The Critical Lane

I am super excited for this week’s podcast episode with Jason Burggraaf, Executive Director of the Greater Ottawa Home Builder’s Association. The GOHBA (Greater Ottawa Home Builder’s Association) represents builders and developers in Ottawa, so it was great to have a conversation with Jason. In the podcast, Jason talks about the newly announced initiative to remove GST on new purpose-built rental housing and how this will help make the numbers work for multifamily projects. We also discuss how large and smaller builders are implementing sustainability in the development of housing. Listen to this week's podcast episode to learn more about our conversation!

I am thrilled to have Mark Kenney, CAPREIT President and CEO, as a special guest on this week’s podcast episode. Should the private sector build municipal services to help speed up the process of housing development? Who is to blame for the current housing crisis? In the podcast, Mark also talks about the recent parliamentary committee hearings on the "financialization" of housing. And we discuss an alternative solution to "NIMBYism". Listen to this week's podcast to learn more about our conversation!

How is working from home, elevated interest rates and the city's Official Plan impacting property valuations in Ottawa? I am super excited for this week's podcast with Oliver Tighe, Executive Vice President, Valuation Advisory Services at Colliers Ottawa. In the podcast, Oliver talks about converting office to multifamily housing as well as the urgent need for micro-suite style apartments and how the government can assist with making them more affordable. You can listen to this week's podcast to learn more about our conversation.

How is the office market looking globally and are there any lessons that can be applied locally? What needs to happen in Ottawa's downtown core to increase traffic? I am super excited for this week's podcast with Colin Lynch, Managing Director and Head of Global Real Estate Investments at TD Asset Management. In this week's podcast Colin talks about the importance of the Federal, Municipal and Provincial governments being aligned to help solve the current housing crisis. We also discuss the important work that the Black Opportunity Fund (an organization that Colin is big part of) is doing to assist small businesses that are owned by Black Canadians.

Is there too much Red Tape in the Approval Process for the development of housing? Call it what you want, red tape or process. There is always room to make housing supply more efficient. In this week’s episode Councillor Glen Gower talks about increasing efficiency in the approval process of housing development. We also discuss the priorities of NCC and the priorities of the city and how these may not always be aligned.

What do the fundamentals of real estate development look like? In this week's podcast, Michael Tsourounis, the Managing Partner & Co-Head Real Estate, Hazelview Investments talks about the fundamentals of real estate development. We also discuss the importance of managing stakeholder expectations to build better communities. Organic growth is a key element in the markets that Hazelview develops real assets. To learn more about this week's podcast, click the link to listen!

Should developers pursue real estate development on NCC (National Capital Commission) land? Kelly Rhodenizer does not think so! What do you think? It was great chatting with Kelly who is the VP Commercial and Multifamily Development at Regional Group. Regional Group is a prominent commercial real estate family office here in Ottawa. During the conversation with Kelly, we also discussed building multifamily housing using steel frames instead of wood frames or concrete.

In this week's podcast, we discuss the office market in downtown Ottawa with Veteran Real Estate Executive, Shawn Hamilton. This conversation may "ruffle some furthers" as Shawn pointed out in our conversation. Shawn highlights what needs to happen in the downtown core for Office to thrive again.