – and how we can stop this "clear desecration" of the UK's capital city. sent via Tapatalk

http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-re-imagined/montreal-reimagined-cityscape-is-more-than-only-a-view The Montreal Re-Imagined section is presented by Concordia University Concordia University Montreal Reimagined: Cityscape is more than only a view MONTREAL, QUE.: April 02, 2015 -- Logo staff mugshot / headshot of Luca Barone in Montreal Thursday April 02, 2015. LUCA BARONE, SPECIAL TO MONTREAL GAZETTE Until I graduated, my daily hike up to McGill’s Faculty of Law on the corner of Peel St. and Dr. Penfield Ave. began at the corner of de Maisonneuve Blvd. W., where I would emerge into daylight from the métro station. Ascending into the world from the underground takes a little readjusting: you look around to get your bearings, check the weather, and let your eyes readjust to the sunlight. I was never afforded much to look at until I began walking north up Peel and glimpsed the mountain. The east-west view along de Maisonneuve is disappointing. Look left or right and the view is the same: dark towers pockmarked with windows rise up on the horizon. When a building obstructs a view down a street and becomes the focal point of what you see, it is known as a terminated vista. They can be a blessing and a curse. They also can help create a sense of destination and diversity in a city and can be manipulated to highlight significant landmarks. The view of McGill’s campus against the backdrop of Mount Royal from McGill College Ave. is one of Montreal’s iconic landscapes. Looking south down St. Urbain St., the view of the Art Deco waterfall of the Aldred Building on Place d’Armes is another example of a successful blocked view that beckons rather than repulses, as is the view of the dome of the Hôtel-Dieu looking north along Ste-Famille. These landmarks create a sense of place and they are symbols of our city. But look south down Parc Ave. toward Place du Parc (the Air Transat building) and the view is hardly inspiring. When the view down a street ends in a blank tower, the terminated vista does not help create a more livable city. Not every building should be monumental or iconic, but any urban building should make you want to walk toward it rather than avert your eyes. Downtown towers should be built because they have many virtues, from proximity to public transit to the lower environmental effect of higher population density, but we should not ignore how these buildings relate to their surroundings. Uniformity should not be the goal, either: a building should not have to look exactly like its neighbours, but it should complement them. Without exaggerating the importance of the look and shape of buildings, Montrealers deserve more than what we’re getting from urban planners, architects and real estate developers. We should trudge out of the métro and be delighted by what we see. In a city full of talented architects, much of the blame for uninspired buildings lies with real estate developers who don’t hire local talent, and city councillors and urban planners who give construction permits without paying sufficient attention to buildings’ visual impact. The Louis-Bohème building on the corner of Bleury and de Maisonneuve is an example of a building that succeeds on many levels. Its apartments make the best use of the land by increasing the density of residents in the area. It also has underground parking and shops at ground level, from where you can also access the Place-des-Arts métro station. In many ways, the building represents exactly the kind of development Montreal needs. But it fails as an element of the urban landscape. When you see it rising above Parc or de Maisonneuve, the view of its charcoal concrete panels leaves you unmoved at best and intimidated at worst. In a city that suffers from interminable winters exacerbated by short days and little sunlight, buildings clad in light-absorbing, dark materials are not merely ugly — they should be considered a public health concern. One way to improve urban design would be to develop a sustainable local architecture that is responsive to our climate. Initiatives like the Quartier des Spectacles’ Luminothérapie winter light installations are a great start, but the city should take a more active role in promoting architecture that makes long winters more bearable. For example, Edmonton has issued specific winter design guidelines that promote architectural features that block wind, maximize sunlight, and enliven the cityscape as part of its “WinterCity Strategy.” It is not easy for a building to enrich its surroundings while responding to the demands of a city and its inhabitants, the climate and the economy. But our buildings speak eloquently about who we are and what we value. We have to live with them for decades, if not centuries. It’s worth getting them right sent via Tapatalk

Hello everyone, I have a vision to develop Montreal that would revolutionize the face of downtown and give an international touch to it. What I would like to do is to form a small group to develop a few schematics/drawings of my idea and present it to the city developers and some business people. Anybody that has the skills necessary on this forum willing to put some time in it? Let me know

Corner of Duluth & Laval. Floor plans & other details at the developer's site. http://www.24x15degres.com/ http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wl3_iIRybY4/TIGASFblo1I/AAAAAAAAAHQ/82WT_I2AQN4/s1600/tk1035-w2000.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wl3_iIRybY4/TIGA65IKHCI/AAAAAAAAAHY/BinuT_9ezWI/s1600/tk1035-2-w2000.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wl3_iIRybY4/TIGBT_fxHAI/AAAAAAAAAHg/Enf5BR7dohw/s1600/tk1035-3-w2000.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wl3_iIRybY4/TIGBpyjZAsI/AAAAAAAAAHo/89jer25qMUc/s1600/tk1035-1-w2000.jpg

By Brian Ker, Special to The Gazette The Gazette's panel of experts answer your questions on real estate. To ask a question, please email alampert@montrealgazette.com. There has been a lot of discussion recently regarding the bonanza of construction taking place in Montreal and certainly on these pages an inquisitive analysis of the quantity of condominium construction. We also hear about “the hot land market” and there are lots of questions as to its sustainability. I recently attended the Land and Development Conference in Toronto to determine the optimism in North America’s largest condominium market and compare that with what we have been witnessing here in Montreal as land values have rapidly increased over the past five years. In a hot market, land is not an asset but is priced more like a commodity: a raw material that is just one part of a final constructed product, including concrete, steel and labour. In a weak market, land values are more likely tied to its short-term income-producing potential, such as parking revenues less off-setting taxes. The rapidly diminishing land supply and a cultural shift toward urban living have lead to changes in the commercial land market. First, commercial land sales are principally divided between high- and low-density sites. High-density sites intended for office, hotel, mixed-use and multi-unit residential projects, while low-density sites incorporate retail, industrial and single-family home developments. The value of land is based on the total amount of density permitted on its property – a site permitting an office tower is considerably greater than a walkup row-house or an industrial facility – and the total volume of potential sales in a given year, which allow for larger projects. Restrictive zoning can adversely affect the site’s value, as can social-housing inclusions and lengthy, complicated and sometimes “out-of-control” zoning application processes that jeopardize a project’s economic vitality. On Montreal Island, the prevailing trend is that high-density sites are taking a larger market share of total land transaction sales volumes because of the increasing prominence of sales of larger development sites permitting significantly greater density, and higher pricing for each unit of density, also referred to as the price per square foot Buildable. Over the past five years, the value for each unit of density has doubled to an average price of approximately $30 per square foot buildable. This is primarily based upon the rapid increase (up to 50%) in values for condominiums during the same time period, and as such, sales of sites for residential projects have outpaced all other sectors. Developers will be happy to note that Montreal was the third-largest condominium market in North America in 2010, albeit in an aberration year for the U.S. housing market, and only trailing Toronto and Houston in overall condo starts. This buoyancy has been growing for some time as major developers have acquired land holdings to fuel future projects. Since October of 2008, there have been a 11 high-density development land transactions in the greater Montreal area that have traded above $5 million, with a total value of $148 million in high-density land sales. Major sales included the land for the Project Griffintown project, Angus Development in the Quartier des Spectacles, the Marianopolis site, the site for the Altoria project and most recently Prevel and Conceptions Rachel-Juilien acquiring the rights from Canada Lands to develop Les Bassins du Nouveau Havre for $20 million. These major land transactions were purchased by well-known, well-respected and well-capitalized condo developers, with the exception of the Angus Assembly and Altoria, both of which will feature a mix of office and condominium use. Mixed-use projects are becoming the new normal, as developers put forth projects that feature greater overall site density to decrease the effects of higher land prices or kick start existing larger projects with an exclusively residential component. For land values to continue their ascent, Montreal developers and buyers need to develop an attitude shift with regard to larger projects. The traditional condo developer logic is that it is nearly impossible to sell more than 150 units for a project in one sales year. The rationale for this is, typically, that Montrealers will not pay a deposit for a condo unit until substantial pre-sales have been achieved or it is under construction, as they are not willing to wait two to three years for delivery. Recent project launches, though, are challenging this traditional thinking, with buyers (or their agents) waiting in line overnight and first-day sell-outs occurring with regularity, or buyers are asked to place a “deposit” to reserve a unit without seeing final plans. Buyers can no longer sit back and cherry-pick the best unit, as it will probably be reserved before they arrive on the scene. In addition, unless condominiums continue to experience strong price increases, Montreal condo developers will be facing increasing pressure for prime sites from alternative uses, such as office towers, hotels, or institutional (Healthcare, Educational, Student Residence) projects, where demand is steadily growing. Finally, our municipal government needs to develop a more flexible zoning application process with regard to major urban projects and the need for public consultations. Politicians should rely on the counsel of independent experts, but are elected to make decisions, and voters should judge them on these decisions, good or bad, at the ballot-box. Montreal home and condo owners have benefited from the rapidly rising values of their residential real estate over the past five years. Although rising interest rates are on the horizon and will clearly dampen demand for condos for home ownership and as an investment vehicle, demand is increasing for alternate site uses. Land values have also seen a rapid ascent, particularly for high density sites, and the economic fundamentals support continued growth and greater liquidity in this particular market. Brian Ker is associate vice-president, National Investment Team, at CB Richard Ellis Limited. He can be reached at 514 905-2141 or by email at brian.ker@cbre.com. Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/sustainable+Montreal+construction+bonanza/4889700/story.html#ixzz1OFFSPeAz

There are an article in The Gazette (which I shall put after this post) that speaks about Montreal embracing open data. Also, anybody every been to Ottawa, Quebec? lol How Open Data Initiatives Can Improve City Life by Aliza Sherman Major city governments across North America are looking for ways to share civic data — which normally resides behind secure firewalls — with private developers who can leverage it to serve city residents via web and mobile apps. Cities can spend on average between $20,000 and $50,000 — even as much as $100,000 — to cover the costs of opening data, but that’s a small price to pay when you consider how much is needed to develop a custom application that might not be nearly as useful. Here are a few examples of initiatives that are striving to make city governments more efficient and transparent through open data. 1. Apps4Ottawa – Ottawa, Quebec Careful to adhere to security and privacy regulations for their open data program, the City of Ottawa started sharing data in several areas: geo-spatial (roadways, parks, runways, rivers, and ward boundaries); recreation facilities; event planning; civic elections data; and transit, including schedules. Other data the city is pursuing includes tree inventory, collections schedules for garbage, recycling and compost, and bike and foot paths. Ottawa aligned their first open data contest, Apps4Ottawa, with the school year (September 2010 to January 2011 ) to involve colleges and universities as well as residents and local industry. Categories for the contest included “Having Fun in Ottawa,” “Getting Around,” “Green Environment/Sustainability,” “Community Building,” and “Economic Development.” The winner is scheduled to be announced later this evening. Guy Michaud, chief information officer for the City of Ottawa, said their open data efforts have already spurred economic development and is meant to be good for local entrepreneurs. The city receives no revenue through the apps, and the developers can sell what they create. In turn, Ottawa residents get improved services from applications that are created, with better access to city data and more user-friendly formats and platforms. 2. CivicApps.org – Portland, Oregon After tracking Vivek Kundra’s efforts at the federal level with data.gov, Portland, Oregon launched CivicApps.org, a project initiated out of the mayor’s office to bring a more localized approach to the open data movement. Skip Newberry, economic policy advisor to the mayor, say that the project’s main objective is to improve connections and the flow of information between local government and its constituents, as well as between city bureaus. To call attention to the release of public data, they also launched an app design contest, highlighting the tech talent in Portland’s software community. According to Rick Nixon, program manager for the Bureau of Technology’s Open Data Initiative for the city of Portland, CivicApps.org took a more regional approach to cover the multiple layers of local government: County, Metro, TriMet, and the City of Portland, all of which collect and maintain various kinds of public data. Data sets released include regional crime, transit, infrastructure (i.e. public works), and economic development programs. Additional projects, such as the PDX API, have been launched in order to make the raw data from CivicApps more useful to developers. In addition to developer-specific apps, a number of transit related apps — bike, train, bus, mixed modes — were also developed. A very popular and established transit app, PDXBus, was re-released as open source under the rules of the CivicApps contest. Other popular apps helped provide residents greater awareness of their surroundings such as where to find heritage trees, where to find urban edibles, and where to locate each other during disaster relief efforts. 3. CityWide Data Warehouse – Washington, DC For years, the District of Columbia provided public access to city operational data via the Internet. In keeping with the mayor’s promise to be transparent, the program CityWide Data Warehouse was launched, and provides citizens with access to over 450 datasets from multiple agencies. The first two datasets released were service requests from the mayor’s call center, including trash pickup, pot hole repair, street light repair, snow removal, parking meter issues and crime data. According to David Stirgel, program manager for Citywide Data Warehouse, the project looks for data that be of interest to the widest possible audience and which will remain reusable over time. Some of the applications that have come out of the program include Track DC, which tracks the performance of individual District agencies, and summary reports that provide public access to city operational data. Some of the applications built by companies and individuals using the data include Crime Reports and Every Block. In 2008, the District Mayor’s office, the District of Columbia’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer, and digital agency iStrategyLabs launched Apps for Democracy, an open code app development contest tapping into District data that cost $50,000 and generated 47 apps. The contest was repeated in 2009. Over 200 ideas and applications were submitted, and the winner was an iPhone and Facebook app called Social DC 311. It could be used to submit service requests, such as reporting potholes and trash problems. An honorable mention was given to FixMyCityDC. Unfortunately, neither app is maintained today. 4. NYC Data Mine – New York, NY NYC BigApps 2.0 is part of an initiative to improve the accessibility, transparency, and accountability of city government. According to Brandon Kessler, CEO of ChallengePost, the company and technology powering the NYC BigApps 2.0 Software Challenge, Mayor Bloomberg challenged software developers to use city data from the NYC.gov Data Mine to create apps to improve NYC, offering a $20,000 in cash awards to the winners. The second annual challenge closed its call for submissions at the end of January 2011 and opened the vote to the public. Voting ends on March 9. Requirements included that the software applications be original and solely owned by the entrants, that they use at least one of the datasets from the NYC.gov Data Mine, and be free to the public throughout the competition and for at least one year after the challenge. The panel of judges reads like a “who’s who” of New York tech luminaries, and includes Esther Dyson of EDVenture, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, Jack Dorsey of Square and Twitter, and Kara Swisher of All Things Digital. One of the first year’s winning apps was WayFinder, an augmented reality Android app which allows users to point their phone in a direction and see which subways and Path trains are in front of them. 5. DataSF – San Francisco, California Like other city governments, San Francisco’s goal for their DataSF program was to improve transparency and community engagement as well as accountability. Ron Vinson, director of media for the city’s Department of Technology also stated potential for innovation in how residents interact with government and their community. With an emphasis on adhering to privacy and security policies, the city can stimulate the creation of useful civic tools at no cost to the government. Before launching, they reached out to Washington, DC to identify the most popular datasets, and learned that 20% of the datasets represented over 80% of the downloads. With this information, they went out first with crime, 311, and GIS data. They also allowed the public to request data through a submissions mechanism on the website where others could vote on their suggestions. This input is now required reading for the city administrator thanks to an executive directive and open data legislation. Since launching in August 2009, DataSF has accumulated over 60 applications in its showcase. According to Vinson, the city stays engaged with their tech community by participating in local unconferences and meetups. http://mashable.com/2011/02/15/how-open-data-initiatives-can-improve-city-life/

(Courtesy of The Montreal Gazette)

Les projects Altoria et Waldorf Astoria Hotel sont mentionne dans cette article,que j'ai trouver tres interessante. MONTREAL – On the gutted eighth storey of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Andrew Torriani walks across white marble floors turned grey from dust. But despite the renovations under way, Torriani, president and CEO of the historic Ritz-Carlton Montreal, can imagine the hardwood floors, glass walls and marble finishes to come. After being delayed a year, and suffering $30 million in extra costs, he says, the Ritz's über-luxury residence and 130-room hotel project - when complete - will stand above the city's array of existing high-end condominiums. "It's the details - details you wouldn't have believed existed," Torriani said while touting the benefits of Ritz ownership to a reporter this week. The Ritz's 46-unit residence - to open about winter 2011 - follows the injection of nearly 280 other high-end condo units into the city since 2007. Plus, Monit Investments insists its plans for a $200-million downtown Waldorf Astoria Hotel & Residence, with 100 condos and 225 hotel rooms, will go ahead near the corner of Sherbrooke and Guy Sts. These condos, which can cost millions of dollars per apartment, are developers' response to a robust market, aging demographics and rock-bottom interest rates that have incited buyers to upgrade their homes. Some hail the trend as a boon for Montreal as it lures the elite back to the city. Former SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. CEO Guy Saint-Pierre bought one downtown, while Bombardier Inc. Chairman Laurent Beaudoin was considering a condo at the posh Sir George Simpson. But several real estate agents, brokers and developers interviewed by The Gazette question how many luxury condos Montreal can sustain above the key $500 a square foot price point. "We really believe there is a limit in Montreal to the sale of condos over $500,000," said Richard Hylands, president of Kevric Real Estate Corp. which is building the more modest 115-condo Altoria project near Old Montreal. "Basically we're offering a very good product. We're not selling indoor golf or an indoor theatre. The people we are selling to want quality but not high condo fees." Real estate observers say the proof is in the for-sale signs. Despite offering striking views, private terrasses and hotel-style amenities, half of the 10 penthouses at Le Roc Fleuri on Drummond St. are empty - even though most of the 140-unit building is sold out. Meanwhile, five of the 31 condos at the Sir George Simpson building are for sale. Since late 2008, the Ritz project has sold 17 of its 46 units. "I think there is an over-supply of high-end condos in Montreal," said Pierre Laliberté, a specialist in condos with the real estate consulting firm Altus Group Ltd. "When you try to sell a condo for $1 million for more, there aren't a lot of buyers." Veteran real estate agent, JJ Jacobs, president of JJ Jacobs Realty Inc., agreed: "The $1,000 a square foot market is a high market for Montreal," she said. "There have been some very big sales, but it's only so deep. "Personally I don't know how many more the city can hold." Condo prices haven't dropped, however, because Montreal developers tend to have deep enough pockets to absorb the cost of the empty units, Laliberté said. Recently, Montreal's high-end condo market has exploded with a handful of new buildings going up between 2006 and last year. Many were bought by aging empty nesters eager to exchange their houses for the convenience of a condo. "There's going to be a portion of those buyers who are going to enjoy the downtown and they have the resources to do it," said Alan Marcovitz, president and chairman of the Westcliff Group of Companies, which built the sold-out Beaux arts condominiums on Sherbrooke St. Even during a time of economic crisis, Montreal's resilient real estate market coupled with low interest rates, also motivated third and fourth time buyers to upgrade, Marcovitz said. And with the economy improving, demand hasn't dwindled despite plans to slowly raise interest rates, he said. "Your typical buyer is in a significantly better position today than a year ago." But most developers agree that few buyers of ultra high-end condos worry about interest rates. "The challenge is finding the right buyers," said Daniel Lalonde, sales and marketing director for Le Roc Fleuri. "We have a limited pool." In Montreal, wealthy buyers have a wide choice of homes - either condos or houses. "They (high-end condos) sell, but you must really satisfy the buyers and this is a very discriminating clientèle," said Normand Lépine, vice-president of Groupe Lépine, which built Sir George Simpson, among other high-end buildings. "The developer shouldn't under-estimate the amount of effort required. You must really have the right project." Among the basics, high-end condo buildings feature a 24-hour doorman, indoor pool, and spa or massage room. Residents of the Ritz, the Crystal de la Montagne, and the Roc Fleuri's penthouses, have the added option of ordering in room service, getting their dry cleaning delivered, or even having a light bulb changed. The Ritz project - which will cost up to $150 million including key indirect expenses - offers residents a private concierge. It also has a back-up power system able to run the building at virtually full capacity in the event of a electricity failure, said Torriani, whose Monaco Luxury Hotel Management Co. is a risk-sharing partner in the Ritz project. But sales at the Ritz - which closed as a hotel in 2008 - started slowly as the recession discouraged prospective customers. Both the Roc Fleuri and the Ritz have attracted a significant number of foreigners - and these buyers feared for their stock portfolios and the future of Montreal's real estate market. "They postponed their plans," said the Roc Fleuri's Lalonde. "It reduced the amount of visits I got from out of town buyers." Faced with the recession and unexpected construction problems - workers discovered asbestos deep within the Ritz's walls - Torriani decided to revamp his plans on a more grandiose scale. To boost sales he brought in Liza Kaufman, a star real estate agent and managing director of Sotheby's International Realty Québec. While 2009 started off slowly, Kaufman said business at the Ritz has picked up. "If the building was already constructed I would have sold out yesterday," she said. Kaufman, who has sold countless multi-million dollar homes said Montreal is more attractive to foreign buyers than locals realize. "I think the market is evolving," she said. "We have to understand that our city has a lot to offer." Torriani said he isn't worried about a lack of local buyers with the financial means to live at the Ritz, which has an 8,000 square foot penthouse listed for $12 million. Indeed, Torriani left his job as Air Canada's director of human resources, to run the Ritz, where he once worked summer jobs as a dishwasher and waiter. His family, including veteran hotelier Marco Torriani, has a vast stake in the project's success. Before leaving the Ritz's construction site this week, Torriani passes by a swathe of blue and cream brocade wallpaper and wood panelling outside the 98-year-old hotel's former boardroom. The room, along with the hotel's façade will be preserved - vestiges of the Ritz's opening in 1912, when the city was booming and its status as "the Paris of North America" wasn't yet a cliché. Torriani insists that today's economic climate - including the success of the Cirque du Soleil and "Quebec Inc." companies - is equally ripe for the Ritz's reopening, both as a high-end hotel and as a residence. "I think we've seen a resurgence in the last five years or so," he said. "Montreal has a lot more wealthy people than you would expect." alampert@ thegazette.canwest.com Join Allison Lampert at our blog Inc. Ink for a tour of the Roc Fleuri's most expensive condo and see what $9.5 million will buy. http://www.montrealgazette.com/story_print.html?id=2759239&sponsor=

In past recessions, city's developers learned the effects of overbuilding the hard way. Caution is paying off this time around ELEANOR BEATON Globe and Mail Update Two years ago, Yves-André Godon was scouring Montreal for an anchor tenant for his company's proposed 400,000-square-foot downtown office tower. At the time, Montreal's office market was looking rosy. The vacancy rate was a healthy 9.3 per cent and 6 per cent of the city's available office space was being leased each quarter – a record absorption rate, Mr. Godon says. The time looked ripe for the managing director of SITQ Canada, an international real estate investment company based in Montreal, to forge ahead with the development. But Mr. Godon hesitated. Even though it had been years since the city had seen new Class A office space built, he says many large-scale tenants seemed content to stay put; SITQ was having trouble attracting an anchor tenant quickly enough. “We didn't want to do anything on a speculative basis,” he says. Given the economy's subsequent downturn, Mr. Godon's instincts appear to have been right. It's a cautionary stance that was learned the hard way. During past recessions, overbuilding caused Montreal's office market to suffer more than in other parts of the country. But today, as other major cities contend with rising vacancy rates and the simultaneous delivery of millions of square feet of new office space, the kind of discipline that Mr. Godon displayed is helping to shield Montreal from the same drastic effects of the downturn. Montreal developers “lived through a lot of pain,” says Jean Laurin, president and chief executive officer of real estate advisory Devencore Ltd. “Few developers are going ahead until they find tenants.” As a result, “we have not had any exposure to overbuilding,” adds Robert Mercier, president of real estate services firm DTZ Barnicke (Quebec). The dearth of new developments is not the only factor. Also contributing is continued strong demand from tenants who are not players in the industries hit hardest by the downturn, such as energy, experts say. The combination means that Montreal now has one of the most stable office markets in the country. Even though at 9.7 per cent, Montreal's vacancy rate is higher than Toronto's (8.4 per cent) or Vancouver's (7.8 per cent), according to second-quarter figures from real estate firm CB Richard Ellis, downtown office vacancy rates in Montreal have risen less than in other major Canadian cities. Montreal's sublet space as a percentage of overall vacancy – a leading indicator of the health of the office leasing market – is, at 11 per cent, far lower than in other major cities, a sign that most tenants are holding onto their space, rather than putting it back on the market. The city is contending with a much smaller rise in sublet space than other cities. Insiders estimate that 10,000 to 15,000 square feet of sublease space comes back on the market each week. Unlike Calgary and Toronto, what little sublet space Montreal does put back into the market isn't competing for tenants with a glut of brand-new supply. Other than a recently constructed 840,000-square-foot Bell Canada Campus, the city has seen virtually no new office construction in recent years. In contrast, Toronto's central business district is facing the delivery of up to 3.1 million square feet of new office space, according to CB Richard Ellis. With little new development in the downtown in recent years, large-scale tenants in Montreal have few rental options, and therefore tend to stay put, further stabilizing the market. “Leasing is very strong on the renewal front,” Mr. Laurin says. Montreal also benefits from a diverse user base, says Brett Miller, executive vice-president of CB Richard Ellis in Quebec. He points out that the city's major employers represent solidly performing industries from the engineering, IT and video gaming industries. While Montreal may be performing well in comparison to other major cities, industry veterans aren't forgetting the lessons learned from the past. Developers such as Mr. Godon aren't planning any new developments until the economy recovers. “We're back to Real Estate 101,” he says. “That means focusing on serving the tenants we have, rather than looking for new projects.”

Downturn Ends Building Boom in New York Charles Blaichman, at an unfinished tower at West 14th Street, is struggling to finance three proposed hotels by the High Line. NYtimes By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY Published: January 07, 2009 Nearly $5 billion in development projects in New York City have been delayed or canceled because of the economic crisis, an extraordinary body blow to an industry that last year provided 130,000 unionized jobs, according to numbers tracked by a local trade group. The setbacks for development — perhaps the single greatest economic force in the city over the last two decades — are likely to mean, in the words of one researcher, that the landscape of New York will be virtually unchanged for two years. “There’s no way to finance a project,” said the researcher, Stephen R. Blank of the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit group. Charles Blaichman is not about to argue with that assessment. Looking south from the eighth floor of a half-finished office tower on 14th Street on a recent day, Mr. Blaichman pointed to buildings he had developed in the meatpacking district. But when he turned north to the blocks along the High Line, once among the most sought-after areas for development, he surveyed a landscape of frustration: the planned sites of three luxury hotels, all stalled by recession. Several indicators show that developers nationwide have also been affected by the tighter lending markets. The growth rate for construction and land development loans shrunk drastically this year — to 0.08 percent through September, compared with 11.3 percent for all of 2007 and 25.7 percent in 2006, according to data tracked by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. And developers who have loans are missing payments. The percentage of loans in default nationwide jumped to 7.3 percent through September 2008, compared with 1 percent in 2007, according to data tracked by Reis Inc., a New York-based real estate research company. New York’s development world is rife with such stories as developers who have been busy for years are killing projects or scrambling to avoid default because of the credit crunch. Mr. Blaichman, who has built two dozen projects in the past 20 years, is struggling to borrow money: $370 million for the three hotels, which include a venture with Jay-Z, the hip-hop mogul. A year ago, it would have seemed a reasonable amount for Mr. Blaichman. Not now. “Even the banks who want to give us money can’t,” he said. The long-term impact is potentially immense, experts said. Construction generated more than $30 billion in economic activity in New York last year, said Louis J. Coletti, the chief executive of the Building Trades Employers’ Association. The $5 billion in canceled or delayed projects tracked by Mr. Coletti’s association include all types of construction: luxury high-rise buildings, office renovations for major banks and new hospital wings. Mr. Coletti’s association, which represents 27 contractor groups, is talking to the trade unions about accepting wage cuts or freezes. So far there is no deal. Not surprisingly, unemployment in the construction industry is soaring: in October, it was up by more than 50 percent from the same period last year, labor statistics show. Experience does not seem to matter. Over the past 15 years, Josh Guberman, 48, developed 28 condo buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan, many of them purchased by well-paid bankers. He is cutting back to one project in 2009. Donald Capoccia, 53, who has built roughly 4,500 condos and moderate-income housing units in all five boroughs, took the day after Thanksgiving off, for the first time in 20 years, because business was so slow. He is shifting his attention to projects like housing for the elderly on Staten Island, which the government seems willing to finance. Some of their better known and even wealthier counterparts are facing the same problems. In August, Deutsche Bank started foreclosure proceedings against William S. Macklowe over his planned project at the former Drake Hotel on Park Avenue. Kent M. Swig, Mr. Macklowe’s brother-in-law, recently shut down the sales office for a condo tower planned for 25 Broad Street after his lender, Lehman Brothers, declared bankruptcy in September. Several commercial and residential brokers said they were spending nearly half their days advising developers who are trying to find new uses for sites they fear will not be profitable. “That rug has been pulled out from under their feet,” said David Johnson, a real estate broker with Eastern Consolidated who was involved with selling the site for the proposed hotel to Mr. Blaichman, Jay-Z and their business partners for $66 million, which included the property and adjoining air rights. Mr. Johnson said that because many banks are not lending, the only option for many developers is to take on debt from less traditional lenders like foreign investors or private equity firms that charge interest rates as high as 20 percent. That doesn’t mean that all construction in New York will grind to a halt immediately. Mr. Guberman is moving forward with one condo tower at 87th Street and Broadway that awaits approval for a loan; he expects it will attract buyers even in a slowing economy. Mr. Capoccia is trying to finish selling units at a Downtown Brooklyn condominium project, and is slowly moving ahead on applying for permits for an East Village project. Mr. Blaichman, 54, is keeping busy with four buildings financed before the slowdown. He has found fashion and advertising firms to rent space in his tower at 450 West 14th Street and buyers for two downtown condo buildings. He recently rented a Lower East Side building to the School of Visual Arts as a dorm. Mr. Blaichman had success in Greenwich Village and the meatpacking district, where he developed the private club SoHo House, the restaurant Spice Market and the Theory store. He had similar hopes for the area along the High Line, where he bought properties last year when they were fetching record prices. An art collector, he considered the area destined for growth because of its many galleries and its proximity to the park being built on elevated railroad tracks that have given the area its name. The park, which extends 1.45 miles from Gansevoort Street to 34th Street, is expected to be completed in the spring. Other developers have shown that buyers will pay high prices to be in the area. Condo projects designed by well-known architects like Jean Nouvel and Annabelle Selldorf have been eagerly anticipated. In recent months, buyers have paid $2 million for a two-bedroom unit and $3 million for a three-bedroom at Ms. Selldorf’s project, according to Streeteasy.com, a real estate Web site. “It’s one of the greatest stretches of undeveloped areas,” Mr. Blaichman said. “I still think it’s going to take off.” In August 2007, Mr. Blaichman bought the site and air rights of a former Time Warner Cable warehouse. He thought the neighborhood needed its first full-service five-star hotel, in contrast to the many boutique hotels sprouting up downtown. So with his partners, Jay-Z and Abram and Scott Shnay, he envisioned a hotel with a pool, gym, spa and multiple restaurants under a brand called J Hotels. But since his mortgage brokers started shopping in late summer for roughly $200 million in financing, they have only one serious prospect for a lender. For now, he is seeking an extension on the mortgage — monthly payments are to begin in the coming months — and trying to rent the warehouse. (He currently has no income from the property.) It is perhaps small comfort that his fellow developers are having as many problems getting loans. Shaya Boymelgreen had banks “pull back” recently on financing for a 107-unit rental tower the developer is building at 500 West 23rd Street, according to Sara Mirski, managing director of development for Boymelgreen Developers. The half-finished project looked abandoned on two recent visits, but Ms. Mirski said that construction will continue. Banks have “invited” the developer to reapply for a loan next year and have offered interim bridge loans for up to $30 million. Mr. Blaichman cuts a more mellow figure than many other developers do. He avoids the real estate social scene, tries to turn his cellphone off after 6 p.m. and plays folk guitar in his spare time. For now, Mr. Blaichman seems stoic about his plight. At a diner, he polished off a Swiss-cheese omelet and calmly noted that he had no near-term way to pay off his debts. He exercises several times a week and tells his three children to curb their shopping even as he regularly presses his mortgage bankers for answers. “I sleep pretty well,” Mr. Blaichman said. “There’s nothing you can do in the middle of the night that will help your projects.” But even when the lending market improves — in months, or years — restarting large-scale projects will not be a quick process. A freeze in development, in fact, could continue well after the recession ends. Mr. Blank of the Urban Land Institute said he has taken to giving the following advice to real estate executives: “We told them to take up golf.” Correction: An article on Saturday about the end of the building boom in New York City referred incorrectly to the family relationship between the developers William S. Macklowe, whose planned project at the former Drake Hotel is in foreclosure, and Kent M. Swig, who shut down the sales office for a condominium tower on Broad Street after his lender, Lehman Brothers, declared bankruptcy. Mr. Swig is Mr. Macklowe’s brother-in-law, not his son-in-law.

May 20, 2008 Lodging Econometrics Reports Canadian Construction Pipeline At a High in Q1 2008 with 265 Projects/33,964 Guestrooms The Pipeline Has Now Begun to Unfold in Earnest USA – Lodging Econometrics (LE), the Global Authority for Hotel Real Estate, announced that Canada’s Construction Pipeline totaled 265 projects and 33,964 guestrooms at the end of Q1 2008, a high for the cycle. Hotel construction in Canada has been solid. The total number of guestrooms in the Pipeline grew for an eighth consecutive quarter, and is up 14.2% year-over-year. All projects included in the LE Pipeline have dedicated land parcels, are being actively pursued by developers and have been verified by the brands. The total Pipeline appears to have reached its peak, as project and room counts have held steady for the past three quarters. Those to Start Construction in the Next 12 Months, 93 projects/11,649 rooms, and those in Early Planning, 83 projects/9,975 rooms, are at highs for the cycle. Meanwhile, the totals for Under Construction, 89 projects/12,340 rooms, are down from the cyclical peak established in Q2 2007.” Several Factors Have Developers Becoming Cautious Certain dynamics have aligned to cause developer caution. The Bank of Canada instituted three consecutive decreases to its key interest rate since December 2007, down a quarter-point in both December and January, then a further half-point in February, indicating concern about a slowing in the economy. Hotel operating statistics were strong in 2006 and 2007, however, a continued decline in visitors from the United States due to the low US Dollar, higher gasoline costs and reductions in discretionary spending, along with indications that domestic travel is apt to decline as well, mean that guestroom demand is likely to soften moving forward. With these emerging concerns, it appears that hotel developers are taking a cautious approach for the moment. The number of New Projects announced into the Pipeline, 15 projects/2,038 rooms in Q1 2008, represents a 58.3% decrease from Q4 2007 for both projects and rooms. It is the smallest count seen in over three years. Construction Starts for Q1 2008 totaled just 9 projects/1,329 guestrooms. Although first quarter Construction Starts are historically slower than the rest of the year, the counts for Q1 2008 are at a very low level. Projects already in the Pipeline are proceeding at a sluggish pace, with projects backlogged in the Scheduled Starts and Early Planning stages, suggesting that developers are more conservative and taking a wait-and-see approach. LE’s Forecast for New Hotel Openings LE’s Forecast for New Hotel Openings estimates that 82 projects having 9,554 rooms will come online in 2008, while 88 projects/10,807 rooms are slated for 2009, with 12,340 rooms already Under Construction. This represents a gross growth rate of 3.5% and 3.8%, respectively, before any guestrooms are removed from inventory. Net New Supply grew 2.0% in 2006 and 1.9% in 2007. Currently, The Pipeline, growing throughout the decade, is beginning to unfold just as demand is modestly starting to soften. Development is Concentrated in Key Markets Of the 33,964 rooms in the total Pipeline, only 16% of those rooms are full-service, with 57% in the select or limited service segments. Another 27% is currently designated as Independent. Approximately 70% of those rooms in the Independent segment will choose a brand prior to opening, mostly in the select and limited service category. The bulk of hotel development is in the Central and Western regions. Ontario leads the Central provinces in terms of pipeline counts, with 94 projects/14,072 rooms, while Quebec has 25 projects/3,800 rooms. In the Western Region, Alberta, with 61 projects/6,457 rooms, and British Columbia, with 44 projects/5,430 rooms, have the largest provincial pipelines. Ten markets have the significant share of the Pipeline. In these markets, there are 123 projects/18,902 rooms, or 56% of the total Pipeline. In Ontario, Toronto leads with 34 projects/5,946 rooms, with Niagara Falls second at 13 projects/3,013 rooms. In Quebec, Montreal’s pipeline stands at 11 projects/1,786 rooms. For the Western Region, Vancouver, at 19 projects/2,628 rooms, Edmonton, at 13 projects/1,526 rooms, and Calgary, at 10 projects/1,486 rooms have the largest pipelines. All other markets have six or fewer projects. Global Brands Lead the Way Global brands currently make up 72% of projects within the total Pipeline. InterContinental leads with 55 projects/5,626 rooms, with 40 Holiday Inn Express’ and 9 Holiday Inns. Marriott International has 28 projects/4,115 rooms under development, 15 of which are Residence Inn and Fairfield Inn properties. Hilton Hotels follows, with 24 projects/3,701 rooms, then Starwood Hotels & Resorts with 15 projects/3,021 rooms. Super 8 accounts for 31 projects/2,184 rooms of Wyndham Worldwide’s total pipeline, most of which are being developed by master franchisor, Superior Lodging Corporation. It’s a Time of Transition After rapid growth mid-decade, the Construction Pipeline may be at its cyclical peak. The economy appears to be moderating and lodging demand slowing, yet New Openings flowing from the Pipeline will be accelerating throughout 2008 and 2009. Developers have sensed the economic transition and turned cautious, as both New Project Announcements and movement within the Pipeline are slowing. It’s early in the transition. More time will be required to assess trends for the near term. :thumbsup: :thumbsup: This info comes from http://www.lodgingintelligence.com/2008/Canada%201Q08/1Q08CanIndustry.htm

Toronto's Condo Kings: Is their boom sustainable? Property developer Peter Freed, head of Freed Decelopments poses for a photo at his penthouse apartment in downtown Toronto.Chris Young for Financial PostProperty developer Peter Freed, head of Freed Decelopments poses for a photo at his penthouse apartment in downtown Toronto. Jacqueline Thorpe, Financial Post Published: Monday, June 02, 2008 From his penthouse in Toronto's hip fashion district, Peter Freed can track the development of his six next condo projects taking shape along King Street West. One of Mr. Freed's buildings will have interiors by Philippe Starck, the must-have French designer of the moment. Another will be inspired by the Neoplasticism art movement made famous by Mondrian, where design is pared down to the basics of lines and the primary colours red, yellow and blue. Mr. Freed has eight projects on the board worth a total of half a billion dollars, a tiny fraction of the record 33,980 units under construction in the city. Canada's biggest city has become North America's biggest condo market, with more units now under development than Manhattan, Chicago and Los Angeles. As Mr. Freed looks off his terrace, where the lap pool and giant padded loungers are looking a little forlorn on a wet spring day, he is confident Toronto will not also become North America's biggest condo meltdown. "Right now, there's very large demand," says Mr. Freed, dressed casually in jeans, shirt-tails hanging out, no laces in his shoes. At 39, the laid-back developer is the fresh face of an eclectic group of condo kings who are transforming the very skyline of the city. Along with other design-focused builders like Cityzen Development Group, stalwarts like Tridel Corp. and Menkes Developments Ltd., and newcomers like Bazis International Inc., Mr. Freed is banking on the view Toronto is undergoing a seismic housing shift. Figures show a marked slowing in the Canadian housing market this year, including a 7.3% year-over-year drop in existing homes sales in Toronto in April and a subsiding of the mania that drove the condo market into overdrive last year. But builders say demographics, immigration, government regulation and cultural change will continue to skew demand for housing toward the condominium. Housing hotspots like Calgary may have already burned themselves out in a frenzy of building and soaring prices, but Toronto's rise as a global city will allow it to ride out any short-term weakness, they say. "We understand there's 75,000 people a year for the next 20 years projected to move into the city core," says Mr. Freed. So Toronto's condo kings, mostly privately held, backed by joint-venture partners and old-fashioned bank loans, are knee-deep in a building boom that has seen 67,984 condo units in 316 buildings launched since 2004. To anyone walking the city streets, the scale of activity is eye-popping, with dozens of cranes swinging like mammoth meccano sets across the skyline, the monotonous thud of foundation pilings being driven into the ground and convoys of cement trucks causing endless traffic snarls. They are building by the waterfront, around the subway line in the north of the city and in the east end where work-live lofts are all the rage. At Concord CityPlace, an 18-hectare master-planned city near the waterfront, 21 condo towers will eventually arise from barren railway lands, along with town homes, lofts and a large park. The city-within-a-city will be home to 16,000 people. "People ask us all the time what's going to go on in the market," says James Ritchie, vice-president of sales and marketing at Tridel, the biggest builder of condos in Toronto and owned by the DelZotto family. "To be candid, it's very difficult to tell you where it's going to go one way or another, other than when we look at the fundamentals, what's happening here in Toronto and how it's going to affect housing. The fact is, it's sustaining itself." Toronto real estate developers need to be an optimistic lot. Not only do they have the current U.S. housing bust hanging over their heads, but also the still-fresh memory of the Toronto property crash of the early 1990s. "We didn't call that a recession in our industry; it was a depression," says Sam Crignano of Cityzen, which has 14 projects and 9,000 units on the board, including the Daniel Libeskind-designed glass L Tower, which will rise like a glam-rock platform boot at the foot of the city on Front Street. "It was that perfect storm - a number of factors all converged to create that disaster." Double-digit interest rates, overbuilding, the introduction of the GST and a recession that sent unemployment soaring to 12%, brought the Toronto property market to its knees. According to Goldman Sachs, it was the fourth longest of 24 housing busts in the OECD since the 1970s. Prices declined from December, 1989, to September, 1998, a 34-quarter marathon that took values down 50% in some areas. Not only did the residential market fall apart, but Canada was home base for some very public flameouts in the commercial and retail real estate sector, with Campeau Corp. and the Reichmann's Olympia & York Developments Ltd. filing for bankruptcy. Now, the U.S. housing meltdown looms large, with prices down about 14% from their 2006 peak and so many homes on the market it would take nearly a year to shift the supply. The developers have noticed the first quarter softening. But they are not afraid. New condo sales totalled 3,433 in Toronto, only eight fewer units than last year, according to Urbanation, a condo tracking firm. And the price per square foot for sales rose to $388 from $348. However, with a glut of new buildings nearing competition or under construction, the market is definitely expected to cool. Brad Lamb, Toronto's biggest condo broker, and its most flamboyant, says new condo sales could be off as much as 40% this year and resales 10%. Mr. Lamb has his head, plastered onto the body of a lamb on billboards all over the city. He also hosts Big City Broker on HGTV, a "docu-soap" looking at the business of real estate. "But last year was an incredible, stupid year, where literally every property we put on the market sold by auction, with four or five bidders for every property," he says. "We're still getting that a bit, but it will start to taper off. The time to sell is about 30 days. A year ago it was 15 days. It will probably go to 60 days, which is a normal market. Sixty days is still a seller's market." The condo kings take a long-term view of a city they say is still in its infancy. "Over the last 10 years Toronto has grown by over a million people," says Alan Menkes, president at Menkes Development, which has been developing homes in the Toronto area for the past half century. Its latest project is the Four Seasons Hotel and Private Residences, a two-tower development in tony Yorkville, where luxury suites will run from 1,100 to 9,000 square feet and prices from $1.2-million to $16-million. "You're adding jobs, you're adding buying power," Mr. Menkes says. "They come with capital and they're looking for housing." Immigration is the main driver behind the condo story for Toronto, say developers, each one of whom can reel off the statistics on their fingers. Immigration to Canada totals roughly 225,000 a year and some 40% to 50% settle in Toronto. The Greater Toronto Area is expected to swell from about 5.5 million people to 6.9 million in 2016 and 8.3 million by 2031. The city proper is projected to reach 3.05 million by 2031. The Ontario government increasingly wants that population contained. In 2005, the province slapped an 800,000-hectare greenbelt - about the size of Prince Edward Island - around Lake Ontario, protecting a large swathe from development. The effect has been to intensify construction around established cities and vertically. Immigrants are used to living in apartments, developers add. With rental units all but disappearing as a result of the rent controls of the 1990s, the condo is a natural alternative. "The house is really more a North American phenomenon because no one in Europe can afford it because land is so expensive," says Michael Gold, president of Bazis North America. The developer has 35 projects underway around the world, including 1 Bloor, an 80-storey tower to be built on the corner of Canada's priciest retail strip. "We really see Toronto catching up to the rest of the world." Mr. Ritchie is loath to call the recent increase in building "a boom." Rather, he prefers to call it a slow, steady ramp-up to accommodate the growing swell of people. Besides immigrants, young people - especially women - are fuelling condo demand. They live with their parents longer, save money and move directly into home ownership. "One of our developments at Broadway and Redpath, I would say 25% to 30% of those units were purchased by single women probably in their late-20s, early-30s on a career path," says Mr. Crignano of Cityzen. Mr. Lamb says his company has reams of buyers in their 20s, drawn by the affordability of condos. "They used to be over 30," he says. "It's a very industrious generation of young people who see the benefit of owning their own property." The condo scene is turning Toronto into a young and very social city, Mr. Lamb adds. "CityPlace is like Peyton Place or Melrose Place," he says. "In a building like CityPlace with 400 people - 400 people typically under 40 - I can tell you the scene at the pool is crazy." At the other end of the spectrum, empty-nesters and an increasingly mobile and wealthy international set are demanding luxury and high-end design. It is a trend being witnessed around the globe, the end product of years of strong economic growth - spurred by the development of China, Russia, India, Brazil and fanned by low interest rates - which has raised income across the world. Phillipe Starck, for example, is designing interiors in Thailand, China, Japan, and Denmark. Canada's resource boom has brought it to the party. Mr. Freed says demand for more expensive units has risen gradually and that the luxury buyer is prepared to shop around. "We sold 20 high-end units in other buildings that were between $1-million and $2-million, but we had a lot of people who didn't buy," he says. "They didn't want to be in buildings with people who were buying units for $180,000." In March, he sold $20-million worth of condos in two weeks at one of his higher-end buildings, where units range from $1.5-million to $5.million. Mr. Menkes at Menkes Development says 70% of the Four Seasons Private Residences have been sold. "We're really providing a product that was not available before. We're putting Toronto on the map in terms of international draw," he says. The developers see every downtown Toronto parking lot or disused industrial space eventually filled with condos, mixed with shops and restaurants, and an increasingly educated and wealthy public - working in banking, design, media, medical research and the arts - moving in. Even if there are lean years ahead, they say they are much wiser than they were in the early '90s, with buildings pre-sold before the foundations are dug. "The fiscal discipline that has been instilled in developers today because of the '90s debacle has put us in much better standing," Mr. Menkes says. "Just in terms of banking underwriting, when we do construction loans, the discipline is much more rigorous." Cautionary notes aside, it is clear the condo kings are thrilled to be participating in the rise of Canada's condo city. "The city is going to be much wealthier and much more exciting because of all these new developments," Mr. Lamb says. Adds Mr. Menkes: "I think everyone feels proud when they see the nice skyline of the city they're living in." "I've lived in Toronto my whole life," says Mr. Freed. "To see certain downtown neighbourhoods take shape and become so liveable, so fast, it's incredible." Financial Post jthorpe@nationalpost.com http://www.financialpost.com/reports/property/story.html?id=552055 ________________________________________________________________________________________________________ From boom to gloom? Is that a continued property boom on the horizon or is a bust just around the corner?Peter Redman/National PostIs that a continued property boom on the horizon or is a bust just around the corner? Jacqueline Thorpe, Financial Post Published: Friday, May 30, 2008 Leave it to Garth Turner to throw cold water on the notion Canada can achieve a soft real estate landing, when history and the slump south of the border show that is a rare feat indeed. The personal-finance author-turned-Conservative-turned-Liberal MP for Halton, Ont., was one of the first to warn of the 1990s property flop - albeit several years too early. Now he thinks Canada is facing precisely the same mix of elements that burst the U.S. real estate bubble. "We are in a monumental denial phase," says Mr. Turner, who's book Greater Fool - The Troubled Future of Real Estate was published in March. "My theses is now reality, we are starting to see substantial sales declines that were ruled out only six months ago as impossible," he says. "But now people are saying prices aren't moving down. They will." The figures do show a noticeable retreat in the Canadian housing market this year. Nationally, resales fell 6.1% year-over-year in April, while price gains have slowed to 4% from around 10% in each of the prior five years. Calgary saw sales drop 31.2% over the year, Edmonton, 25.4% and Victoria 14.2%. Calgary and Edmonton also saw prices dips. According to Urbanation, a condo tracking firm, the condo market has defied the trend and remained fairly steady through the first quarter, even as a several new buildings hit the market. Mr. Turner says housing markets blow themselves out when prices rise beyond the reach of average buyers. This is what happened in the United States. "To keep the party going, the mortgage industry, the credit industry, backed by the banks, decided to lower the bar to ownership," he says. The subprime industry was born and home buyers with scant credit history and skimpy income were drawn into the market, enticed by no-money-down mortgages and interest rates that started out low, then ballooned to unsupportable levels. Similarly, in Canada, prices have risen beyond the reach of the average buyer, Mr. Turner argues. "What has been the response?" he asks. "The 40-year mortgage." Economists estimate amortizations longer than 25 years now constitute about 70% of all insured mortgage applications and about half of that amount is for the 40-year product. Mr. Turner reserves his starkest warnings for sprawling suburbs mushrooming around Canada's major cities. He says many new home developments have mortgage representatives onsite offering the same kind of no-money-down deals that dragged down the U.S. market. Buyers just have to come up with 1.5% of the house value to cover closing costs. These will become the "particle board slums of the future," Mr. Turner says, as smaller families and surging energy costs cause the suburbs to fall out of favour. But the Toronto condo market is heading for trouble too, as overbuilding swamps demand, he says. "We are classically at the end of a bull market," Mr. Turner says. Read the argument for a boom Financial Post jthorpe@nationalpost.com Close Presented by Reader Discussion http://www.financialpost.com/reports/property/story.html?id=552055