Zoning Reform Ideas

[egotrippin]

You assume its an OR when its an AND. We should absolutely do what you suggested. However, Christie, Ossington, etc should not be littered with SFHs. I'm surprised this is even contentious.

Supply is nowhere near demand. We completed 17k units in the city last year when we should have completed 3-4x that number. We're underbuilding.

Like Northern Light, my response was also targeted to side streets. I agree that the larger thoroughfares downtown don't need SFH and should be intensified.

My issue with protecting side streets is that it prevents interesting retail from popping up (not to mention reducing available housing). Here's a thought experiment. If you allow densification of side streets (with retail), you allow the average cost / rent of retail to decrease and then allow entrepreneurs the ability to open up more clothing shops, cafes, bookstores, etc. We're limiting where we build housing and retail and its causing a cost surge. Eventually interesting retail will leave the city since they cant afford rents on major roads. Why can't we allow more permissive zoning?

I also agree with this, for instance Markham Street between Bloor and Harbord is (was) exactly that; old houses converted to retail. For me it's less about preserving SFH but rather the built form. A lot of these older homes could be converted to retail with residential above, turned into multi-unit, and/or see additions built off the back that add even more housing density.

 

[dusk]

Like Northern Light, my response was also targeted to side streets. I agree that the larger thoroughfares downtown don't need SFH and should be intensified.

I also agree with this, for instance Markham Street between Bloor and Harbord is (was) exactly that; old houses converted to retail. For me it's less about preserving SFH but rather the built form. A lot of these older homes could be converted to retail with residential above, turned into multi-unit, and/or see additions built off the back that add even more housing density.

I largely agree with you other than the disagreement about side streets

 

[evandyk]

Shaw St has one house converted to a coffee shop, which is a neighbourhood hub. I imagine many more places like this would exist if it was allowed more broadly.

 

[Northern Light]

My issue with protecting side streets is that it prevents interesting retail from popping up (not to mention reducing available housing). Here's a thought experiment. If you allow densification of side streets (with retail), you allow the average cost / rent of retail to decrease and then allow entrepreneurs the ability to open up more clothing shops, cafes, bookstores, etc. We're limiting where we build housing and retail and its causing a cost surge. Eventually interesting retail will leave the city since they cant afford rents on major roads. Why can't we allow more permissive zoning?

Are you reading what I wrote? Seriously.

I just mentioned allowing apartments inside those side street homes; I have a long track record of advocating for more permissive zoning.

What we're talking about here is the built form, and the trees.

You can allow a store inside an existing Victorian. You do need to contemplate waste-handing and delivery, but certainly, it can be done.
And I'm all in favour of same, if the environment and heritage and respected.

Edit to add:

You're not going to add that much retail ft2 that way; barring total tear downs by developers and blighting the streets..........because you can't address delivery/loading at-scale for 20 homes on a side street, with the existing built-form.

 

[egotrippin]

The number of new units being built is not that high relative to population growth, and the number of new bedrooms being built (since units tend to be smaller than 20+ years ago) really is not.

Canada Is Now Completing 18 Homes For Every Person The Population Grows - Better Dwelling

Canadian homebuilding lagged in the past, but it now far exceeds population growth. CMHC data shows home completions started to outpace population growth last year. By the fourth quarter, there are now 18 homes completed for every person the population grows. Curiously, home prices have been...

betterdwelling.com

I know this is Canada at large, but I've come across articles that suggest otherwise. I think speculative and investor ownership is a big issue. There are lots of social issues that need to be addressed (wages, capital gains, etc) and not strictly building more units. What good is more units if investors who already own several buy even more? I recall an article profiling a guy who owned 12 homes in Toronto.

There was another article discussing the fact that there are a million vacant homes in Canada as well. That's a lot of housing just sitting around not housing anybody.

 

[dusk]

Are you reading what I wrote? Seriously.

I just mentioned allowing apartments inside those side street homes; I have a long track record of advocating for more permissive zoning.

What we're talking about here is the built form, and the trees.

You can allow a store inside an existing Victorian. You do need to contemplate waste-handing and delivery, but certainly, it can be done.
And I'm all in favour of same, if the environment and heritage and respected.

Edit to add:

You're not going to add that much retail ft2 that way; barring total tear downs by developers and blighting the streets..........because you can't address delivery/loading at-scale for 20 homes on a side street, with the existing built-form.

I'm absolutely reading what you wrote. Why do you keep bringing up trees? Keep the trees, in particular on the roads themselves. Nobody is advocating for the removal of them. Of course, you can retain those victorian homes and turn them into apartments / businesses. I'm just not understanding why. We can have more housing and more opportunities for retail if we increase density.

 

[Northern Light]

I'm absolutely reading what you wrote. Why do you keep bringing up trees? Keep the trees, in particular on the roads themselves. Nobody is advocating for the removal of them.

You're advocating for their removal. You can't excavate within the drip-line of a tree crown without killing the tree.
So that majestic tree with leaves over the house, precludes even rebuilding on the site of the current house.

By the way, how precisely are you getting the heavy equipment in to demo the houses with all the trees standing?
Its not feasible nor economic. This is science.

Of course, you can retain those victorian homes and turn them into apartments / businesses. I'm just not understanding why.

You can't demolish a Victorian home and preserve the architecture; nor can you preserve the majority of trees in that scenario.
Further, the infrastructure (Water/Sewer/Hydro) will not support the densities you seem to want.

We can have more housing and more opportunities for retail if we increase density.

We're already building more housing than anywhere else in North America; the problem is less about supply and more about demand. Be that as it may, I'm in favour of increasing supply. But we have literally over 1,000km of major roads that could be intensified; and I would create about 200km more where the grid is too thin, in order to support further density and transit.

On that 1,200km of roadway you can literally build mid-rise housing only and provide for 2,000,000 people more than today.

We don't need to grow our population forever, if you feel different your advocating for climate change and environmental disaster.
It would be adverse economically. Its not just about growing the pie, its about the size of each piece.

 

[Towered]

Canada will be a much better place when it has 100M people. And we will get there within our lifetime hopefully.

Maximum Canada by Doug Saunders: 9780735273108 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

To face the future, Canada needs more Canadians. But why and how many? Canada’s population has always grown slowly, when it has grown at all. That wasn’t by accident. For centuries...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

Why on earth would we want Canada to have 100 million people?

 

[evandyk]

Because it is a vast empty land and even our cities are pretty sparsely populated. And more people means more prosperity for all of us.

 

[DirectionNorth]

Because it is a vast empty land and even our cities are pretty sparsely populated. And more people means more prosperity for all of us.

Odd assumption. Lower immigration = higher wages.

 

[Northern Light]

Because it is a vast empty land

No, that's not true, its full of the best agricultural land on the planet, that helps feed the world; vast forests (which are carbon sinks) and help mitigate the risk of climate change and are the home of thousands of species of mammals, amphibians, birds, insects and rare plants.

and even our cities are pretty sparsely populated.

This statement is untrue.

And more people means more prosperity for all of us.

This statement is not supported by the evidence.

 

[Undead]

Canada will be a much better place when it has 100M people. And we will get there within our lifetime hopefully.

Maximum Canada by Doug Saunders: 9780735273108 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

To face the future, Canada needs more Canadians. But why and how many? Canada’s population has always grown slowly, when it has grown at all. That wasn’t by accident. For centuries...

www.penguinrandomhouse.com

That's a terrible idea if you care about the environment and housing affordability. I'm not even going to touch social/religious/cultural issues which would be deeply complicated and problematic to say the least.

 

[evandyk]

Other than the US, what other countries have cities that are less densely populated than Canada's?

 

[Northern Light]

Other than the US, what other countries have cities that are less densely populated than Canada's?

*********

Now....let's play a game, shall we...........first, let's remove the portion of Canada actually above the tree-line, sitting on permafrost that few people want to or could live on........
That's 40% of of our nominal territory.

So let's adjust the density figure accordingly, shall we?
Population (based on the above), 37M, but territory reduced to 5.9Mkm2; that bumps us to a density of 6.3 per km2
So add these additional countries ahead of us, in terms of greater density:

But let's be honest.......we neither can, nor should be build dense cities all the way to Hudson's Bay........we would make 80% of Canadian species extinct, destroy the planet as a whole.........yes, I said that, no, its not hyperbolic......
Oh....and the costs would be astronomical......Building on the Canadian Shield, including roads and transit, is prohibitively expensive........as you might imagine it would be when you frequently need to detonate rock in order to put a road through....

********

You asked specifically about the density of cities.........so here you go:

Note, the columns are City/Country/Population/Area/Density per Km2

Also note Outside of the U.S........the follwoing major world cities are less dense than Toronto:

Antwerp
Copenhagen
Auckland
Brussels
Frankfurt
Lisbon
Helsinki
Stockholm
Beirut
Milan
Dublin
Munich
Glasgow
Vienna
Capetown
Berlin
Manchester
Naples

And many more

******

Now let's make another observation.............Canada accounts for 9% of all forests on the planet.

But.....its more than that........if temperatures rise, and the permafrost (the world's largest carbon sink) starts to exude carbon.......the temperature's on the planet will skyrocket.

Thawing permafrost puts climate change in spotlight

Some fear thawing permafrost is about to release huge amounts of climate-warming emissions

graphics.reuters.com

*****

Now let's ask another question..........how much of that territory is fresh water? Canada alone has 20% of the entire world supply.

Canada has 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves — this is how to protect it

Canada has 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves and nine per cent of the world’s renewable freshwater resources. However, there is an urgent need for better freshwater governance in Canada.

theconversation.com

That supply will be materially harmed with urbanization.
Its also a clouding factor on density. Suppose we took Canada down to a more average level of water supply, say 1/2 what we have?
That raises our density to 7.4/per km2

But that assumes you can develop every remaining bit of land.
You can't. That poisons the water and the air, and leaves us with no food.

Its worth noting that Canada represents only 0.5% of global population, but supplies 1.5% of global food.

Notably Wheat, and mustards .

* Canada doesn't supply the largest amounts of seafood and yet multiples species are already going extinct/extirpated in Canadian waters due to over-fishing.

 

[Johnny Au]

View attachment 362557

*********

Now....let's play a game, shall we...........first, let's remove the portion of Canada actually above the tree-line, sitting on permafrost that few people want to or could live on........
That's 40% of of our nominal territory.

So let's adjust the density figure accordingly, shall we?
Population (based on the above), 37M, but territory reduced to 5.9Mkm2; that bumps us to a density of 6.3 per km2
So add these additional countries ahead of us, in terms of greater density:

View attachment 362558

But let's be honest.......we neither can, nor should be build dense cities all the way to Hudson's Bay........we would make 80% of Canadian species extinct, destroy the planet as a whole.........yes, I said that, no, its not hyperbolic......
Oh....and the costs would be astronomical......Building on the Canadian Shield, including roads and transit, is prohibitively expensive........as you might imagine it would be when you frequently need to detonate rock in order to put a road through....

********

Now let's make another observation.............Canada accounts for 9% of all forests on the planet.

But.....its more than that........if temperatures rise, and the permafrost (the world's largest carbon sink) starts to exude carbon.......the temperature's on the planet will skyrocket.

Thawing permafrost puts climate change in spotlight

Some fear thawing permafrost is about to release huge amounts of climate-warming emissions

graphics.reuters.com

*****

Now let's ask another question..........how much of that territory is fresh water? Canada alone has 20% of the entire world supply.

Canada has 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves — this is how to protect it

Canada has 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater reserves and nine per cent of the world’s renewable freshwater resources. However, there is an urgent need for better freshwater governance in Canada.

theconversation.com

That supply will be materially harmed with urbanization.
Its also a clouding factor on density. Suppose we took Canada down to a more average level of water supply, say 1/2 what we have?
That raises our density to 7.4/per km2

But that assumes you can develop every remaining bit of land.
You can't. That poisons the water and the air, and leaves us with no food.

Its worth noting that Canada represents only 0.5% of global population, but supplies 1.5% of global food.

Notably Wheat, and mustards .

* Canada doesn't supply the largest amounts of seafood and yet multiples species are already going extinct/extirpated in Canadian waters due to over-fishing.

Not just that, but the passenger pigeon became extinct when the world had much fewer people:

Yes, the passenger pigeon officially became extinct months after the start of the First World War (defined as the assassination of the Austrian archduke by a Serbian nationalist).

The video mentions other North American birds that have gone extinct over a century ago.