Naama Blonder has a bold vision to change what good development can and should look like. With that in mind, she co founded Smart density in 2017. Her professional work spans across planning and architecture. And by marrying the two disciplines, she brings a deeper and more realistic understanding of how municipal policies take physical.
She's also the subject matter expert for the city of Toronto expanding housing options in our neighborhoods committee, a board member of Cahuilla an affordable housing provider. She also coauthored the housing affordability report of the Ontario association of architects and served at the design review panel for the city of Burlington, where she provided urban design advice for development applications.
Last, but not least, she practices what she preaches and lives with her husband and child in a multifamily building in a transit accessible area of Toronto near the local park.
Notes from the interview:
Namaa’s Mini Mid-Rise
Hi-Lo prototype by Phaedrus Studio
About the podcast: Single Serves is a podcast where we interview experts on single issues of interest to architects and designers. The thought-provoking ideas shared here are intended to inspire our listeners to become well-rounded entrepreneurs who are the leaders of their field.
Credits: ©2022 Produced by Révélateur Studio & edited by Chris Rodd
Interview transcript (edited for brevity and clarity):
RVLTR: So can you start by telling us who you are what you do, in your own words in three sentences or less?
Naama Blonder: I'm an architect and urban planner, and I find creative ways to help Toronto grow and be denser, if that's proper English, maybe it's not.
RVLTR: I think it is. So why are you so adamant about the need to increase density in our cities?
Naama Blonder: That's an easy question. Toronto is growing. And we need to be very clear on the vision we want it to be as Torontonians. It's growing, and it cannot grow in a ratio of one family per lot, especially not steps away from a subway station. That is very expensive infrastructure to have just one family on one property.
RVLTR: So is it only a cost issue or are there other issues that play as well?
Naama Blonder: I moved to Toronto. That's a personal note, almost 10 years ago from Tel Aviv, Israel. And I believe it or not, 10 years ago, Toronto was my affordable option. The cost of living in Tel Aviv was unbearable to me. And my husband and I decided to move to a more affordable city. Since then Toronto is doing a very good job and becoming very unaffordable to so many of us. And I just am very aware of the consequences of what happens to a city when it becomes unaffordable, and talent and next generation cannot see a future for themselves in that city.
RVLTR: Yeah, I'm so glad you speak to that. How often I've gotten frustrated at what's happening in the city and the completely absolute lack of foresight for all the residents that are expected to move to the city but are not being advocated for. Basically, there's no one, as far as I can tell, at City Hall, at the provincial level, or even federal level, who's there to advocate for the future immigrants that we are expecting and are going to be an instrumental part of this society and the culture. And that's to me a critical oversight. What are your thoughts on that?
Naama Blonder: I'm an architect and an urban planner here in Toronto. And when I did my accreditation in urban planning, because in Europe, it's a very North American division to have planning separated from architecture. And I really like that concept that the planner also advocates and plan for future residents or those that their voices cannot be heard. It also means that they cannot be heard because they can't attend an open house, but it's also about the future residents of an area that the current privileged homeowners that could that have the means to come and object a certain development. But those future residents are not around the table to speak up. So I really like that that concept from my planning exam.
RVLTR: And so you've talked about your frustration living in Tel Aviv and becoming more and more unaffordable. Have you seen any parallels between your experience in Tel Aviv and your experience in Toronto, and now that it's something similar is happening?
Naama Blonder: I would say that it's not just about supply and demand, I really think that the condos that are being built could be a terrific option, I advocate that cultural shift of not just owning a house with a backyard, there are options. You think of any European city. And I always say there aren't any backyards in Paris, and yet you would probably love to raise your kids there. And when I say it's not just about supply and demand, it's because the condos that are being built do not reflect the diversity of the market. So it's very much geared towards investors and not the end user. And as a result, we are getting the same type of module. And I had the discussion with developers many times before, but I do believe it's a missed opportunity for purely business opportunity that is being missed. It's not just advocating for pie in the sky idea. No, we are missing a segment in the market, that their needs are not being fulfilled, and they're pushed to even buy something, but out of the city.
RVLTR: Just to clarify for the listeners, the segment you're talking about are families with luxury units?
Naama Blonder: This is definitely a topic that is near and dear to my heart. But even generally, that diversity, let's call it diversity needs that are just not being met. Because we need just range of units and different types.
RVLTR: So to that point, the answer I've heard from developers and other people in the past was that they're just responding to the incentives and small units are the most profitable model for them. Is that true? Is there a way to still make their developments profitable, and bring to market a more diverse kind of catalog of units so to speak?
Naama Blonder: I have no problem with smaller units with being profitable. I am a very strong believer that the private sector should drive the solutions in affordable housing, I'm not looking up to the government and asking them to solve that affordability problem. I am calling you from let's say, from this podcast, even I'm calling up developers wake up, there is a business opportunity here that you're missing. And that business opportunity is in this case, perhaps larger units that would be a good solution for families, because I do believe that millennials are no longer willing to commute for two hours per direction from work to home. I do believe millennials understand there's a trade-off between living in an urban center close to everything in that 15 minute neighbourhood. And I'm not saying it should be 2000 square foot house on the 16th floor. So that is the tradeoff. But right now, it doesn't exist. And let me tell you from a personal anecdote that we were looking for a three bedroom condo for our growing family, it was extremely hard to find. I'm not like exaggerating, it was so hard to find. We narrowed it down to maybe five buildings in the city that could actually offer something that could work for family, because so many of those units are actually more geared towards rooming housemates and it shouldn't be so hard.
RVLTR: So many of our listeners already know what the missing middle is. Can you talk a little bit about it's really the lack of missing middle being related to affordability and how the current policies maybe are addressing that or not addressing it and what we can hope to see in the future and also what would be the in an ideal world the solution to that problem?
Naama Blonder: I think tying in the missing middle to my last sentence about alternatives and options. I see the missing middle measures by its pure definition and we will cover it just to make sure we are good professionals, but it's also about the missing middle for, what is the options between buying a house and those who don't or can't find a condo. So missing middle just to cover the definition we're talking about in Toronto's neighbourhoods. So if you're referring to the land use map of the Official Plan, we're talking about everything that is yellow if you heard the term the yellow belt in the past and its buildings up to four storey’s in height, but there will be multi units. So it will start in triplex fourplex, etc. But anything that is up to low rise apartment buildings, so try to imagine or picture Montreal. The streets in Montreal are three four storey’s high, but they're not housing one family, each floor probably has a unit or two. So when we talk about the missing middle, I just want to cover the definition in the most accurate way possible. But it means the missing middle for income. What are the options between a house and a condo, or in terms of unit sizes definitely could be something between a house and a condo. So I think that this discussion about missing middle ties directly to our previous answer. And when we talk about the missing middle, I definitely see an opportunity there. I mean, look at Toronto for real. And in terms of changes in policy the city is doing, I just wish it was faster. But the city is doing such a wonderful job revising and really revisiting their policy and what can be done differently. Because for 40 years, all you could do is demolish a house and build a bigger house. Right? That's it. Monster homes. And now the city is saying, Okay, it's impossible that 70% of our land will be dedicated to single family houses.
RVLTR: So you're saying the city does a good job? And I'm not sure I share your opinion. But you're the expert. Can you summarize what you've seen since you've moved to Toronto that's moved in the right direction? What are all the summary of the changes that are addressing that issue?
Naama Blonder: Well, it's not since I moved to Toronto, because all of this discussion is fairly new, we feel we would have come to the city, let's say three years ago, with a multi-unit development with asking to be exempted from parking, they would probably showed you the door. And so the fact that we're in, so many of our projects are zero parking, especially, I mean, not just everywhere, but all of our projects are near transit to begin with. So asking for zero or to be exempted for parking makes a lot of sense. But that is a huge, huge shift in even talking to the planning department two years ago, that couldn't have been on the table. So the parking requirements, which are there leading very massive changes.
RVLTR: Because that's been removed entirely, correct?
Naama Blonder: Yeah, from condos. And they actually now have instead of minimum requirements, they have maximum requirements. So you're not even allowed in some areas to exceed these parking requirements.
RVLTR: Do you think we're gonna see any condos with zero or very little parking at all?
Naama Blonder: I have no doubt. And whenever I go to a community open house, and I even say it on myself. I live car free and I get two kinds of responses, those who live exactly the same lifestyle as we do. And like, what's the big deal? And those who say, do you expect us to believe that families could live without a car? So yes, I expect you to believe if we want a sustainable and affordable future, it has to be car free. Also, the City of Toronto has a goal that within five years, every ride within the city will be by public transit. So zero couriers within the urban core in five years. So our developments should reflect that absolutely. So you're asking me what else they see. So this is a major change the entire missing middle policy, think about it that is it needs to be very bold leaders would say such a change that affects 70% of the city's area. And if it's too small or too slow, I would say so but also at the same time it's happening and that is the most important thing.
RVLTR: Yeah, that makes sense. So I've heard and that could be wrong, but maybe you can confirm that. As of today, we're missing hundreds of thousands of units to cover all the housing needs not even talking about what's needed in the future. Is that correct? And how are we gonna fix that?
Naama Blonder: I have a feeling we heard it from the same resource. It makes sense right now, there's a little bit of irony with that. It takes us the city, it takes the same period of time to get a building approved, and to build that building. So he takes you around three years to get something approved, and three years to build. And that is a little bit ironic, if you asked me like, how could it be that something that is such a physical heavy lifting, takes the same time as approving it? So we are definitely the process is not smart enough is not efficient enough. We are, inherited Jane Jacobs concept of community engagement that leads the city into not only given them the power of living in a single family home, steps away from the subway, but also dictating that nothing else could ever be built in that neighbourhood just for the sake of neighbourhood character, or neighbourhood stability, a word that I really hate. So that is definitely a problem.
RVLTR: The neighbourhood character argument is such BS. What frustrates me about that is that these are by and large people that have been living those neighbourhoods for a long time and moved in when it was really affordable. But they don't think of the fact that their retirement might be secure, because their real estate is worth a lot. But the people who are trying to move into the city, it don't have that opportunity and I find that so selfish. A few years ago, when that famous writer came out against a condo down our street, what's her name Margaret Atwood, I was so mad because it's just such a privileged opinion that completely discounts the fact that there are people who are not in that position, and it's still need to be in the city to just make it work. We need people, we need workers, we need people to make things operate and work the way they should. That was so frustrating to me. There is a report on housing affordability that's has just come out or is about to come out. What do you think of that? Have you gotten your hands on it?
Naama Blonder: I don’t believe it was publicly released yet, I was asked several times to be quoted on it. And I said, I haven't seen the final product yet. But I read the article and CBC of what the some of the high level thoughts or recommendations this report is going to have. So for the listeners who have no clue what we're talking about, this is an affordability task force by Premier Ford, or should advise to the premier and it's about general affordability. So not necessarily deeply affordable shelters for people who experience homelessness, but general affordability. And I have to say that I think they did a really great job with some of the things in there, about the zoning and what should be allowed as of right and expedite approval process. And I'm not surprised because that committee was by professionals who know and experience it firsthand and understand the problems. The question is, politically how it's going to be implemented, how the city is going to respond. What I'm trying to say, is having a committee with great idea as much as they were practical, they were professional, they were by professionals. But it's not enough, we need to know how easy it's going to be, especially when it comes to the tension between the province and the city.
RVLTR: So if you had to venture out and guess how do you think that will influence planning policies in the city?
Naama Blonder: There are some things that are just too damn late for not having them like the some of the things of the approval process, especially when we talk about the missing middle, our current approval routes, they just are not well built or structured to carry the missing middle. And what I mean by that is that we just had our missing middle project approved by T-Lab, which is their appeal body to the committee of adjustment. And the interesting part is that Committee of Adjustment said “it’s just not minor”. They didn't have a problem with the project. They didn't have the neighbours weren't even opposing it, the issues that the neighbours had were so minor, we were able to solve it just by having a conversation. And the committee refused it because they said this is just too much. We don't feel it's minor, we there are too many variances. Now that I know that there's a number that is a threshold for the committee, but they felt it wasn't minor. Now, let me be very clear, if we want missing middle projects, they can’t be approved by rezoning. It’s just the rezoning, is just too long. It takes you know, it's political, it goes through Council, it goes through several submissions, several open houses, the communities involved at a level that is way beyond what missing, middle could carry, this is not a mid-rise or a tall building with 200 units, we're talking the missing middle, we're talking about 15-30 units in a very, very good scenario, like the heaviest ones would be in that range. So we cannot expect missing middle projects to carry what higher density project could carry. So we need to really wake up and either we're going to guide committee of adjustment that this is indeed minor, or have some sort of route that is as of right, which is something that the report also brought up that some main streets in the neighbourhoods should be as of right, and I couldn't agree more.
RVLTR: Yeah, so if you had a magic wand, and you could make the ideal rules you want to build a great city, what would that look like?
Naama Blonder: Wow. Okay, definitely, I would say Toronto needs to be more compact, or at least denser. Like there are sometimes I walk a lot. I live downtown. And you're just saying, I don't know, I live near Queen Street. And sometimes, I don't know, especially in winter, I'm like, where is everybody? Where did everyone go? This is Queen Street. So Toronto, and especially post COVID and our main street, we need more people, we need to house these people in the downtown. And I think density is the number one key aspect in in having any vibrant streets that we all dream of. And I do believe it, I do believe that without density. You have nothing, not businesses could not thrive, our streets won't be as nice as we want them to be. So it's really about how we do that. And we call our company smart density, because obviously, it's not just about the numbers. It's not just about shoving people into places, but Toronto is not there yet.
RVLTR: It’s not at alI grew up in a small town, I mean, outside of a small town, that by Toronto standard is tiny, but it still had twice the density of Toronto. So it was a tiny, tiny urban core. But we still had like 6-12 storeys buildings everywhere and very walkable streets. And it was the example of the 15 minutes city and it worked really well. So I think Toronto has a lot to do in that regard. I recently read an opinion piece claiming that Canadian architecture is really bad, I think was in the walrus, what do you make of that claim? And do you think that has an influence on housing affordability?
Naama Blonder: Okay, let me see how I'm going to answer that. I read the article very, very briefly. I don't think Canadian architecture is bad. Let's take it to other places. And I do think that there are many things that could be done from urban design perspective, and the way we design streets and buildings, and that there is room for improvement. And let's take for example, I don't know tall buildings design, you know, the human eye. Really, it's very easy for the human eye to catch something that is highly repetitive. So when we don't pay enough attention to for example, the design of tall buildings and make it highly repetitive because it's easier, cheaper, more efficient. We get something that makes us feel uncomfortable as human beings without even being able to say what it is makes us feel like we're looking at something that is unnatural because in nature, there's nothing that repeats itself even twice.
RVLTR: The patterns that you find in nature are not as obvious as you what you'd see in manmade structures.
Naama Blonder: Exactly. So I think that is one of the things in tall buildings today. I think our code, the Ontario building code is one of the most restrictive ones in the world making it very hard for even the most talented architects to really be creative. We're now advocate to reduce one of the code requirements for it, let's put it that way, every unit has to have two staircases, which limits dramatically the options and alternatives you can do in many of the missing middle projects.
RVLTR: And a lot of talk about that lately haven’t there.
Naama Blonder: Exactly. So it's not my initiative, I just want to give credit to, to the right, people, but it's our not our initiatives, but I think it's very smart. So that is another example. I don’t know, maybe I should ask you, what else did you read in that article that we should discuss?
RVLTR: I've always thought of Canadian architecture, it's not necessarily bad. And there's certainly a lot of talented architects. But in general it's it's not of really high quality, a lot of it is either very cheap, or very repetitive. And I think good design in my mind doesn't always have to be expensive. Because if you think up or create buildings, before you start digging to build the foundation, and you think of them in creative ways, there is always a creative, effective solution to any problem, I'd like to believe at least, and I think most of Canadian architecture is not even trying, it's just using kind of tried and true solutions to problems that could benefit from being looked at from a different perspective. And to be fair to Canadian architecture, it's getting better. I'd say in the last 10 years, maybe I've seen more interesting projects, and maybe developers trying more daring things. So there is from what I can tell an improvement. Because the Canadian culture, to be perfectly honest, is very conservative. It's about not rocking the boat not standing out too much, not trying things that may be a bit innovative or novel and untested. And granted, it's a challenge in this climate, because it's a very tough climate to build in to try new things and crazy things, but it doesn't mean it's impossible. And I would like to see more of that being tried on a regular basis.
Naama Blonder: I also think it's kind of hard to judge because the volume of new buildings is insane. Like if you visit, you know, just before COVID, I was in Madrid and Lisbon, these cities are not getting this same amount, not even a fraction of the amount of the volume of building of new buildings that we're getting. So it's hard to judge because or hard to compare because of the volume. And at the same time, what I am saying is how much the private sector or bottom line is affecting design? Like, I don't have that everything is very under pressure. And then you sometimes get these external architects coming and building a one off, it was BIG in King West, or even the Vancouver based architecture for Honest Ed’s, and then all the sudden the market wakes up and says, you know, sometimes we need that, you know, push that outsider push to raise the bar. That's how I feel. But it is really hard to compare because of the volume of new buildings that are being built here.
RVLTR: You have a good point. It's true that, I've been living in Toronto for almost 17 years now. And it's almost been nonstop construction the whole time. I remember I moved to the States between 2007 and 2010. So there was two and a half years where I was gone. And when I came back, the city looked physically different. It was in two years, it was impressive. So I can only imagine someone who had like maybe left in 2005 and came back in 2015. How much it would have been different. So we're getting towards the end of the questions I have for you. But can you tell us about the mini mid-rise?
Naama Blonder: Okay, so maybe mid-rise is a concept we developed in here, at smart density. And the listeners should really Google it because it's pretty provocative image that we produce that caught a lot of attention, probably more than I ever intended to have. We also won the Ontario Association of Architects award for this concept. Basically we said 11 years ago, the city of Toronto came up with new Address building design guidelines. And it's been 11 years and you don't really see I mean, you see of course, some really nice examples. But let's say the city hasn't changed itself with mid-rise buildings. And one of the reasons that didn't happen is because it's really difficult to do. The big sites corner site on Main Streets were already taken and built. Now you really left with an assembly of 5, 6, 7, 8 properties in order to get to the frontage that you need for a mid-rise building. So we said, what if we take the matrix buildings, but we just apply them on a single lot, not an assembly that gets you 100 feet of frontage. But we'll get that single lot. What if it just the image, by the way, is twice 12 feet wide, because we went to the extreme but what if 20 feet 25 feet? How would that look? So that's the mini mid-rise. We presented it to the city, the city really liked it. Zero parking again, because the main streets are already very well connected to transit. So imagine streets like Bloor, Dundas, College that the policy of the building design guidelines was supposed to take to be more successful there. So that's the main interest for you.
RVLTR: A friend of mine designed something kind of similar was called the Hi-Lo hybrid by Phaedrus Studio. Have you heard about it?
Naama Blonder: No, Hi-Lo?
RVLTR: Yeah. It’s infill mid-rise type building. I think it was five storeys. But very similar, because I'm just looking at your mini mid-rise on your website and comparing to what they have, I’ll send it to you. But it's interesting to see that both of you have come to similar design solution in depth and independently.
Naama Blonder: Yeah, you see just means probably that it's really obvious it should happen.
RVLTR: Yeah, and they've been trying to push hard to get people to build it. But as you know, it's very challenging to get all the people to get on board and then to get the approvals so but it's an interesting parallel. So for the people who are interested in these issues, and would like to get involved in building a better, denser, more human-friendly city, what is the one thing you would recommend them to do?
Naama Blonder: Go to open houses and advocate against those NIMBYs.
RVLTR: That's very good advice. Any last thoughts or ideas you'd like to share before we wrap up?
Naama Blonder: I'm really connect with me on LinkedIn. I share thoughts videos and stuff on LinkedIn. I'm very active there. Yeah, that was me.
RVLTR: I'll be sure to put all the links. I want to thank you very much for being so generous with your time and you're great answers to the questions and look forward to next conversation.
Naama Blonder: Thank you.