Elfrida
 

In other news, disco rules and bell bottoms are groovy.... Welcome to Hamilton....where it's always the 70's

Right!? This is absolutely bonkers!!! 80,000 new people should be concentrated in the downtown core where we already have excellent transit, infrastructure and tons of parking lots and low-rise buildings ripe for skyscrapers to accommodate that big an increase!

Why are we planning more sprawl???

They are planning more "sprawl" because thats what people want. No normal person aspires to live in some shoebox sized apartment in the sky. Any politician that tries to limit peoples options will be tossed from office. Just look up at what we ended up with after people got fed up with the liberals trying to engineer peoples choices on where they can live. The greenbelt which in theory is a great idea has been the main cause of rising housing prices in S. Ontario. If you try to hem in development land prices increase and housing prices increase accordingly.

It's what people THOUGHT they wanted in the late nineties up to the mid 2000's in Toronto too and then they realize We how much of an inconvenience it is to live in suburbia and they came flocking back to downtown in droves ....the issue is greed ...developers could make nicer boxes in the sky but why would they ? They've learned that they can do whatever they want and people are stuck with it

This. I would love a shoebox in the sky. Noise from the hallway, and a terrible layout and dinky bathroom suck though.

I am curious if they increased the minimum size for unit types if that would help. Is there even a legal definition for a style of condo? Like what would be considered a 1bdrm? I have seen 1bdrm condos as low as 400sqft. Maybe they should create a legal minimum for different bdrm sizes? Bachelor can be as small as 300sqft, 1bdrm can be as small as 550 sqft, et cetera.

That would stop bachelor sized condos being considered 1bdrm.

Please explain the desirability, prices and allure of hoods like downtown Dundas, Westdale downtown Burlington and Locke South if what people REALLY want is car-dependant sprawl.

Condos alone withstood housing correction, Re/MAX says
(Toronto Star, Tess Kalinowski, Nov 13 2018)

Condos represent more than a third of residential property sales in the Toronto area so far this year, accounting for about 25,000 sales or 36.7 per cent of real estate transactions between January and October this year.

That is up from 30.1 per cent in the same period five years ago, including both new and resale units.

It is the only housing market segment that maintained its upward momentum through the 2017 market correction, according to a report from Re/MAX released on Tuesday. The average price of a condo apartment rose about 8 per cent or about $40,000 year over year in the period between January and October — to $551,761, from $512,552.

Condo townhome prices remained essentially flat in the same period, says the report.

Read it in full here.

> No normal person aspires to live in some shoebox sized apartment in the sky.


All these poor bums who have to live in such hell-holes. Too bad none of them are normal

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/462/32...ece1c9c2_b.jpg

http://athenaposters.ca/wp-content/u...ia-Skyline.jpg

http://medias.photodeck.com/c515cef3...23_xgaplus.jpg

I think Hamilton doesn't have a minimum apartment size, but they have a minimum average apartment size.

Theres demand for both suburbs and condos downtown. Different type of ppl want different things. You cant force ppl into one or the other. Choice is fine.

The Greenbelt has not been the main cause of rising housing costs.

There has been one direct causation of rising housing costs: supply.

There have been factors influencing lack of supply, and the Greenbelt is one, but the positives of protecting the Greenbelt far outweigh the negatives of letting it be developed. Additionally, the abolishment of the OMB, the strengthening of rent control by the OLP, the increase in development charges, increased usage of Section 37 "community benefits", inclusionary zoning, etc. have all had impacts on the supply.

I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion the province needs to take more planning power away from cities. Places to Grow should be updated with higher density targets in more areas. The OMB has to be brought back or cities like ours will run high density development out of town unless it appeases every onerous request. Section 37 has to be reformed, or ideally, repealed. In it's current form, it's essentially legal extortion of new development where the local councilmember can bargain for anything they want from developers of which the costs get passed on not to the general community that the "community benefits" are benefiting, but on to the few people who will buy or rent in that development. I was watching TVO last night and the Green Leader Mike Schreiner called for 20% inclusionary zoning provincewide. If you want to kill the housing market even further, thats how you do it. The costs inclusionary zoning, like "community benefits", gets passed on to the buyers or renters in that one building. The only inclusionary zoning that would have a truly minimal effect on the housing market, in my opinion and research, would be one where the city or province has the right to purchase/manage say 5-10% of the new units at their market price and then rent them out, otherwise you are unfairly pushing the cost of those on to a select few and driving up the cost of new market housing which should never be the goal.

absolutely spot on comment here.
I realize it's a different animal in major global cities like NY, Vancouver, TO etc... but Hamilton should NOT be dealing with the unaffordability issues we're facing. There's few jobs here. Not only are we not 'global', we're not even regional. Ask someone in Buffalo, Rochester or Detroit to name the most commonly famous things about Hamilton.

Our city being run by NDP/NIMBY types has led to this man-made crisis.

Exactly.

You do realize that in both Toronto and Vancouver the percentage of people living in the core areas is still very small. Most people in those cities live in suburban areas. The pictures may look impressive but the reality is quite different.

you may want to do some research on the worlds most successful cities. Spoiler alert: they don't look like suburban/upper Stoney Creek.

Read this page with data from Vancouver.
62% of households in that city live in multi-storey buildings. Of the 38% of housing that is 'ground-oriented', only 15% is single family. Rest are attached or duplexed etc…..

https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/housi...fact-sheet.pdf


Rental vs. Owner stats from NYC:
https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-...ents-data-show

That vancouver document is skewed data. It only includes the city of van and not the metro or the burbs. You arent comparing apples to apples. City of van only has 600k ppl located in the core. Of course you have high numbers of multi res residents. Lets see the numbers when you bring in the metro of 2.4 million. Many more ppl in greater van are living outside the core. BC hasnt amalgamated their citys like ontario has.

Compare a similar document using metro van stats with its suburbs and it is more accurate as we’re discussing Hamilton’s suburban growth.

Also, comparing Hamilton to NYC on rental vs owner stats. Not sure what the comparison is trying to point out. It’s no secret ppl in nyc cant afford to buy.

Finally, the reason both those places are dense with high land values and unaffordability with limited sprawl is because they are citys on islands..... thats the main reason why they dont look like upper stoney creek.

I agree. Why should buyers and renters of a new building have to pay for social housing? That should fall on all of us. Although it is very convenient for current taxpayers.

I've been saying that the solution to the affordability crisis is easy.

- 3 story minimum across the entire city, period
- 4-5 story goal across the city
- parkland every Xkm^2
- all streets must be straight/grid pattern with no dead ends (unless absolutely necessary and/or can be explained to exist for a good reason.
- all buildings must aim to be mixed use
- all retail and commercial must assume nobody within 1km will drive, and therefore only generate parking for those who would realistically be driving, depending on the rarity of the type of store (ex. coffee shop would have almost no parking, or none)
- rental buildings pay no property tax for 5 years and will not be subject to rent controls for 25 years

Just force the city to build like Paris. The value of detached homes and their respective property taxes would increase, and housing developments would be bought up to redevelop into condos and rentals.

I don't believe it will ever happen, but at the very least Elrida could build a Locke St/James StN/Ottawa St style dense area. So everyone doesn't need to drive literally everywhere. Would help with transit too.

Here's the three concept plans I posted last year in the Suburban Communities: Proposed/Approved/Under Construction thread. The city is asking for input on the plans, so I'd urge everyone here to get involved and let your ideas be heard before it's too late.

Concept 1:

https://i.imgur.com/GQDBmjs.jpg
source

Within the context of existing and planned development:


Concept 2:

https://i.imgur.com/tntgBSO.jpg
source

Within the context of existing and planned development:


Concept 3:

https://i.imgur.com/fe6GCIx.jpg
source

Within the context of existing and planned development:


More Info: www.hamilton.ca/city-planning/planning-community/elfrida-growth-area-study