The two men who comprise Toronto-based Oikoi Living believe their work assembling properties for high-rise, purpose-built rental apartments and creating “micro-communities” for infill locations positions them well to add badly needed new housing in the city.

“Developers who've had some success in the last decade or two in Toronto are used to doing things one way and are used to condominium projects, and they’ve been unwilling to pivot to rental,” Oikoi president and partner Alain Cogan told RENX of the philosophy he believes sets his firm apart.

“I think that's what has prompted us and our company to be as busy as we are, as we pivoted as quickly as we could and went from condos to rentals.”

Cogan — who has owned several businesses, including Cogan Financial Capital — oversees the company’s strategic direction. He’s involved in every aspect of the development process, from conception to construction.

“I think we've crossed over to where the rental income is such that you can now build rental buildings as rental buildings,” Oikoi director and partner Ralph Kemp added during the same interview.

Kemp has been involved in all facets of real estate development in Canada and the United States since 1978. He has expertise in strategically identifying properties for intensification, and maximizing density in order to target prime locations for redevelopment.

They have partnered with several other developers and real estate investors to advance a series of major proposals. 

High-rise assembly sites

One example of the firm's efforts hit the real estate headlines a couple of weeks ago.

Oikoi, Hepsor and Elysium Investments partnered on acquiring an assembly of 11 properties to create a 1.23-acre development site at 21-29 Oakmount Rd. and 26-36 Mountview Ave. in the High Park neighbourhood. Kemp said early plans call for a 45-storey apartment on Oakmount and a 36-storey apartment on Mountview.

“Assembly work is very frustrating and it's very difficult,” Kemp explained. “You're dealing with a lot of personalities. When you do 11 offers you're not just dealing with 11 properties, but 11 people.”

Oikoi, Hepsor and Elysium are also partners on an assembly of properties on Isabella Street at Sherbourne Street where there are plans for an approximately 500,000-square-foot high-rise tower emerging from two existing heritage homes.

Oikoi and Fora Developments are partnering on a proposed 22-storey mixed-use residential project at 15-17 Elm St. that they originally hoped could be 30 storeys.

Benefits for buyer and sellers

“It's hard to get sellers to understand that we're in it together and we're trying to provide them with a significant benefit,” Cogan said. “So rather than going into a situation and having this dichotomy between between seller and buyer, we really try to put everybody on the same page and we're extremely communicative, not only during the assembly process but after the assembly process with the sellers so they really see it as a joint effort. 

“That's been extremely beneficial for us because they refer us to other deals and other individuals.” 

Kemp said the Isabella and Sherbourne deal took four-and-a-half years to put together, the Elm deal took three-and-a-half years, and Oakmount and Mountview took 18 months.

“The deals are all structured in such a way that we have the land under contract and we've given the downpayments on the properties, but they don't actually close for 36 to 48 months so we have the time to zone them without the stress of the carry,” Kemp explained.

“It's definitely why we can put all our money and all our efforts into the development cost as opposed to the carry costs on the properties.”

Oikoi is also involved with trying to acquire an assembly of sites near Yonge and Bloor streets using a similar formula.

Oikoi’s micro-community concept

The average condo unit size in Toronto is under 450 square feet, according to Cogan, which isn’t big enough to house families. 

Thus it is also involved in several much smaller, infill developments. Oikoi has proposed three developments that, while occupying a relatively small footprint, provide more living space for occupants:

• Oikoi Bayview will be a three-storey building with four units from 525 to 1,247 square feet at 1454 Bayview Ave.;
• Oikoi Amelia will be a three-storey laneway building with three units from 1,381 to 1,514 square feet at 66 Amelia St. in the Cabbagetown neighbourhood;
• and Oikoi Symington will be a three-storey building with four units at 211 Symington Ave. in the Junction Triangle neighbourhood.

Oikoi had planned on building a similar micro-community at 16 Tyndall Ave., south of King Street West in the Parkdale neighbourhood, but was approached by neighbours interested in selling their properties as well. So Oikoi is now tying up a six-lot assembly for a potential high-rise development.

Great potential to add more housing

Kemp said there are 250 miles of laneways in the pre-amalgamation city of Toronto that could potentially create 150,000 sites for Oikoi-style micro-communities.

“The impact on neighbourhoods would be far less than going in with a bulldozer and knocking everything down in order to put up what you think you want, which is housing — which doesn't get you housing, it gets you hotel rooms,” Kemp said, emphasizing the small size of many condo units that aren’t practical for families.

“The Walk Scores have to be extremely high and we want people to have a good lifestyle where they live,” Cogan said, explaining how the first micro-community sites were chosen. “We have to lead the city along with us, but the city is changing and I think it will become easier and easier to build these micro-communities.” 

He hopes to start construction on Oikoi Amelia and Oikoi Symington within the next two months.

“We want to have the units condo, but we're going to be putting them up as rentals so that we can get them up as quickly as possible and rent them,” Kemp said.

These structures can be duplicated in different locations, so Cogan also anticipates becoming involved in the manufacturing of prefabricated building systems to enable faster and less expensive construction.