Real Estate Development Insights

Send us Fan Mail What should you investigate before turning a Toronto major-street property into a small mid-rise apartment project?   Heather Dubbeldam and Derek McCallum of Dubbeldam Architecture + Design join Payam Noursalehi to discuss what they are learning from small apartment projects moving through design and approvals across Toronto.   The conversation explores how parking, retail space,...

Send us Fan Mail What is changing inside Toronto’s housing approval system—and what will developers actually notice? Jag Sharma, Deputy City Manager for Development and Growth Services at the City of Toronto, joins Payam Noursalehi to discuss development review, site plan changes, coordination with utilities, and the effort to move housing projects toward occupancy. The conversation connects City...

Send us Fan Mail Should You Build a Toronto Multiplex? Five Questions to Answer First I run a construction company, so it may be against my own interest to say this: not every multiplex project should be built. Toronto’s planning environment has created new opportunities to build fourplexes, sixplexes, garden suites and other forms of small-scale housing. But permission to build more units does no...

Send us Fan Mail Toronto has announced residential development-charge reductions of 40% to 60%, backed by $1.5 billion in funding. But the commercial question is not simply how large the headline discount is—it is which projects qualify, how unit type changes the benefit, and whether the new rates materially improve feasibility. In this episode, Payam Noursalehi reviews the permit milestones, the...

Send us Fan Mail CMHC MLI Select may offer compelling financing terms for purpose-built rental development—but “up to 95% loan-to-cost” does not mean every project will receive 95%, or that a developer needs only 5% cash. In this episode, Payam Noursalehi speaks with Abtin Nikeghbali of Canada ICI about what lenders and CMHC examine when evaluating a small Toronto mid-rise or multi-unit rental pro...

Send us Fan Mail Development Charges Explained: Why They Rose, What Went Wrong, and What DC Relief Means for Housing In this episode, Payam discusses development charges (DCs) as one-time fees on new developments intended to fund growth-related municipal infrastructure such as roads, transit, water, parks, libraries, and emergency services, noting the costs are often passed through to end users. H...

Send us Fan Mail Mid-Rise Purpose-Built Rental - Mathieu Fleury on Leader Lane’s Mid-Rise Mass Timber Rentals, Market Risk, and What Toronto Needs to Build More Housing Payam interviews Mathieu Fleury, partner at Toronto mid-rise developer Leader Lane Development, focused on purpose-built rental, including a nine-storey, 60-unit mass-timber project at 230 Royal York nearing occupancy, plus other E...

Send us Fan Mail Jake Cohen, president of the Daniels Corporation, shares development lessons from Daniels’ 42-year history as a vertically integrated development and construction company that has delivered over 40,000 homes, including purpose-built rentals, more than 15 seniors residences, and 7,800 affordable housing units, notably through work with Toronto Community Housing in Regent Park. He d...

Send us Fan Mail How to Unlock More Mid-Rise Housing in Toronto -  Richard Witt  In this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights Podcast, Richard Witt, Global Head of Housing at BDP Quadrangle, discusses Toronto and the GTA’s housing trajectory, comparing global approaches and emphasizing housing as a commoditized product shaped by culture, human scale, and social interaction. He argues To...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Jeff Thomas, Group Head of Development at KingSett Capital, explains how the Canadian private equity firm invests in Canadian commercial real estate through development, joint ventures, and lending. He describes transitioning from brokerage (co-founding and selling Ashler Urban to Cushman & Wakefield) to development, emphasizing that long-term relationships, t...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights Podcast, Stuart Wilson, President of Alterra Developments, shares his path from Scotland (quantity surveying and construction management) to Hong Kong civil projects and then Canada, where he joined Alterra about 10 years ago after planning a move into development. He explains that value engineering should focus on structural...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Payam interviews building code consultants Conrad and Jack about the push to allow single-stair residential buildings in Canada, especially in Ontario and Toronto. Conrad defines single-stair missing-middle apartments as small 3–6 storey buildings with short corridors and fewer units per floor, contrasting them with typical North American double-stair, long-corrid...

Send us Fan Mail Lessons Learned: The Development Readiness Framework for Managing Real Estate Risk   Payam, hosts part two of a “lessons learned” series on Real Estate Development Insights, reframing real estate development as risk management requiring timely, effective decision-making. He introduces a six-pillar “development readiness” framework: (1) local market fundamentals—build what you shou...

Send us Fan Mail (50) The 6 Pillars of Development Readiness - Why some projects fail while others succeed?  In the 50th episode of the Real Estate Development Insights podcast, Payam Noursalehi (president of Dena Project Management) thanks listeners and introduces shorter-format episodes featuring live events, updates, and practical frameworks alongside ongoing expert interviews. He explains the...

Send us Fan Mail Architects Jana Levitt (LGA Architectural Partners) and Sam Eby (executive director of the not-for-profit Rehousing) discuss helping “citizen developers” navigate multiplex housing development in Toronto, especially multiplexes. They explain why the process is complex even for professionals, how Rehousing visualizes options and breaks down steps, and why early decisions include re...

Send us Fan Mail 2026-2028 GTA Market Outlook According to CMHC - Jordan Nanowski 00:00 Welcome + CMHC Forecast Episode Setup (2026–2028 Focus) 01:38 Meet Jordan Nanowski: CMHC’s GTA Lead Economist 03:46 What CMHC Economists Actually Do (Forecasting vs. Programs) 04:44 How the Forecast Is Built: Models, Stakeholders & Scenario Risks 07:57 The Big Macro Wildcard: USMCA/Tariffs & Uncertainty...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights podcast, Payam welcomes Andrea Adams and Mark Richardson. Andrea is the Executive Director at St. Clair’s, a Toronto-based charitable organization that operates affordable housing. Mark is the Chief Technology Officer at Rich Analytics and the founder of HousingNowTO.com, a project tracking affordable housing efforts in Toron...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, we dive into the world of affordable housing with Mwarigha, Vice President of Housing Growth Development and Asset Sustainability at Woodgreen Community Services, one of Canada’s leading non-profit organizations. Learn about Mwarigha journey, Woodgreen’s strategies to deliver 5,000 new affordable homes, and their achievements, including the Toronto First National...

Send us Fan Mail In this insightful episode, Payam sit down with Mazyar Mortazavi, the President and CEO of TAS, a Toronto-based real estate company. Mazyar shares his inspiring journey from immigrating to Canada to working in real estate development and asset management. They delve into the core principles and lessons learned from scaling a real estate business, the importance of financial discip...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, Sarah Segal, CEO of Simply DBS, delves deep into the world of real estate analytics and what it means to be a data-driven landlord. Sarah shares her extensive background in commercial real estate and offers insights on how data can enhance decision-making across housing, office, retail, and industrial spaces. The discussion covers various aspects, from the importa...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights podcast, host Payam Noursalehi dives into the fascinating world of digitization, new-age technologies, and construction innovation in real estate development. Joined by three esteemed guests—Amy Villis, Leigh Newman, and Stephan Mansour—the discussion explores the potential of 3D printing, AI, and other digital solutions in t...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights podcast, host Payam speaks with Daniel Kolominsky, Senior Planner with the City of Toronto. Together, they explore the City’s Multiplex Monitoring Report, unpack the development review process, and examine how new regulations are shaping multiplex housing across Toronto. The conversation sheds light on the drivers behind perm...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights podcast, our host Payam sits down with Peter Norman, Vice President and Chief Economist at Altus Group. Together, they explore a wide range of topics critical to the real estate development industry, from shifting demographic demands and historical market data to current trends impacting the commercial real estate industry ou...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights podcast, Payam speaks with Chris Spoke, partner at Toronto Standard, a firm specializing in midrise rental infill in Toronto. The episode dives into Chris’s unconventional journey from a digital background to a real estate developer, his advocacy for midrise projects, the challenges and opportunities in this sector, and the i...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Real Estate Development Insights podcast, Payam speaks with Arash Shahi, PhD, P Eng, PMP, and CEO of Land Logic, about Real Estate Innovation. Arash shares his impressive journey in the real estate sector, spanning over 20 years, and discusses his pivotal role in innovations such as the ACO Innovation Lab and One Ontario. The conversation explores the challe...