Unlocking Development Potential: New Locate Tool

“Can I build this here?” said every real estate developer ever.

“Should this be built here?” responded every community planner.

In some places, like Manhattan, the rules are clear and the answer is straightforward.

But…

In most places the answer is “It depends…”

In Toronto, zoning is a starting point and the real answer depends on transit access, local plans, etc., but development precedent is especially important. If you want to build a 50 story condo tower, your odds of approval are much better if there is an approved 45 storey building next door than if the tallest building in the neighbourhood is only 12 storeys.

What is the Problem?

The problem for developers, architects, and planners is that Precedent is not always easy to determine. Yes, you can walk around a neighbourhood and see what is already built, but what about applications that are under review or approved but not yet built? What about developments in similar neighbourhoods across town?

There are resources out there that provide the information necessary to explore development precedents. The challenge is that this information is scattered across various data dumps, web sites, APIs, and reports and they are all in different formats. It is slow and difficult to focus on a particular neighbourhood and even more difficult to line these various data sets up to get a consistent view of all the factors that come together to define “precedent”.

How do we solve this challenge?

Ratio.City exists to solve problems like determining development precedent. Our technology has always made exploring relevant data easy. Now we are launching a new Search service that enables our users to easily identify precedents and display them on a map complete with all the relevant context information like zoning, transit, parks and more. Our search tool leverages AI techniques that extract height, application status, and timelines from the City of Toronto’s own development application portal. This makes it easy to visualize and find precedent developments relevant to your site.

We encourage you to watch this demonstration video and set up a free account to try it out yourself. If you are a subscriber, the new Search tools are already enabled in your account. Once you’ve tried Precedent Search you can also try searching for under-developed sites or set up a search that is customized for your latest challenge. It’s OK for this to be easy.

Discover Our New and More Powerful Locate Tool

Easy setup. No Credit Card required. Why wait?