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Greater Toronto's Sprawl

The neighbourhood in which I bought my brand new starter home was built in the 1958 - 1962 time frame. 50 years later I am delighted to say the only visible differences are lots of trees, better amentities and new cars in most driveways. The area is more desirable than ever, a house down the street that was purchased for less than $15,000 new just sold for $400,000.
My suburban world is evolving very nicely thank you.

It's nice to know that you are happy with your neighbourhood, but this doesn't mean that massive changes can't happen in the future.

Take for example, Sheppard. Ford wants to build out the subway to SCC, but in order to pay for the subway, he's going to rezone the land around the subway stations for high-density development. This is a massive jump from what was a previously low-density neighbourhood- even houses not torn down and rebuilt will be affected in other ways, for example in terms of shading.
 
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The Admiral Road 8 plex on a lot in my subdivision.

This example is a bit extreme since it seems your neighbourhood is all bungalows. If you put that on a street with two storey dwellings like in most suburbs the effect would not be so great.
 
The house on the left is a bungalow, on the right a back split, both are more common than 2 storey homes in much of suburban Toronto. Even if built between 2 storey homes the 4 storey building would be an ugly anomaly not allowed by current zoning and rightfully so.

Most home owners, while mindfull that their home is an asset, bought their home primarily to live in and enjoy.
 
My two cents: spider, why do you think you have a right to restrict the right of other landowners in your neighbourhood to do what they want with their property? As much as you may enjoy your bucolic suburb, your right to keep it the same ends at your property line. If you live in Ontario, the provincial government (in effect, the OMB) has final say on what's done with properties in your neighbourhood.
 
My two cents: spider, why do you think you have a right to restrict the right of other landowners in your neighbourhood to do what they want with their property? As much as you may enjoy your bucolic suburb, your right to keep it the same ends at your property line. If you live in Ontario, the provincial government (in effect, the OMB) has final say on what's done with properties in your neighbourhood.

Hate to intervene but if you are proposing/supporting a world of absolute freedom of proprty owners to build whatever they want between their property lines we can dispense with the OMB......can't we?
 
My two cents: spider, why do you think you have a right to restrict the right of other landowners in your neighbourhood to do what they want with their property? As much as you may enjoy your bucolic suburb, your right to keep it the same ends at your property line. If you live in Ontario, the provincial government (in effect, the OMB) has final say on what's done with properties in your neighbourhood.

Zoning regulations are in place for everyones benefit. The "right to do whatever you like with your property" is the norm in most of the US as evidenced by someone being perfectly entitled to open a scrapyard or a slaughterhouse right next door to your brand new dream home. Is that what you want?
 
Zoning regulations are in place for everyones benefit. The "right to do whatever you like with your property" is the norm in most of the US as evidenced by someone being perfectly entitled to open a scrapyard or a slaughterhouse right next door to your brand new dream home. Is that what you want?

If the scrapyard or slaughterhouse can be guaranteed to not impact other houses, why not? Of course, such guarantee would mean totally sound proof and smell proof walls, private highways, etc...

The purpose of zoning regulations should be prevent one land owner to infringe the freedom of his/her neighbours. Not to limit the freedom of land owners unnecessarily.
 
The neighbourhood in which I bought my brand new starter home was built in the 1958 - 1962 time frame. 50 years later I am delighted to say the only visible differences are lots of trees, better amentities and new cars in most driveways. The area is more desirable than ever, a house down the street that was purchased for less than $15,000 new just sold for $400,000.
My suburban world is evolving very nicely thank you.

I live in a similar area in Markham that was built in the 50s-60s where renovated bungalows can go for over $600,000. In terms of the photo you posted, I would argue that some of the new teardown homes that are replacing bungalows standout almost as much as the apartment complex in what you photoshoped -- though obviously they would bring fewer residents. Some nearby examples:

td1.jpg

td2.jpg

td3.jpg
 
I live in a similar area in Markham that was built in the 50s-60s where renovated bungalows can go for over $600,000. In terms of the photo you posted, I would argue that some of the new teardown homes that are replacing bungalows standout almost as much as the apartment complex in what you photoshoped -- though obviously they would bring fewer residents.

You see a lot of that in Mineola West (my old neighborhood) as well. Monster homes next to small bungalows.
 
Zoning regulations are in place for everyones benefit. The "right to do whatever you like with your property" is the norm in most of the US as evidenced by someone being perfectly entitled to open a scrapyard or a slaughterhouse right next door to your brand new dream home. Is that what you want?

THe US isn't the big free-for-all.. Most cities have zoning laws and some have official plans. NIMBYs actually have more tools in their toolbox down there; if they don't like the way an area is developing they simply vote to incorporate themselves into a new municipality and elect themselves a mayor that will enact zoning laws blocking that slaughterhouse or whatever. However, for the most part, yes, they do believe in property rights. Mixed blessing, at best, the suburban messes around most of the cities are the direct result of that.

The question one has to ask is, what constitutes a reasonable boundary for what's allowed? Lowrise residential uses in a lowrise residential neighbourhood? Of course. 4-story buildigns are usually lower than the tree canopy anyways, they're pretty unnoticeable. From a reasonable point of view there is no reason why a small multires building can't be built in a residential area. It is, after all, a residential use. Nobody's building Cityplace in the middle of suburban Etobicoke.

Further, scatter 20 such buildings around a concession box and you've added 500 people to the area. Multiply that by the 100 or so concesion boxes in Toronto and you've painlessly added 50,000 people to the city.
 
Maybe we should make our cities look more like this:

http://maps.google.ca/?ie=UTF8&ll=3...MbJM-mKyqS88bsTIi9Todw&cbp=12,11.86,,0,-19.53

(Tokyo). That is, redevelop the area along main roads with buildings that are ~10 stories tall. This is a typical main road in central Tokyo where a subway runs underneath; buildings on side streets tend to be shorter. Unlike other big Asian cities like Seoul, Hong Kong etc. there aren't nearly as many tall (20+ storey) buildings, though there are some mostly concentrated near the main train stations like Tokyo, Shinjuku etc. Sort of like European cities but more modern looking.
 
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Hate to intervene but if you are proposing/supporting a world of absolute freedom of proprty owners to build whatever they want between their property lines we can dispense with the OMB......can't we?

I would be happy to do away with the OMB, and I'm no libertarian when it comes to property rights. I think that government has a role to play in setting rules around development, and would prefer that it be local rather than provincial (or an unelected, unaccountable body like the OMB). However, I also don't think my neighbour has a right to tell me what to do with my property. If spider - or anyone else - wants to change zoning regulations, they are free to take it up with their local councillor. I actually wish that more neighbourhoods were designated as historical, but that also needs to have the buy-in of everyone who owns property in that neighbourhood.
 
Sprawl means cars. How many cars are there in relation to the number of people in the 905?

There's an article, More Vehicles Than People, in planetizen.com, at this link, that maybe of interest:

More Vehicles Than People

Author: Ann Sussman

Historic Massachusetts towns have reached a new milestone -- the number of vehicles on the road have outnumbered the population of people. Ann Sussman looks at this "demographic" shift, and what it means for people living in the shadow of Emerson and Thoreau.

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Cars crowd a local commuter rail stop in Acton, MA

(Acton, MA )- Historic Bay State towns now have more motor vehicles in residence than actual residents. The Commonwealth's Department of Revenue which tracks these statistics, and has them online, shows vehicles dominate over people in Concord, home of Emerson and Thoreau, and many surrounding towns that provided Minutemen for the earliest skirmishes in the Revolutionary War including Acton, Bedford, Boxborough, Stow and Carlisle.

Even in Lexington, site of the first battle in April 1775, and closer to Boston within the inner ring road Rt 128, there are 31,000 people and some 30,000 vehicles or about 0.97 vehicles per person. Generally, the further from Boston a town is the more cars, SUVs, trucks and motorbikes. The trend peaks in places like upscale Carlisle, twenty miles out, which prides itself on 2-acre zoning and has 4,878 citizens and 5,989 vehicles, for a ratio of 1.23.

In Townsend, more than an hour out of Boston, which the Boston Globe last month rated as most "statistically typical town" for its middle-aged, mid-income population, the numbers at 1.06, which appears typical for a mid-state municipality. It’s the same in suburban Acton and Boxborough.

The data appear to track with more drivers driving more. Though not aware of the milestone, "it's not a surprise," says Bob Bliss, a spokesman for the Department of Revenue. "People need vehicles. If you're living in the suburbs you need vehicles to get around. What sort of regional transit is there?" The Revenue statistics come from the Registry Department, he said, and include all vehicles that require registration, motorcycles, trucks, commercial vehicles, which by law pay an excise tax to the town where they’re garaged or park at night.

"It's just a hoot!," says Ruth Lauer, former Concord Selectwoman, who works in the Town Manager office, learning Concord has slightly more vehicles than people (ratio at 1.01). "Generally a third of our population is school age and not driving, just think of that!"

Lauer notes that Concord's population at around 17,000 is stable, even declining in recent years. Even though Concord has two transit stops on a commuter rail line into Boston, "It's our way of life that's changed," she concludes. Even if a resident can take the train for work, they will likely use 2 cars per household for all their other errands. According to the regional planning office, MAPC, Concord households on average do have 2.0 passenger cars per household; the figure expands to 2.3 cars per household in towns like Ashburnham, outside Boston’s outer ring road, rte 495.

The irony of all the driving in an area that is home to America's earliest environmentalists, including Emerson and Thoreau, is not lost on Michael Frederick, Director of the Thoreau Society, a non-profit that promotes the 19th-century thinker's legacy. "Thoreau is not against technology," Frederick explains, adding the writer would however question who's in the drivers seat. "We can't say cars are absolutely negative, it’s just how much control do we have over them?"

"Thoreau believed in asking deliberate questions and making deliberate choices,and these questions are as pertinent today as ever,†he said. Thoreau would probably appreciate 'the Catch-22' of more parents driving kids everywhere, he said. With all the other cars on the road, adults perceive it as safer than letting youngsters walk or bike, which leads to more parents driving more kids and "an irony Thoreau would have worked with."

As for Thoreau's mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson, he might have encouraged him. It was Emerson who famously wrote the verse, "Things are in the saddle, And ride mankind," Frederick added.

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Less ironically, regional planners explain the vehicle numbers in terms of economics and convenience. "It's free parking and effectively free roads makes mobility fairly inexpensive for a middle-class family," says Tim Reardon, planner at the regional planning council, MAPC.

Much Commonwealth traffic congestion he links to employment with the average commuter driving 25 miles per day. Reardon cautions that there are hidden costs to the car choice suburbanites make and don’t take into account - until too late. "You can spend $1,000 a month on cars without realizing it," he said. Indeed, failure to factor in the cost of vehicle ownership accounts for half of the suburban foreclosures in Massachusetts, he says.

Per capita vehicle ownership drops dramatically in Boston and Cambridge by almost half, where there is greater residential density, more transit options, jobs closer at hand and parking costs go up. However, even in the cities, new research suggests an uptick in car ownership in urban neighborhoods as they gentrify, which paradoxically happens with access to new mass transit stops, says Stephanie Pollack of Northeastern's Dukakis Center for Urban and Regional Policy. Her research looked at a dozen neighborhoods throughout the country that gained new transit stations between 1990 and 2000. She found real estate values rose and brought in wealthier residents who preferred cars.

"In America, car ownership goes up with neighborhood wealth," Pollack said.

In Concord, Ruth Lauer sees the car habit more simply. "The trains are for somebody else," she said.
 
I would be happy to do away with the OMB, and I'm no libertarian when it comes to property rights. I think that government has a role to play in setting rules around development, and would prefer that it be local rather than provincial (or an unelected, unaccountable body like the OMB). However, I also don't think my neighbour has a right to tell me what to do with my property. If spider - or anyone else - wants to change zoning regulations, they are free to take it up with their local councillor. I actually wish that more neighbourhoods were designated as historical, but that also needs to have the buy-in of everyone who owns property in that neighbourhood.

But the core responsibility for zoning and development is local. The OMB only comes into to play when one party or the other (or both) cannot agree on how those rules should apply or if they are rules that make sense from a planning perspective.

To tie it into the subject of sprawl......Brampton has an ongoing battle with a developer now. It is a piece of land that has been zoned for high density residential for about 40 years or so but was never developed. The city was trying to force 1970s definitions on what high density meant (in this case about 400 units) and the developer was saying the world has changed, we have intensification goals and "places to grow" legislation and all his studies/plans were for about 1200 units. Eventually he scaled back and said 850 (or so) but faced with public pressure (that is what "elected and accountable" people adhere to) the city has fought it all the way (and lost all the way) and now we have city councillors renting buses to take nearby residents to Queens Park for a protest......sometimes you need unelected people to step back and make the right decision.....particularly in real estate matters where development cycles are often longer than government terms and time can slip past so fast that nothing gets done!
 

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