Zoning Reform Ideas

[Northern Light]

Coun. Sheen says that despite the contentious decision by council, it’s not “like the sky is going to fall. We will still have to bargain, negotiate and hammer out what these communities will look like.” The only immediate effect, he said, is that the “lands went from being zoned agriculture to residential and so these land values went up, probably quite a bit.”

Councillor Sheen seems a tad obtuse..............if I'm being kind............ its not like its a big deal to approve redevelopment of 2,000 acres of agricultural and ecological land for development............ after all we haven't hammered how we're going to destroy what's there.......... so it could be slightly better or worse destruction than what you think........... Pfft.

 

[HousingNowTO]

Caledon's mayor has used all the Planning/Zoning reforms to push through 2,000 acres of new sprawl on ecologically sensitive and agricultural lands; and there's no recourse to the OLT.

This @HousingNowTO is the problem with subverting democracy for a good cause........once you break the rules and wipe out the checks and balances....everyone gets to play that way.

We fundamentally disagree on what changes can (and should) be considered "subverting democracy"...

There would be much less pressure to develop "new sprawl on ecologically sensitive and agricultural lands" -- if we hadn't spent the last 40-ish years over-regulating and micro-managing Planning/Zoning changes in our major Cities in Ontario (especially the City of Toronto).

Some might consider it "subverting democracy" - to have the City using Committee of Adjustment and the "Minor Variance" process to finally execute on their long-delayed HOUSING NOW site at Victoria Park TTC station - https://urbantoronto.ca/database/projects/777-victoria-park-avenue.38069

...but that's the situation that we find ourselves in as a City that often gets tripped-up by it's own land-mines around Planning/Zoning changes that need to be fast & easy.

 

[Northern Light]

We fundamentally disagree on what changes can (and should) be considered "subverting democracy"...

There would be much less pressure to develop "new sprawl on ecologically sensitive and agricultural lands" -- if we hadn't spent the last 40-ish years over-regulating and micro-managing Planning/Zoning changes in our major Cities in Ontario (especially the City of Toronto).

Some might consider it "subverting democracy" - to have the City using Committee of Adjustment and the "Minor Variance" process to finally execute on their long-delayed HOUSING NOW site at Victoria Park TTC station - https://urbantoronto.ca/database/projects/777-victoria-park-avenue.38069

...but that's the situation that we find ourselves in as a City that often gets tripped-up by it's own land-mines around Planning/Zoning changes that need to be fast & easy.

Growth is a choice. We could have capped population growth to the levels of housing we were building, that would have been a Federal choice.

To be clear, as you are well aware, I have supported and helped deliver many of the zoning reforms you have hoped for......... its not like I'm some anti-density NIMBY.

I simply believe in checks and balances and appropriate limitations so that we don't end up housing people and leaving them starving with no food, or in smog-laden air. One can reform dumb rules without removing the ability to check for corruption and exceedingly bad public policy.

 

[yrt+viva=1system]

The reason there are so few multi-bedroom units can likely be at least partially explained by the cost of adding bedrooms during construction, ab Iorwerth with CMHC said. Many provinces have building codes that require each bedroom to have a window, he said, which has a tendency to make the cost of building three-bedroom units disproportionately more expensive.


"Because of that jump in price in getting a three-bedroom unit, developers and builders just put less of them in," he said.

The non-profit U.S.-based Center for Building in North America echoes the statement in a blog post from last May about why it's so hard to find family-sized apartments in the U.S. and Canada: codes.

Construction continues on condos being in downtown Toronto on April 18. (Patrick Morrell/CBC)
"North American zoning and building codes work together to drive up the size of multi-bedroom apartments in particular, putting them financially out of reach for many parents raising children," executive director Stephen Smith wrote.

"The effect is clearly that apartments, in order to provide the same number of bedrooms and give everyone a window, must necessarily consume far more floor area."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/three-bedroom-apartment-1.7233690

 

[Northern Light]

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/three-bedroom-apartment-1.7233690

Industry drivel, LOL.

Not that its incorrect that you generally are required to provide a window for a bedroom, but this was done for decades without issue.

Its not some ridiculous cost. The reality is a bedroom of any size takes up 'x' ft2 with or without a window. The window isn't that big a deal.

Rather, its a combination of general market forces/cost of land and construction that means added ft2 is simply a higher price point, and one fewer people can afford.

Beyond that, it may, from a market perspective also require an extra bathroom or / half-bath, and maybe the kitchen is a big bigger or a pantry is added.......and yeah, taking a unit from a range of 700-900ft at 2brdm to 850-1,100ft2 at 3brdm adds to the price.

Its also that the market is driven by pre-contruction financing by investors, who typically have no interest in living in the end unit, and may well sell on assignment prior to occupancy. That class of buyer rarely has any interest in larger units which are just deemed a higher risk, but they are more money up front and harder to sell.

 

[allengeorge]

Lack of family-sized units seems to be a thing in high-demand cities - and probably for exactly the two reasons NL highlighted:

1. It’s expensive, since psf is high, and families would expect ~900-1000 square feet to not feel absolutely claustrophobic
2. Condos do not lend themselves to this because of preconstruction financing. No investor wants to buy a 3BR unit: you’ll have to deal with families with more perceived needs, they probably won’t move, yadda yadda yadda. Also, which family wants to buy a unit and then wait for 3 years?

On (2) I wonder if the city (or feds) could step in and finance the 3BR units which could then be actually sold to end users? I’m sure there’s a reason that won’t work

(In general I think many orders of government need to get back into the game of building or financing family-sized units if they want them to actually exist in the city. I don’t know what to do about the psf though. Canada needs to REALLY grow its economy so that people have higher purchasing power.)

 

[rdaner]

Builders face red tape on projects meant to ease housing woes

The current approvals system could inadvertently undermine the desired shift to modest scale intensification across a much larger geography

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[Northern Light]

Builders face red tape on projects meant to ease housing woes

The current approvals system could inadvertently undermine the desired shift to modest scale intensification across a much larger geography

www.theglobeandmail.com

Most of what is discussed in the piece isn't zoning per se, though some is........

Some of the obstacles outlined are reasonable, others are not.......but there is a problem with a lack of common sense application of certain expectations.

On the latter, this jumps out at me:

Its not a zoning issue; but it is an imposition of both cost and delay by the City on the proponent. Now, here, if this were former industrial space, there was no residential of similar scale nearby and no study on air quality had previously been done,
I could be persuaded to understand the argument for one.

But where there is residential of similar scale nearby, the air quality issues are known........ this makes no sense and is a complete waste of time and money.

****

The other thing that really caught my eye in the piece was this:

I know this story already, its not unique......... Urban Design, Transportation, and Forestry regularly disagree. It should be said they often don't.........but when they do, and it happens somewhat regularly.......
this can impose an endless delay on a development approval that is not the fault of the proponent in any way.

"We'll build it how you want" is met with........."We don't know what we want; just wait another six months" (not what is literally said, but that's the substance)

On that score, the problems are myriad, from a problematic Streetscape Design Manual; to virtually every department treating said manual for better or worse as a guideline, rather than binding........to
no clear ranking of objectives when determining a final public realm; to no clear final decision maker. * Planning can approve things w/o the consent of the various players, but that does cause issues.

 

[rdaner]

Finally doing a bit of a deeper dive into Avenues proposal coming up and really looked at the map. In my part of town (Bloor & Landsdowne) this will bring very sensible reform. This will lead to massive change below St. Clair! But I wonder why Davenport wasn’t included? Btw dark brown are existing Avenues and light brown is for proposed. We are going full Central Europe!

But I am unable to find where the documents mention easing restrictions on areas bordering parks. Anyone know?

 

[rdaner]

So Winnipeg is eliminating the need for a traffic study for most developments.

'We can get housing built faster': Council eliminates need for traffic studies in development applications

The City of Winnipeg is taking a step to get condos and apartment projects going faster.

winnipeg.ctvnews.ca

 

[Northern Light]

So Winnipeg is eliminating the need for a traffic study for most developments.

'We can get housing built faster': Council eliminates need for traffic studies in development applications

The City of Winnipeg is taking a step to get condos and apartment projects going faster.

winnipeg.ctvnews.ca

There are two components to a traffic study. One is almost always needed for larger developments (any with significant parking) which is the immediate issue of how vehicles enter/exit the property and any critical impact to immediately adjacent intersections.

The second component is looking at broader impacts on roads/lights just a bit further away.

I don't think eliminating these wholesale makes sense.

I do think there's room to create exemptions/limit scope.

That would look like this:

Any development which proposes no resident parking, and/or 25 spots or fewer, where there are less than 250 units being created is exempt outright.

The risk of material impact is negligible so why bother with a study for the sake of a study? We could quibble on the numbers above, I'm not set on them.......but its a low-hanging fruit thing.

We can then take a look at exempting any development were a traffic study has been done in the previous 3 years, and where sufficient capacity was demonstrated to support the new proposal at the time.

Elsewise...... we don't want surprises where a development causes roads to gridlock.

 

[evandyk]

I think the second type of study should be undertaken by the city and shouldn't be dropped on any individual development, since the "traffic" as well as the measures to manage it, is largely not related to any individual development.

I think Winnipeg still has parking minimums at a pretty high level, and for its purposes it's probably safe to assume that in any building, every unit comes with a car.

 

[picard102]

Living without a car in central Canada is kind of a nightmare, so I can see why they'd make that assumption.

 

[evandyk]

Leverage has long made real estate investing more lucrative than it really is. Investors/speculators are about to learn about what happens to leveraged investments when the asset declines in value.

Toronto’s condo market is in ‘recessionary territory’ as investors can no longer prop it up, report says

Inventory has flooded the market, as investors aren't able to cover mortgage carrying costs with rents, says the CIBC Economics and Urbanation study.

www.thestar.com

It really is a shame that we spent the last three decades imposing bush league middle-man investors/condo owners into pretty much all of Toronto's rental housing stock.