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Alexbeheshti

@alexbeheshti.bsky.social
997 followers 260 following 116 posts
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Reposted by Alexbeheshti
Jacob Loo Dawang @jacobdawang.com · 17/09/2026
I wrote an essay on how Edmonton seems to be an exception when it comes to good housing policy. In 2025, when housing progress stalled or reversed across Canada, Edmonton largely stayed the course. It took time, good leadership, data and a bit of luck. Read now 👇 2067journal.ca/the-edmonton...
2067journal.ca
The Edmonton Exception
I moved to Edmonton in 2023, along with 100,000 others in two years, in the middle of a housing crisis engulfing much of Canada. It was a good year to be a housing advocate. Governments at every level...
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M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
The point of American zoning is to put the most people in the worst places for residential, so they don't inconvenience the people rich enough to live in the best places for residential.
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Justin McElroy 🇨🇦 @jmcelroy.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
The next time you wonder why the City of Vancouver can't do things in a quick of efficient manner, remember that council unanimously said "we want you to start posting information about council somewhere other than X", and staff said "that will take us nearly a year to accomplish."
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G | Builds Stuff, Goes Places 🦀 @whereisgraeme.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
City of Toronto Parks Forestry and Recreation barbecues are exclusively for Neighbourhoods residents Apartment people shouldn’t be using them as they were drawn out of the BBQ booking maps. This is why the Tall Building Design Guidelines require amenity barbecues at a rate of 2 + 0.07 per unit.
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Jacob Loo Dawang @jacobdawang.com · 16/04/2026
NEW BLOG POST Edmonton's housing momentum didn't stop at the end of 2025. Q1 2026 data is in and Edmonton is on track for another strong year of homebuilding in the places people want to live. The rowhome revolution continues. 🧵 #yeg #yegcc #yimby jacobdawang.com/blog/2026/q1-building-permits/
jacobdawang.com
2026 Q1 Edmonton building permit report – Jacob Dawang
A first look at 2026 building permits through Q1, tracking whether Edmonton will continue the record-breaking momentum of 2025.
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M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Unfunded IZ presupposes a permenant housing shortage: the moment rents fall too low to cross-subsidize the unfunded mandate, development stops until rents rise again. It's housing policy pseudoscience.
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G | Builds Stuff, Goes Places 🦀 @whereisgraeme.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
“Yes, you absolute fool, buying a home now is obviously exactly the same as in the 1980s” If that were true the line in the below chart would be flat. Chart courtesy of @alexbeheshti.bsky.social ‘s research for OREA www.orea.com/advocacy/Dev...
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Dan Seljak @anotherglassbox.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
...dorks like @plannersean.bsky.social and @blairscorgie.bsky.social for the technical translations a layperson like myself needed; @alexbeheshti.bsky.social for teaching me how to depute; @dianachanmcnally.bsky.social for taking me to karaoke and leading by example...
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
Not a single person in this video by City News on Sixplexes is a 30 something struggle to stay in the city. It's all people who already got there's. People who want to pull up the ladder behind themselves are free to their opinions, but that's not news. www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFan...
youtube.com
'It's the end of the city': Battle over sixplexes continues in Toronto
YouTube video by CityNews
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
The debate on housing isn't left/right; it's people who understand how the economic ladder is pulled up, and those who don't care to know. www.thestar.com/news/gta/six...
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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Since I'm riffing on development charges today I just want to say: education development charges are a travesty. Education isn't a burden a new household should pay for imposing on a community, it is a right owed by all of us to our children that we should all pay for collectively.
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Grow Together Edmonton @growtogetheryeg.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
BREAKING: We're staying at 8 homes per lot! Edmonton City Council today voted against reducing the maximum number of homes per lot from 8 to 6 in the RS zone! #yeg #yegcc
A screenshot of a digital voting record from the Edmonton City Council regarding "Midblock Redevelopment Amendments."

A prominent red banner at the top states the motion was **Defeated** with a vote count of **4 - 8 - 0**.

The specific breakdown is as follows:

* **In Favour (4):** R. Clarke, M. Elliott, T. Parmar, and K. Principe.
* **Opposed (8):** A. Knack, M. Janz, J. Morgan, E. Rutherford, A. Salvador, A. Stevenson, K. Tang, and J. Wright.
* **Abstain/Conflict:** None.
* **Absent (1):** A. Paquette.
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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
"Maybe the city's full" says the man living in a 2.7 million dollar house on Palmerston, while sipping $170 scotch after defeating a multiplex proposal across the street. www.pressreader.com/canada/toron...
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 25/01/2026
Looking for a 1 to 2-bedroom apartment. Within or near the core (or close to transit). Pet friendly for 2 cats. Month-to-month rental from April to June or July. Has parking. Ideally furnished, but not a must-have item. Would greatly appreciate help finding this!
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Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 23/01/2026
It honestly feels almost quaint for NIMBY academics to put out a new paper calling YIMBYs market fundamentalist "deregulationists" when a democratic socialist is now the most prominent YIMBY mayor in the country. publiccomment.blog/p/sure-it-wo...
publiccomment.blog
Sure, it works in practice, but does it work in theory?
Another swing and a miss from the supply skeptics
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Colleen @cbailey6.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
Things that happened at these ostensibly democratic processes: * then-councillor said she only wanted to hear from people on one particular street * multiple councillors dismissing people who disagree with them as party of shady organizations or insinuating that they are paid * anti-renter garbage
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More Neighbours Toronto @moreneighboursto.bsky.social · 20/01/2026
Interested in more housing a short walk from the subway? Mid-rise apartments off of arterial roads? Wonder what's up with the low-rise areas around the Danforth? Consider attending a meeting to support the Major Transit Station Areas policy implementation. www.moreneighbours.ca/news/getting...
moreneighbours.ca
Getting Major Transit Station Areas Over the Finish Line
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Jacob Loo Dawang @jacobdawang.com · 16/01/2026
Basically all the stars align. Great zoning + large lots + financing = homes.
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Deny Sullivan @denysullivan.bsky.social · 15/01/2026
open.substack.com/pub/deny/p/h...
open.substack.com
How Edmonton found its missing middle
Edmonton did housing a zoning reform. It worked. Why?
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Colleen @cbailey6.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
$10 million withheld from Toronto's Housing Accelerator Funds. Congratulations to all of the councillors who confidently assured their colleagues that this wouldn't happen when they refused to allow sixplexes in their wards. www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/media-newsro...
Coun. Parthi Kandavel (Ward 20, Scarborough Southwest), who opposed sixplex permissions in his area, said Thursday while amalgamation was decades past, the difference between Toronto’s old boroughs were still palpable.

“Whether its two years or 27 years, the built form hasn’t changed tremendously,” he said. He pointed to density influxes in Scarborough such as the Golden Mile intensification, but argued that further change in lowrise neighbourhoods should come more slowly. “It’s evolving. We need time,” he said, arguing the impacts of fourplex legalization were still shaking out.

He isn’t worried about the city having its federal funding yanked because of the walk-back. “Do I think we’re going to lose the money? Heck no,” he said.
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John Michael McGrath @jm-mcgrath.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
If only someone had warned that many municipalities value exclusion more than they value the cash Ottawa was putting on the table (it me, I warned)
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Melissa Bowman @dtkmelissa.bsky.social · 14/01/2026
"Municipalities are judged on the wrong housing metric. Housing starts and completions reflect decisions made by many actors, not just cities, which makes them a poor basis for municipal accountability."
buff.ly
You Can’t Fix Zoning If You Can’t Measure It
What Municipalities Should Be Judged on for Housing
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Justin Ling @justinling.ca · 08/01/2026
The scale of the protests in Iran are absolutely unbelievable. Hard to quantify, but I've seen some speculation that this uprising is more significant than the 2023 protests (themselves the largest challenge to the regime since it came into power in '79.) (Video from @AmirMiresmaeili on Twitter)
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John Lorinc @johnlorinc.bsky.social · 29/12/2025
#topoli Still Toronto’s single dumbest controversy. Was anyone harmed by the presence of an espresso machine in a store maybe 50 m from a main street? Nada. But homeowner snitch culture prevails… www.thestar.com/news/gta/own...
thestar.com
Toronto's Finch Store is looking to the future
Owner Yana Miriev was stuck in zoning limbo and ready to 'close the door.' Then a surprise move by council green-lit shops and cafes like hers on some neighbourhood streets.
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Bryn Davidson - Lanefab @lanefab.com · 28/12/2025
In Vancouver we have a generation of planners who did good work stopping freeways, densifying downtown, and rebuilding industrial sites …but they’ve been wholly silent about their role perpetuating exclusionary single family zoning amidst an extraordinary land value bubble. This is “Vancouverism”
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G | Builds Stuff, Goes Places 🦀 @whereisgraeme.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
A gentle reminder that the protagonist and hero in Its A Wonderful Life, George Bailey, is a real estate developer. The villain, Mr. Potter, is a NIMBY slumlord who doesn’t want any new developments because they threaten his monopoly. Weird, I bet that never happens IRL…
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Coach Finstock @coachfinstock.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
I love that he's explaining the housing crisis from the landlord perspective
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Shawn Micallef @shawnmicallef.bsky.social · 20/12/2025
Stop by the @spacingstore.bsky.social - open till Xmas eve - for all the city gifts you didn’t know you needed to give. And best curated city book nook. Sorry to say we took home the last IKEA Monkey ornament this afternoon. But there’s still Springer Dinger posters. 🎁
Spacing storeBook areaPostersIKEA monkey ornament
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Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
There was this narrative that cities kind of wanted more housing, and just needed a bit of nudging from the province to get over the hump... Good to see that not all munis are on board with winding back the clock.
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
Did some Econ trivia the other week where this question came up. The fact that any of the answers are plausible I think says something about America. The answer for the record is Trump Accounts, although I dont think thats redeeming here.
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 01/12/2025
The Big Take Away: We DONT have a condo collpase. Its an ALL new homes collpase, of every type. Ontario home buyers can no longer afford what it costs to build new homes. We have to get costs under control and do it yesterday. Thousands of jobs depend on this.
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 28/11/2025
Interesting new working paper that studies chains of movers after the construction of a new apartment building in Honolulu. Paper finds that the project resulted in the opening up other, lower cost, housing on the island, benefiting the housing market overall.
uhero.hawaii.edu
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Fun legal case for the NIMBY haters. In Northcrest Neighbours v. City of Peterborough a group of neighbours tried to stop a 52 unit supportive housing project. 1/6
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Oh The Urbanity! @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
“Ottawa feels completely off-key for the moment we are in. What they have chosen to play sounds terrible to anyone who cares about housing. It lands like a bad cover played by a tribute band that cannot find the tune.” Dropping @beynate.bsky.social was a red flag that they haven’t recovered from.
scrimshawunscripted.substack.com
Gregor’s Housing Record: It’s The Same Old Song
Alex Beheshti Grades The LPC’s Housing Record, 6 Months In
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
With the budget out it is clear the feds are off tune on housing, again. No minister could play the LPC policy song book well, but Robertson is making ears bleed. If you're a Liberal this article should keep you up at night because the warnings it holds are hard to ignore.
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Colleen @cbailey6.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
All of those posts about the Mamdani-Trump meeting and none of you bothered to tell me that the big point of agreement was "Build more housing and bring rents down?"
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
"Earlier this year the City of Toronto put out a call for suggestions on how better to regulate buskers and street vendors. Then, apparently with no sense of irony, it put out another call barely half an hour later looking for advice on how to cut red tape." - Globe and Mail Editorial Board
media.tenor.com
a man is laying his head on a desk with his hands on the desk .
ALT: a man is laying his head on a desk with his hands on the desk .
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 23/11/2025
When it comes to housing, the big difference between Alberta and Ontario is they both got nimbys, just ON's nimbys end up being more bananas - Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. No sprawl, no tall, no missing middle at all.
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Dan Seljak @anotherglassbox.bsky.social · 14/11/2025
I had never run a petition before, Finch Store trusted me to go for it. I had never deputed before, @alexbeheshti.bsky.social suggested I try. I had never done a Jane's Walk before, @moreneighboursto.bsky.social approached me with a concept. I want people to try this for themselves!
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Colleen @cbailey6.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Thanks to everyone who participated but it turns out that none of you were able to imagine the greatest horror: a successful small business with beef patties.
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Shawn Micallef @shawnmicallef.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
He’s reading your posts and it’s getting to him. Cuz they’re true.
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
If this is good for one part of the city it's good for the whole city. We're not two cities with the same mayor.
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
I guess we're at the part of the business cycle where rental providers are less greedy (said very sarcastically).
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G | Builds Stuff, Goes Places 🦀 @whereisgraeme.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
unrelated non sequitur
media.tenor.com
Suspect Guilty GIF
ALT: Suspect Guilty GIF
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
Here is another way to look at the housing disaster
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 06/11/2025
The province just lowered its housing forecast again in the Fall Economic Statement (FES). There will be 17,000 fewer homes by 2028, leaving Ontario 390,000 homes short of its goal. The crisis isn’t slowing. It’s accelerating because all levels of gov still can't act with cohesion or conviction.
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Alexbeheshti @alexbeheshti.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
I wonder how an ad about Stormy Daniels would land in the White House. If anyone has a few millions to spare please hit me up Trunp feeds off fear, thats what this is all about. He wants Canadians to fear him enough we stop speaking the truth to our American friends and family.
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