Memph
Active Member
This is about how every city in the Greater Golden Horseshoe will have to accomodate will have to accomodate at least 40% of its growth within the built area. So far, between 2006 and 2011, it seems to have been much less than that for most of the 905.
I've made some estimates for several suburbs on how much of the population growth has been in the form of intensification by looking at how much of the growth has been at the edge of the cities.
About 82% of the growth Markham has seen in between the last two censi has been North of 16th Ave and West of Ninth Line and West of Middlefield. That means about 18% of the growth has been intensification, much less than the 40% it's supposed to be. Other suburbs aren't much different.
Mississauga: 34-51%*
Richmond Hill: 20%
Markham: 18%
Vaughan: 10%
Brampton: 7%
*depends on if you include the growth around East Credit/Hurontario as intensification. Much of the growth there has been greenfield single family, but the area is also hemmed in by development.
Many of the smaller suburbs like Milton, Oakville, Aurora, etc have probably seen even less intensification, in fact, some might have seen negative growth within the built area (looks to be the case for Milton). In addition, much of the intensification that has occured was in the form of greenfield development, like Markham Centre or the Markham Galleria area (West of Beaver Creek). Municipalities will only have to meet the 40% intensification targets starting in 2015, and I suspect much of the greenfield development that has occured in the last 5 years was approved before Places to Grow.
What I'm wondering is, what will happen when the 905 will have to start meeting these intensification requirements, and the greenfields within the urbanized area start getting filled up? By my rough calculations, if the 905 continues to intensify slowly like it has so far, and it will only be able to have 1.5 times that amount of growth outside the urbanized area, the 905 will see growth slow considerably, especially places like Brampton, Milton or Aurora. If all that extra growth went to Toronto, it would be growing by about 400-500,000 people per decade, more than double what is forecasted (500,000 from 2006-2011). So what will happen? Downtown parking lots are filling up very fast. Will Toronto have to intensify more than expected, perhaps upzoning many single family neighbourhoods around transit? Or will the suburbs intensify considerably more than they have so far? Or a combination?
Personally, I think many suburbs will grow much slower. Many of them have rather high densities already compared to the outer 416. Mississauga has about as much density as Scarborough and Etobicoke, so although it has room to intensify, I'm not sure intensification will make as much sense there as in the 416. Other 905 suburbs are less dense than Mississauga, but many, like Brampton or Milton are pretty built out with single family with fewer good intensification areas like the Hurontario or Highway 7 corridor in other suburbs, so intensification will be more difficult since it might involve upzoning single family neighbourhoods. Pickering has seen almost no growth (less than 1000 people) since the greenfield developments in Seaton have basically been put on hold.
Milton is supposed to grow a ton, but will it be able to do so with the intensification targets? It has a population of about 95,000 today, but is supposed to have more than 200,000 people by 2031. Wouldn't that mean something like 40,000 people would have to be accomodated in an area that will have around 120,000 by 2015? Downtown Milton's growth target is about 25,000 people and jobs, which would occur mostly on the brownfields East of downtown around the GO station. From my understanding, that means most of the rest of the growth would have to occur either in the form of redevelopment of the new industrial/warehouse areas around the 401, or the redevelopment of "stable residential neighbourhoods", because there aren't really any other brownfields, greyfields or greenfields.
Also, does anyone know if the intensification will only count towards the targets if it occurs in the area urbanized by 2015? Or would intensification in 2025 that occured in areas urbanized say in 2020 (but which were greenfields in 2015) count as well?
I've made some estimates for several suburbs on how much of the population growth has been in the form of intensification by looking at how much of the growth has been at the edge of the cities.
About 82% of the growth Markham has seen in between the last two censi has been North of 16th Ave and West of Ninth Line and West of Middlefield. That means about 18% of the growth has been intensification, much less than the 40% it's supposed to be. Other suburbs aren't much different.
Mississauga: 34-51%*
Richmond Hill: 20%
Markham: 18%
Vaughan: 10%
Brampton: 7%
*depends on if you include the growth around East Credit/Hurontario as intensification. Much of the growth there has been greenfield single family, but the area is also hemmed in by development.
Many of the smaller suburbs like Milton, Oakville, Aurora, etc have probably seen even less intensification, in fact, some might have seen negative growth within the built area (looks to be the case for Milton). In addition, much of the intensification that has occured was in the form of greenfield development, like Markham Centre or the Markham Galleria area (West of Beaver Creek). Municipalities will only have to meet the 40% intensification targets starting in 2015, and I suspect much of the greenfield development that has occured in the last 5 years was approved before Places to Grow.
What I'm wondering is, what will happen when the 905 will have to start meeting these intensification requirements, and the greenfields within the urbanized area start getting filled up? By my rough calculations, if the 905 continues to intensify slowly like it has so far, and it will only be able to have 1.5 times that amount of growth outside the urbanized area, the 905 will see growth slow considerably, especially places like Brampton, Milton or Aurora. If all that extra growth went to Toronto, it would be growing by about 400-500,000 people per decade, more than double what is forecasted (500,000 from 2006-2011). So what will happen? Downtown parking lots are filling up very fast. Will Toronto have to intensify more than expected, perhaps upzoning many single family neighbourhoods around transit? Or will the suburbs intensify considerably more than they have so far? Or a combination?
Personally, I think many suburbs will grow much slower. Many of them have rather high densities already compared to the outer 416. Mississauga has about as much density as Scarborough and Etobicoke, so although it has room to intensify, I'm not sure intensification will make as much sense there as in the 416. Other 905 suburbs are less dense than Mississauga, but many, like Brampton or Milton are pretty built out with single family with fewer good intensification areas like the Hurontario or Highway 7 corridor in other suburbs, so intensification will be more difficult since it might involve upzoning single family neighbourhoods. Pickering has seen almost no growth (less than 1000 people) since the greenfield developments in Seaton have basically been put on hold.
Milton is supposed to grow a ton, but will it be able to do so with the intensification targets? It has a population of about 95,000 today, but is supposed to have more than 200,000 people by 2031. Wouldn't that mean something like 40,000 people would have to be accomodated in an area that will have around 120,000 by 2015? Downtown Milton's growth target is about 25,000 people and jobs, which would occur mostly on the brownfields East of downtown around the GO station. From my understanding, that means most of the rest of the growth would have to occur either in the form of redevelopment of the new industrial/warehouse areas around the 401, or the redevelopment of "stable residential neighbourhoods", because there aren't really any other brownfields, greyfields or greenfields.
Also, does anyone know if the intensification will only count towards the targets if it occurs in the area urbanized by 2015? Or would intensification in 2025 that occured in areas urbanized say in 2020 (but which were greenfields in 2015) count as well?
