[Urbanarchit]

Originally Posted by Nowhere

There isn't much the city can do to stop sprawl, since the provincial government forced the city to allow more sprawl than Jim Watson wanted. Queen's Park requires the city to have enough available land for 15 years of sprawl. Anyway, everyone would start moving to Gatineau if we were allowed to stop it.

Not that I'm defending sprawl, but there could be ways to mitigate the negative effects it has on cities by rectifying the problems created by it. My understanding is sprawl is bad for several reasons:

• it's usually low-density development that forces people to travel by car for everyday tasks like work, school, groceries, and increases people's travel distance daily to accomplish these tasks while making public transportation less efficient;
• it takes away arable land that could be reserved for food production (agriculture) or left natural as forests and fields to the benefit of various animals and other important environmental phenomena that we take for granted (rainwater absorption, combatting Urban Heat Island Effect, CO2 absorption, among others);
• increases distance, and therefore amount, of services (hydro, sewage, roads, etc) needed for the sprawling communities; and
• contributes to social isolation due to its form that prevents spontaneous or common encounters with others.

I'm sure there are other problems we could add to this list or subdivide the first point, but those seem like the most significant. By understanding these issues we can work to address their negative impacts on the city, which of course would require changes to our laws/ by-laws, building codes, etc. to ensure that when we do build new communities they meet proper standards that would exacerbate these problems.

One way would be to set up standards for how neighbourhoods are designed by making the current curlicue streets and parking lots favoured in present suburban designs illegal. New neighbourhood designs would include traditional main streets and civic facilities (schools, community centres, etc.) nearby such that residents could walk there. As well, street and block designs made such that there is a general grid design making travel (walking) distances shorter and block designs easier to accommodate an eventual intensification and redevelopment in the future. Similar to urban and streetcar-type neighbourhood designs. There should be more emphasis on building mixed-use and multi-unit residential buildings, in addition to building homes closer together.

A second measure is to create a comprehensive transit plan for the city and region along which these communities will be built. We can reserve land intended for a transitway (LRT, BRT, etc.) where a transit station is to be built every so often. They need not be as frequently spaced as within the city limits, but there could be space along the lines at which new stations could be constructed should the demand arise. Each community will develop around the transit stations to enable people to get around and into the city easily without cars.

Thirdly, these communities would be designed as towns around these transit stations. The areas beside the stations would be reserved for higher density developments with shops, offices, apartments/ condos and other things you'd expect in a town centre at least within a 500m radius distance (though less can be zoned provided that the neighbourhood is open for intensification eventually). Higher density doesn't mean highrise, but a base of 3-4 stories in areas immediately beside the station would suffice with detached homes elsewhere, with upzoning permitted if the need arises in the future. This way you can build the low-rise, detached house neighbourhood many people want with a traditional town centre around a transit station that's easy to access and local. This way people may not need to travel to other places as they may have amenities, jobs, and apartments (to live in or downsize into) they like locally, and transit access to other communities and the urban areas of Ottawa.

With this, you could control sprawl, centre it around transit, create new communities that have suburban and urban qualities that people like and look for in housing (which contributes to why urban neighbourhoods are sought after and becoming so expensive). This would also reduce the need for people to use cars to get around, while creating an actual community to spend time and socialize in. Services wouldn't need to travel too far to be provided to residents, and the growth pattern couldbe controlled so that it radiates from "denser" transit stations instead of spreading out as they currently do and taking over the country side. I kind of imagine this similar to how Japan does urban and suburban development (which is all based on national standards, if I might add). Obviously, there should be emphasis on intensification downtown and in the urban and near-urban neighbourhoods first and foremost, and then retrofitting and redesigning our current suburbs to be more "urban" or at least eliminate some of the problems they create.

Also, I just really love trains and wish we had more of them. I'm envious of how Japan has built train infrastructure and how a train transit culture developed. I watch videos like this POV train ride and find it so enjoyable. The neighbourhoods are suburban yet dense, and are served by decent transit, even in smaller towns.

I just mean to say, we could be doing sprawl better to mitigate against its negative effects, and help with being more sustainable and resilient in face of climate change.