11-29-2015, 01:17 AM
I had a friend who rented in a house on Church St, but moved to Preston due to rents a couple years ago. However he didn't work in the core but rather at various auto-oriented locations in Cambridge and Breslau.
All in all though, I don't think there will be too much gentrification in K-W. Waterloo Region doesn't have big city traffic/commuting problems like the GTA, and it's relatively decentralized, it's not like all the good jobs in Waterloo Region are concentrated in Downtown Kitchener. So compared to Toronto, the demand for living near good transit is going to skew much more towards people looking to save money on transportation rather than people looking to save time commuting. Housing costs might go up, but the increases will be largely compensated for by the reduced transportation costs.
Even in Toronto, gentrification is not happening everywhere that has rapid transit. Rapid transit isn't necessarily enough, you also need a certain kind of housing stock, maybe a certain kind of retail experience and vibrancy or sometimes more potential for exclusivity as opposed to being mixed income. The Dufferin & Bloor area in Toronto is only just beginning to gentrify, after having the subway for 50 years. Marlee Ave area is still not really gentrifying. The areas near the Danforth subway from Main St to Eglinton East still aren't really gentrifying and in fact many areas have declined while having subway access.
Regarding Sheppard East, I think that area has always had a mix of incomes but much of the SFH areas have skewed upper-middle class for a while no? Is a doubling in prices really unusual in Toronto? Housing in many parts of Toronto has been getting more unaffordable, I'm not sure if Sheppard East has been seeing greater than average increases. Also this is more difficult to notice, because it's a gradual process, but has the older apartment stock filtered down, for example around the Peanut and Parkway Forest? The thing to keep in mind is when a developer buys up some older affordable apartments and townhouses and replaces them with more expensive high-rise condos, or an affordable and/or run-down building gets fixed up or modernized, that's a change that happens very suddenly, but only impacts a certain portion of the housing stock. Filtering down would typically affect most of the housing stock, but happen over a period of decades. Looking at income maps of the Sheppard East area, incomes have been fairly constant overall, although maybe things will change after the latest (2010) data.
All in all I would say it depends on
-Is transit more about saving money or saving time
-How many high paying jobs become accessible thanks to the transit line
-How much of the city's housing stock is covered by transit of comparable quality
-More qualitative characteristics of built form, housing stock type, what the neighbourhood is like
I think that as long as new housing is allowed to be built in decent quantities in K-W, which means not just allowing high density on a few sites but also moderate densities on a larger amount of sites*... and also parking requirements are relatively low, then there won't be too much gentrification. More well-to-do people will move into the new condos and nicer historic homes, but older apartments will remain affordable and the formerly expensive housing built 0-10 years ago will begin to filter down.
For Hurontario, there's might be some shifting around of incomes between individual neighbourhoods, but I'd expect that incomes in the corridor overall will stay about the same. The Hurontario LRT is not going to be providing a direct link to Downtown Toronto, which is rather far away LRT or not, or even a direct link to the biggest white-collar job centres of Mississauga. The data suggests incomes have actually been declining along this corridor in the last few decades, so perhaps all the LRT will do is prevent them from declining further.
*IE construction costs per sf are generally lower the shorter the building. Allowing development to spread out across more land means it doesn't have to be as high to meet demand. Many of the lots in Cedar Hill for example are quite deep so you could built backyard cottages, rear-extensions and such. The older neighbourhoods of Fredericton are like that for example.
All in all though, I don't think there will be too much gentrification in K-W. Waterloo Region doesn't have big city traffic/commuting problems like the GTA, and it's relatively decentralized, it's not like all the good jobs in Waterloo Region are concentrated in Downtown Kitchener. So compared to Toronto, the demand for living near good transit is going to skew much more towards people looking to save money on transportation rather than people looking to save time commuting. Housing costs might go up, but the increases will be largely compensated for by the reduced transportation costs.
Even in Toronto, gentrification is not happening everywhere that has rapid transit. Rapid transit isn't necessarily enough, you also need a certain kind of housing stock, maybe a certain kind of retail experience and vibrancy or sometimes more potential for exclusivity as opposed to being mixed income. The Dufferin & Bloor area in Toronto is only just beginning to gentrify, after having the subway for 50 years. Marlee Ave area is still not really gentrifying. The areas near the Danforth subway from Main St to Eglinton East still aren't really gentrifying and in fact many areas have declined while having subway access.
Regarding Sheppard East, I think that area has always had a mix of incomes but much of the SFH areas have skewed upper-middle class for a while no? Is a doubling in prices really unusual in Toronto? Housing in many parts of Toronto has been getting more unaffordable, I'm not sure if Sheppard East has been seeing greater than average increases. Also this is more difficult to notice, because it's a gradual process, but has the older apartment stock filtered down, for example around the Peanut and Parkway Forest? The thing to keep in mind is when a developer buys up some older affordable apartments and townhouses and replaces them with more expensive high-rise condos, or an affordable and/or run-down building gets fixed up or modernized, that's a change that happens very suddenly, but only impacts a certain portion of the housing stock. Filtering down would typically affect most of the housing stock, but happen over a period of decades. Looking at income maps of the Sheppard East area, incomes have been fairly constant overall, although maybe things will change after the latest (2010) data.
All in all I would say it depends on
-Is transit more about saving money or saving time
-How many high paying jobs become accessible thanks to the transit line
-How much of the city's housing stock is covered by transit of comparable quality
-More qualitative characteristics of built form, housing stock type, what the neighbourhood is like
I think that as long as new housing is allowed to be built in decent quantities in K-W, which means not just allowing high density on a few sites but also moderate densities on a larger amount of sites*... and also parking requirements are relatively low, then there won't be too much gentrification. More well-to-do people will move into the new condos and nicer historic homes, but older apartments will remain affordable and the formerly expensive housing built 0-10 years ago will begin to filter down.
For Hurontario, there's might be some shifting around of incomes between individual neighbourhoods, but I'd expect that incomes in the corridor overall will stay about the same. The Hurontario LRT is not going to be providing a direct link to Downtown Toronto, which is rather far away LRT or not, or even a direct link to the biggest white-collar job centres of Mississauga. The data suggests incomes have actually been declining along this corridor in the last few decades, so perhaps all the LRT will do is prevent them from declining further.
*IE construction costs per sf are generally lower the shorter the building. Allowing development to spread out across more land means it doesn't have to be as high to meet demand. Many of the lots in Cedar Hill for example are quite deep so you could built backyard cottages, rear-extensions and such. The older neighbourhoods of Fredericton are like that for example.