Population and Housing

[danbrotherston]

Okay, I don't understand what this discussion is even about, didn't we have a regional plan already, that was heavily compromised to favour sprawl developers, but none the less approved.

Now they're asking for more?!

https://www.therecord.com/news/council/2...-land.html

Also, explain to me why these folks are arguing that dense walkable developments are "unaffordable" yet the market (you know the thing which decides prices) wants sprawl instead? If housing is unaffordable, it's because it's in demand and supply hasn't met demand. Sooooooo....the market WANTS urban walkable development, not cheap sprawl.

Have to disagree with you on the regional plan favoring sprawl. Our region has some of the tightness land protection policies in the province. Waterloo has literally no more available land. It will be 100% infill from now on. Kitchener has a small slice of land in the southwest corner of the city, which will be completely developed out within the decade. Cambridge is in a similar boat, but they actually have a large tract of land near the airport, but I believe they are hoping that that is mostly employment land.  

The market actually wants both. Some people (me included) prefer to live in a downtown core with lively streets and communal amenities.  While others prefer the new detached home with a backyard. Some of the suburban developments are so popular right now you have to sign up for a lottery just to get a chance a buying.  I think the region has done a fairly good job a densifying and infilling in the cores and along the LRT spine. I do think if the region is realistic about meeting its population targets (almost a million people) it is going to have to open up the country lane boarder slightly. Plan for this, decide on strategic land to open up. Personally I can think of a few, the Bridgeport peninsula is where I would start. Fairly close to both downtown cores and can be connected easily by transit. The land between the Conestoga river and waterloo near the blackberry HQ and North Dumfries between Blair and Galt. 

The region needs to accept that more land will need to be allocated to housing needs in the future and plan ahead. The developers will eventually sidestep the region and go directly to the province, resulting in piecemeal built city.  Provide strict guidelines to new suburbs, which included density targets, minimum multi-unit residentials, grid layout that will connect with future developments, bike infrastructure, parks that aren't hidden by rows of housing, and walkable community nodes that aren't just a sea of parking at a grocery store. Maybe this is too much to ask of our 8 government planning departments. It is most definitely too much to ask of the greedy developers. 

Maybe I am wrong and the region can accommodate 300,000 people in shoebox towers in the downtowns or at various midrise infill projects that take years to build due to nimby protests. In the mean time I am glad I got into the housing market a couple years ago, because prices will probably continue to skyrocket in this region due to the artificial constraint.

I never said the regional wasn't fairly restrictive. But the approved plan was about 10x the sprawl land than the region had requested and about 1/2 of what developers asked for. Ultimately, I'd say that's a big developer win.

As for land, no, we've been building single family homes almost exclusively for 70 years or so. We have PLENTY. It is dense urban development that we need more of. When we built more of that, there will still be plenty of single family homes for those who prefer that.

And that's leaving aside the fact that we vastly VASTLY underprice sprawl. People who live in those types of homes should be paying for the cost of having those types of homes.

As for whether the region could accomodate 300,000 new people with infill. I mean, EASILY. Trivially. We've got so many subdivisions with nothing but sprawling single family home, even with only smart infill rather than completely demolishing and rebuilding, we could hit those numbers. But people would have to accept or be made to accept that a few homes on their street (I mean *every* street) will become a 3-4 story walkup. It sounds like such a small thing, but yet if you ask the NIMBYs you might as well be murdering everyone's children.

We absolutely need a culture change. But the physics or say the geometry of the situation is not a problem.