Quote:
Originally Posted by YOWetal
This all looks interesting and echoes a lot of previous commentary by many in various threads. Is there a North American best practice we could emulate? Not to be too skeptical but I wonder if some of this is realistic even if voters were willing to adopt it pay for it etc.
Japan and Europe have completely different taxation and economic structures that can't be directly adopted with land use changes alone.
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Montreal. Has decent density. You don't see too many skyscrapers or 50 storey condos. Lots of low rise apartments and duplexes. A lot of the older duplexes and small single family homes and planning around them is coming to be seen as a real model for the rest of North America. It's unfortunate that Ottawa is increasingly falling into the Toronto model instead of the Montreal model. We build 50 storey condos in downtown Ottawa (well Bayview...) and then allow detached housing subdivisions in say Riverside South.
And it's not just that we allow detached housing, it's the style of detached housing we allow. We allow homes with massive lot footprints. They have detached houses in Europe and Japan, contrary to popular beliefs in these parts. What they don't have are large backyards and massive front lawns that could themselves fit a car. They have one lawn that is functional, front or back. It's usually just large enough for a patio set, a small storage shed, 2-3 vegetable patches. If it's the back that this is the functional yard, the front of the house is built steps from the curb. If they have a garage (and these aren't popular), they are usually detached on the side of the house or in the backyard with the laneway providing access. The homes themselves are smaller. 1000-1500 sqft is typical with two stories. Bungalows are rare. And if they are semis or towns, three stories is much more common. Leaf through these pics and you'll get an idea what European subdivisions are like:
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-ne...-90051239.html
The other aspect of this is zoning and mixed use. Just go across to Gatineau. Corner stores are more prevalent. Our subdivisions are retail deserts until you hit the subdivision plaza a mile away. Which for a city under snow for 6 months per year is terrible. You can't get off the bus, buy a carton of milk and then walk home in most neighbourhoods in Ottawa. I really don't see why builders can't be pushed to build more of these kinds of subdivisions. They do decently well with townhouses. They need to pushed more on detached and semi-detached. And a bit more on the urban planning.
Lastly, city wide, the amount of landspace given to parking is a real problem. Look at a satellite image of Ottawa. Easily a third of any settled area is asphalt for parking. Multi-level parking structures are expensive. But they need to be imposed on developers, businesses, etc if we are going to build a denser city. Boggles my mind that transit park n rides aren't multistorey with charges to fully or partially recover costs. Or that malls are allowed without multi-level parking. The Trainyards, for example. Just wow. Massive development inside the Greenbelt and the city allowed that.....
Effectively, you want to know what great urban planning was? It's what every Canadian city had a century ago: streetcar suburbs. To this day, those old streetcar suburb hoods are still the best places to lives. Main street with streetcar upfront with some apartments and mixed use blocks. Small detached or semis on the sidestreets. Easy walk to retail, to transit and even schools for kids.