Kristofer Lawson

Partner, Toronto Standard ( Real Estate Agent, Babiak Team Real Estate (

[Chris Spoke @ChrisSpoke]

@trainguy89 We’re voting for change.

[Kristofer Lawson @KrisLawson416]

@imrangulamani @MattSpoke Agreed - Plus tenants rightfully complaining about their $400+ electricity bills through the winter

[tobi lutke @tobi]

It’s impossible to make something free for a government. I wish we would ban the use of that word. She’s saying she will take some people’s money to pay for this. The incentive is to buy votes, not make things better. That’s too hard.

[Chris Spoke @ChrisSpoke]

We have just over a month until Toronto’s municipal election. I’m also now on the back end of a two-week trip through Japan with my wife and kids, most of it spent in Tokyo.

Exploring this city makes me sad for all the things a city could be, and Toronto chooses not to be.

Clean streets and parks. Safe, spotless subways. Rail everywhere, with fast and frequent service. Housing built at enormous scale. Dense neighbourhoods full of restaurants, cafés, bakeries, shops, convenience stores, and everything else you need. Public toilets everywhere. Streets that are pleasant to walk, even with kids. Even the subway stations are packed with places to eat and shop, often dozens of them.

These are all things we could have in Toronto if we wanted them.

No new science or engineering is required. Just political will.

That political will has been lacking in Toronto for most of my life. It’s lacking still.

We accept too much. Transit projects that take decades and cost multiples of what they should. Housing rules that make building unnecessarily difficult. Endless approvals and studies. Parks and public spaces that we allow to become dirty, disorderly, or unusable.

A compassionate city should help people suffering from homelessness, addiction, and mental illness. But that doesn’t mean surrendering parks, transit, and other public spaces to open drug use, threatening conduct, and antisocial behaviour.

When families and ordinary residents feel uncomfortable in those spaces, they retreat into their houses and cars. We become a less social, less urban city.

I’m going to vote for Brad Bradford for mayor.

Brad has a lot of critics, especially online, and some of them make good points. I don’t agree with him on everything.

But he’s young, high energy, and relatively unconstrained by how things are supposed to be done. He understands that you can just do things.

He was the architect of the 2023 Housing Action Plan, probably the most consequential housing reform agenda Toronto has seen in a generation.

It legalized multiplexes across Toronto’s neighbourhoods. It opened the door to midrise housing on major streets and Avenues. It pushed for simpler zoning, faster approvals, and a more predictable system for getting housing built.

A lot of that agenda is now falling behind in execution. The implementation is too slow and behind schedule, too timid in its details, or, in most cases, both.

I think Brad has the kind of impatience Toronto needs. Less acceptance of the way things have always been done. More willingness to ask why something can’t be faster, cheaper, cleaner, safer, or simply better.

Toronto doesn’t need to become Tokyo. In fact, Toronto has many advantages over Tokyo, including, of course, much better oxtail. But Tokyo is a good reminder that dense cities can be clean, safe, convenient, full of life, and extraordinarily well served by transit.

None of this is impossible. Other cities already do it.

Toronto is a great city. We should expect much more from it.

That’s why I’m voting for @BradMBradford on October 26.

(I’m also hosting a fundraiser for Brad next week. DM me if you want details.)

[Chris Spoke @ChrisSpoke]

One month to go until the 2026 Missing Middle Summit.

Join us May 13 in downtown Toronto for a full-day conference for current and aspiring missing middle housing developers, and the planners, architects, engineers, builders, lawyers, lenders, and others shaping the space.

Get your tickets now! https://t.co/CDrf3J2jSJ

[Kristofer Lawson @KrisLawson416]

@ChrisSpoke 💯%

[Chris Spoke @ChrisSpoke]

The Missing Middle Summit is back on May 13 in Toronto.

Join architects, builders, consultants, engineers, lawyers, lenders, and developers shaping the future of walkable, medium-density housing.

All day, downtown Toronto. Get your tickets now! https://t.co/jAVqLYk15g

[Chris Spoke @ChrisSpoke]

I’ll be voting for @BradMBradford.

[Kristofer Lawson @KrisLawson416]

@donnelly_b Can’t wait to walk over and try it!

[Kristofer Lawson @KrisLawson416]

@CTVNews Did they forget to poll the people living in Canada’s larger cities?

[Cranson Capital @CransonCapital]

Excited to feature the Toronto Standard Dufferin Limited Partnership, one of the projects in the Cranson Capital Purpose-Built Rental Fund.  Hear from Matt Spoke at Toronto Standard as he explains what makes this development unique (accredited investors only),

[Kristofer Lawson @KrisLawson416]

Attention accredited investors!

[Kristofer Lawson @KrisLawson416]

@JustinTrudeau My kid’s daycare is opting out of the program because it’s a complete joke. Daycare operators are opting out because they can no longer freely operate their business. With capped margins, extra administrative burden and associated costs, no benefit to continuing

[Kristofer Lawson @KrisLawson416]

@MattSpoke Asking for a friend?

[Matt Spoke @MattSpoke]

This is a great piece by @BradMBradford, speaking the obvious truth about why housing starts are collapsing in Toronto

City Hall has the only tool it needs at its disposal…. Development Charges

Cut them (even if temporarily) and you’ll see construction boom in the next 2 years

[More Neighbours Toronto @MoreNeighbours]

We need your help 📢

Write in a letter of support for 710 Landsdowne Ave.

A 4-storey multiplex is being proposed, and there is steep neighborhood opposition with signs like these, even though it's about 600m from a subway station!

[Matt Spoke @MattSpoke]

Great episode of Hogtown today.

A special sit down with @ScottAAitchison and @ChrisSpoke to talk about housing and the prospect of a soon to be Conservative government in Ottawa.

Shoutouts to @jellerton @EricDLombardi and @MoreNeighbours

https://t.co/fQLpO0T4u3

[Kristofer Lawson @KrisLawson416]

Slowly but surely!

[Gregg Lintern @GreggLintern]

Nice day in Toronto for expanding housing options in neighbourhoods

[Gregg Lintern @GreggLintern]

Nice day in Toronto for expanding housing options in neighbourhoods

[Kristofer Lawson @KrisLawson416]

@GreggLintern Thanks for helping pave the way. That’s one of my projects. Btw, it’s me.. the Home Depot parking lot guy holding the 3 year old.