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Brad J Lamb
‏@BradJLamb
Watching @CBC's, The Condo Game. Totally biased report, flat out misrepresenting quantity of quality issues in Toronto's industry.
 
The criticisms in the doc seemed pretty fair and accurate, to me. Buyers have very little protection and that needs to change. The way condos are developed and sold in Ontario is completely unacceptable. It's the provincial government that needs to be held accountable for that.
 
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But here's a point, how's it different then a house ?
 
The city looked beautiful in this documentary and also during the Rob Ford 5th Estate episode.
 
taal said:
But here's a point, how's it different then a house ?
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well, a house is usually sold to one buyer. it takes up significantly more land than your average condo unit. Imagine 4 houses owned by 4 families. You make 4 X $600,000 ($2,400,000).

On the land needed for 4 houses w/ front and back yards, you can put up a condo with 8 units per floor, 40-floors. 40x8=320 units. Average price $260,000 (I think I'm being very kind, here). $280,000 x 320 units = $83,200,000.

There's no incentive to try to make this kind of a killing off houses.
 
Sure I agree, I meant in terms of quality concerns and the ability to address defects ... if anything the argument above could imply, in order for them to profit from housing they need to take even more short cuts, compared to say a condo development.
 
taal said:
Sure I agree, I meant in terms of quality concerns and the ability to address defects ... if anything the argument above could imply, in order for them to profit from housing they need to take even more short cuts, compared to say a condo development.
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Well one difference pointed out during the documentary is that in a house you can generally do the repairs or make the changes you want (as the owner, with exceptions such as heritage restrictions). In a condo, some repairs are the responsibility of the condo corporation. The unit owner may disagree with the condo board's decisions, or require the board's permission.

Also, and this is a generalization, condo buildings in the last decade are often tall buildings with fully glass exteriors. These buildings have different construction concerns & issues than the apartment buildings of the 60's & 70's, and most of Toronto's low-rise housing stock. I'm guessing buildings of various eras each also have their own issues, but they are addressed by the individual owner.
 
TrickyRicky said:
I look forward to watching this if I catch it while I'm at home.

Regardless if you are pro or anti condo there are two facts we can't escape from in this city. They are:

First, like it or not condos are playing an ever increasing role in shaping our city not only physically but more importantly socially. Second, the long-term implications of this social change as well as the physical sustainability of this building type are untested.

Yes, high-rise buildings have been around for a long time and condos have been around for a long time. But what does a long time mean? Is 25 years (a standard design life for residential housing) a long time? Is 50 years a long time? Is 100? Compared to free hold single family dwellings or mid-rise structures that have thousands of years of history we are essentially building condo cities of the future that have no precedent in the history of civilization.
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Hold on there. Single family dwellings on a mass scale in cities are a very new, 20th century idea. Large buildings with multiple residences (whether it's condo, rental, otherwise) have been around since the dawn of civilization. It's how most of the world's urban population lives and always has. There's nothing unproven about condos or high density living; it's mass detached housing that has no precedent. And its costs are still not fully known.

I suppose you could make an argument that living in skyscrapers is a relatively new idea, but not really any newer than detached houses for the masses.

The only reason that anyone is "anti condo" is because our society has convinced itself that detached housing is the good and natural way of living.
 
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Yep I can see that ... a poorly managed condo board is a huge pitfall ... more so in the past when there was much less regulation then today (yes, many argue there isn't enough as it stands) though the new condo act will hopefully improve things.

A major issue I see is dispute resolution, and again the new condo act will attempt to improve this, but that's always been another serious issue.


Regarding fully glass condos, well, I imagine similar concerns should be shared by fully (or mostly) glass office buildings no ? Not saying this is not a concern though.
 
MisterF said:
Hold on there. Single family dwellings on a mass scale in cities are a very new, 20th century idea. Large buildings with multiple residences (whether it's condo, rental, otherwise) have been around since the dawn of civilization. It's how most of the world's urban population lives and always has. There's nothing unproven about condos or high density living; it's mass detached housing that has no precedent. And its costs are still not fully known.

I suppose you could make an argument that living in skyscrapers is a relatively new idea, but not really any newer than detached houses for the masses.

The only reason that anyone is "anti condo" is because our society has convinced itself that detached housing is the good and natural way of living.
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I'm not sure I understand this.. there were many detached and semi-detached houses in the Victorian era for example, which is 19th century. In fact, in our city, apartment buildings were considered morally inferior by many earlier in the century (and probably some people today). As far as I know we didn't have many walk-up apartment buildings until the 1920s, and it didn't really proliferate until after WW2. If you visited Toronto in 1900 I would expect that you would see rows and rows of Victorian houses in streetcar suburbs, some commercial buildings along retail streets and lots of churches, in a grid street pattern.

I guess by "detached housing for the masses", what you mean is post-car suburban development? Low-rise buildings certainly have more history than high-rise.
 
taal said:
Yep I can see that ... a poorly managed condo board is a huge pitfall ... more so in the past when there was much less regulation then today (yes, many argue there isn't enough as it stands) though the new condo act will hopefully improve things.

A major issue I see is dispute resolution, and again the new condo act will attempt to improve this, but that's always been another serious issue.


Regarding fully glass condos, well, I imagine similar concerns should be shared by fully (or mostly) glass office buildings no ? Not saying this is not a concern though.
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That's an interesting point.
I would think that the banks would build well and build for longevity since the buildings are physical symbols of them. They would have wanted to portray stability, wealth, power, and longevity when they were built 30-40 years ago (this is also why they used stone heavily for their neo-classical branches in earlier times). Since the TD building (one of my favourites) was built by Mies Van der Rohe I would think it would be built with quality.

I don't really know much about construction, building materials etc., but I guess the concern is: are the developers building this new wave of skyscrapers making choices so that the buildings can age well? Or are they taking short cuts to cut costs since they aren't responsible after the units are sold? Personally I don't know, I would expect some to be good, some not. I certainly hope they age well, since I think they can be beautiful when mixed with the other types of buildings (various ages & heights) in Toronto. The apartment buildings from the 60's and 70's don't seem to have aged well, but maybe if the new condos are owned by people who care (and/or live there) and the condos are managed well, they will age better.

Personally I've lived in an early (80's) high rise condo that was mostly made of brick. It has aged pretty well, and I'd personally like to see more of a diversity in materials in new buildings.

The documentary probably over-exaggerated or sensationalized certain concerns, although those concerns are probably valid. I enjoyed watching it though, you get to see Jennifer Keesmaat walk out of Eglinton station to Davisville, then take the subway downtown :)

I do hope restaurant row on King St. stays.
 
ehlow said:
I'm not sure I understand this.. there were many detached and semi-detached houses in the Victorian era for example, which is 19th century. In fact, in our city, apartment buildings were considered morally inferior by many earlier in the century (and probably some people today). As far as I know we didn't have many walk-up apartment buildings until the 1920s, and it didn't really proliferate until after WW2. If you visited Toronto in 1900 I would expect that you would see rows and rows of Victorian houses in streetcar suburbs, some commercial buildings along retail streets and lots of churches, in a grid street pattern.

I guess by "detached housing for the masses", what you mean is post-car suburban development? Low-rise buildings certainly have more history than high-rise.
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Sure there was detached housing in the Victorian era but the majority of the people in Victorian era cities didn't live in them. They lived in multiple unit housing as always. This has been true throughout history. Ancient Rome, for example, was filled with 5-6 storey apartment buildings. Toronto was an exception and maybe that's why there are such negative attitudes to the amount of condo construction. But even in Toronto the culture of high rise living goes back to the early post-war era with the thousands of apartment buildings from that era. We've been building more residential high rises than just almost any other North American city since the 50s.
 
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