A funding-fit memo · BC non-profit housing
Is it allowed?
Does it fit the funders?
What is still unsure?
First Read answers all three for one site and one building option, in hours, with the clause and the date behind every answer. Before the first drawing.
Run the real case See how it works
Runs in your browser. Nothing is uploaded; nothing is guessed.
01The gate
The first reliable answer moves from after six figures to after a few hours.
A board votes $200,000 to $500,000 of pre-development money on a feasibility read that cites nothing and carries no date. The memo gives that gate a dated, cited answer first.
Today
With the memo
Figures from Future of Good and WC Studio, in the research behind the tool. Nothing is removed from the path; a cheap, dated answer is added before the expensive step.
02What it found
Three answers, on one sheet.
998 E 19th Ave: six storeys of social housing on church land, approved by Council in July 2024. The inputs come from the City's public report.
1 · Is it allowed?
Not outright. By rezoning: yes, with conditions.
FSR 2.95 over the outright 1.20; height 22.3 m over the 10.7 m outright and above the staff benchmark of 19.9 to 21.3 m.
2 · Does it fit the funders?
Not yet confirmed.
BC Builds and the Community Housing Fund both wait on figures the option leaves blank: the below-market share, the rent tiers, accessible units, land tenure.
3 · What is still unsure?
Four open items, each with a named person.
Trees: 20 required on 2,811 m², 17 after; plant 3 more or $3,000 cash in lieu. The architect finds the room; the manager supplies the funders' figures.
03How it works
Address and option in. Cited rules, a massing and a dated memo out.
A rule stack in six layers, held as data with a source and a date on every line. A deterministic engine reads it. A model may propose a rule or a site fact; a person confirms it; the engine decides.
-
01Site and option
Give it a site and an option.
Address, district, lot, trees, owner. Storeys, floor area, units, rents, funders. "Not sure" is an honest answer and never becomes a guess.
-
02Rules
Run the rules.
24 dated, cited rules and assumptions from 25 public sources, in six layers. Same inputs under the same rules give the same memo, every time, in under a second.
-
03Memo
Read the memo.
Three answers, every open item with a named person, a feasibility-grade pro-forma with every line cited, the massing the rules allow in plan, section and 3D, and a Revit sheet built from the same numbers.
04Who it's for
Three readers. One memo.
The rules a site must satisfy are read today by different people, at different stages, from different documents. The memo reads all of them on day one, for everyone.
-
01Development manager
Decides what to take to the board.
Runs a site before any money goes to design, acts on the open items, carries the PDF into the room.
-
02Architect
Tests options, compares, draws.
Changes a number, runs again, reads the two memos side by side, and takes the massing into Revit.
-
03Board, planner, funder
Reads two pages, cold.
Trusts what looks like a careful memo: dated, cited, every finding with its arithmetic and its person.
05By the numbers
Small, local, and honest about what it does not know.
5
layers of rules: district, Province, City policy, design standards, funders
17from 13 sources
dated, cited rules, each with its clause and the date it took effect
0
language models in the loop; the engine is plain Python and the memo is a record
R1 R2 R3
every memo on a site is a numbered revision, so a rule change shows as a change
Try it on a real case.
The walkthrough takes two minutes and runs the rules for you. Or compare the approved option with a what-if that answers every funder's question.
Run the real case with a walkthrough See two options compared