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Zoning Reform Ideas

MrGoose said:
By restricting multi-family homes to arterials, this is the housing reality you will create, the mature state of which can be seen in North York Center.

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You can see this further reflected in the school district boundaries where the Noble Elites of East Willowdale elected to keep the low-born suckers living in the condos along Yonge St, out of their Earl Haig, and send them to a high school much further away.
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Anyone not wealthy enough to buy a SFH outright or fortunate enough to have parents who bought pre 2015, will only be able to afford a multi-family unit. And Multi-family units can only be built along Stroad Canyons like Yonge St between Sheppard and Finch.

Its ridiculous to suggest that garbage pickup for a multi-family home can't work because "small side streets can't fit them". Last time I checked, the garbage trucks that picked up big dumpsters and individual home owners trash bins were the same size and those "small side streets" seemed to have no problem fitting either.

If sewage and infrastructure were the primary constraining factors (instead of political backlash from NIMBY SFH owners) then big chunks of yellowbelt should be expropriated, demolished, the infrastructure redone in one go and upzoned massively.

Its the same old cowardly deference to landowners that has plagued Canadian urban planning for decades.
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Evidence matters, cite studies and facts.

I'm not opposing multiplexes, in fact I made helped make them legal, my fingerprints are all over that.

My statements on infrastructure are correct. My political analysis is sound.

You think different on the former, prove it; you think different on the latter go get elected and see how that works for you.
 
christiesplits said:
I disagree, respectfully, Northern. Now, building 20 storey condos in the middle of SFH subdivisions would be overkill. I think fourplexes are more than reasonable given our cataclysmic housing crisis.
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As noted above, Fourplexes ARE legal in the Yellowbelt, and I helped make that happen. I am in no way opposed to that.

We're talking about six and eight storey here, not about fourplexes which again, already ARE legal, and which I advocated to make so.
 
Just a note to say that I calculated that the population of Ontario that lives in municipalities with 4 units per lot zoning is 56% as of 15 March. This is on top of the province wide allowance for 3 units per lot which is a massive change from the status quo! Let's give this some time to work it's way into the system. And personal experience has shown me that many homeowners who have ADUs do not register them as they want to keep flexibility for their use and the thought of consulting the neigbours on a personal matter is a non starter. lol
 
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...risingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing-crisis

So I'll preface by saying this is an article specific to the UK, so there are obviously differences in their housing makeup and whatnot, but I do see some parallels to our situation. We've been building at a pace unparalleled almost anywhere in the world - so much in fact that we are literally constrained by resources/skilled trades availability - yet it hasn't made a dent on affordability.

I found this quote particularly interesting:

"Its strange logic is that speculative developers would build homes in order to devalue them: that they would somehow act against their own interests by producing enough surplus homes to bring down the average price of land and housing."

It seems to me the issue is we've been building the wrong type of housing, and unless there are major systemic changes to essentially disincentivize, or outright ban ownership for profit/investment purposes, more housing isn't going to do much. Instead what we're continuing to do is enrich developers and a handful of investors, while the majority suffer.

It's because of this I've grown weary of the build, build, build mentality not from a NIMBY or anti-density perspective, but by the fact that I'm not sure it's actually working. Not so long as housing is predominantly built by private for-profit developers who answer to shareholders first.
 
That's not a very convincing argument. Why does a factory open new production lines when doing so will hurt their margin? Because there still is sufficient demand even with the additional supply to have an adequate return on investment.

The same idea is true of housing. However, what's been built in this city hasn't been sufficient to meet even the baseline demand for housing over the last 20 years, which is why the housing situation has kept worsening.
 
allengeorge said:
“I heard that announcement from Bonnie Crombie and I can assure you 1,000 per cent you go in the middle of communities and start putting up four-storeys, six-storey, eight-storey buildings … there's going to be a lot of shouting and screaming," said Ford.
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Never trust anyone who says "1,000%."
 
Ford stated that his government was going to concentrate on building sfd and townhouses. Is this a signal that policy is about to change or just hot air?
 
Northern Light said:
As noted above, Fourplexes ARE legal in the Yellowbelt, and I helped make that happen. I am in no way opposed to that.

We're talking about six and eight storey here, not about fourplexes which again, already ARE legal, and which I advocated to make so.
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In your opinion is the fourplex bylaw as passed in Toronto good in its current form, or does it need amendments to generate more uptake? I have seen discussion that the bylaw is filled with "poison pills" that make units hard to pencil out.
 
goodcitywhenfinished said:
In your opinion is the fourplex bylaw as passed in Toronto good in its current form, or does it need amendments to generate more uptake? I have seen discussion that the bylaw is filled with "poison pills" that make units hard to pencil out.
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I don't think its 'filled' w/poison pills, that's an overstatement, are there some challenges in terms of as-of-right, yes, many are reasonable, some.....could be a bit more flexible.........let's see how it plays out.
 
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Cambry Ardship said:
That's not a very convincing argument. Why does a factory open new production lines when doing so will hurt their margin? Because there still is sufficient demand even with the additional supply to have an adequate return on investment.

The same idea is true of housing. However, what's been built in this city hasn't been sufficient to meet even the baseline demand for housing over the last 20 years, which is why the housing situation has kept worsening.
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Capacity would be added to meet growing demand, not necessarily provide enough surplus to drive prices down meaningfully. I'm not saying more supply would hurt things, but it seems the type of supply we're adding now isn't helping much. And seeing as there are constraints in how much can be built at once, if population growth compared to what's being built is an issue, it suggests the population is growing at an unsustainable pace.

I don't bring this up from an anti-development perspective either. In fact I quite like things like adding more multiplexes. Considering the cost and complexity of assembling land, going through approvals and building larger scale projects, it seems like it'd be easier and faster to insert small scale multiplexes pretty much anywhere and everywhere. More organic growth would put less strain on utilities too, which I believe is an even bigger concern for municipalities since Ford slashed development charges.

As has already been discussed, and I believe is happening to a degree, this sort of building can be accelerated by utilizing modular housing construction and pre-developed templates that could be easily replicated across the province. It really is a case of updating the Victory Homes initiative for the 21st century.
 
I’m honestly not sure where to put this:

pca.st

A County in Maryland Came up With a New Way of Building Affordable Homes - Odd Lots

Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway explore the most interesting topics in finance, markets and economics. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday.
pca.st pca.st

Podcast talking about how a county in Maryland delivers affordable housing. My understanding is that they directly fund and deliver a building containing both market and affordable housing.

I don’t know if this is something TCHC already does (maybe it does - I don’t know enough about the financing models used) or whether there’s something to learn.
 
allengeorge said:
I’m honestly not sure where to put this:

pca.st

A County in Maryland Came up With a New Way of Building Affordable Homes - Odd Lots

Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway explore the most interesting topics in finance, markets and economics. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday.
pca.st pca.st

Podcast talking about how a county in Maryland delivers affordable housing. My understanding is that they directly fund and deliver a building containing both market and affordable housing.

I don’t know if this is something TCHC already does (maybe it does - I don’t know enough about the financing models used) or whether there’s something to learn.
Click to expand...

This is in line with the Vienna model of housing I've discussed and lauded frequently here.

There is still some upfront capital investment generally, often in the form of land, and sometimes anywhere from some to all of the upfront construction cost, but thereafter, the housing is sustainable without third-party subsidy, by having the full market rent units subsidize affordable and deeply affordable units.

In some respects this is similar to the Housing Now model, except that, its superior, because of public ownership, and development, the money that would be ROI for a developer can instead provide more affordable housing.

The knock is that it requires upfront capital dollars, but there is no reason we can't do that here.

Vienna, for decades has dedicated proceeds of a housing tax, very similar to our Land Transfer Tax into a dedicated account for just such a purpose.

****

TCHC does run some buildings with mixed income rentals; but those don't generally break-even, they are generally disproportionately 'affordable' and just lose less money than 100% RGI properties.

I'm not sure exactly how many buildings they have w/that model.
 
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