Denser suburbs recommended
City council adopts report on designing new neighbourhoods
By David Hutton, The StarPhoenix
August 26, 2009 9:01 AM
The city's plan for designing future neighbourhoods calls for denser and more populated suburbs where services are less than a five-minute walk away from as many residents as possible.
The recommendations, part of a report on new neighbourhood design that has been adopted by city council, calls for a batch of changes to the city's development standards, including increasing new neighbourhoods to a target population of more than 10,000 people, from 5,000, and upping the population density of new areas with smaller lots and more condominiums and townhouses, particularly along major roads.
While none of the recommendations are binding, they will help chart a strategy for developing Saskatoon's suburbs and guide how to design infill developments in the core neighbourhoods, said Laura Hartney, the city's manager of future growth. The challenge is ensuring the design principles are marketable and in vogue when the neighbourhoods come on stream, she said.
"We're not Hong Kong; we're not Manhattan. We need to have something that feels right for Saskatoon," Hartney said.
With Rosewood beginning to progress, plans approved for Evergreen and other yet-to-be named neighbourhoods envisioned for the west, northeast and east edges of Saskatoon after that, detailed forethought is necessary, Hartney said.
Due to a declining birth rate, new neighbourhoods should have populations of more than 10,000, at least, to support an elementary school, the report said.
The report, commissioned in 2005, recommends increasing the city's density target in new neighbourhoods from the current mark of five units per acre to at least six, with more mixed-use housing along the transit corridors and near suburban centres and schools.
City planners are considering a density target as high as seven or eight units per acre with more apartment-style housing options in new areas for the expanding ends of the home-buying spectrum: Young first-time buyers and baby boomers looking to downsize in retirement, Hartney said.
That means looking back to the past to move to the future, designing neighbourhoods similar to Varsity View, Nutana and City Park, with modern appeal, she said. The back-to-the-future approach includes a recommendation to integrate elements of the old grid road system to make it easier to travel from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.
Builders are on stream with the move toward designs that encourage walking, cycling and transit-riding, said Alan Thomarat, CEO of the Saskatoon & Region Homebuilders Association. There is a dire need in the city for more entry-level housing with access to transit given the growth in the number of immigrants moving to the city, he said.
Some of those principles are already at work in Evergreen in the city's northeast, which is modelled as a "sustainable urban village" with 12,600 people, mixed housing and commercial zones and a density target of 8.6 units per acre.
The denser planning means new neighbourhoods should be more "walkable" with major amenities, including transit stops, schools, parks and stores, less than five minutes from most homes, the report recommends. The 450-metre mark is generally accepted as how far people are willing to walk before they'll drive or take transit, Hartney said.
"You shouldn't have to get in your car to get the proverbial loaf of bread or gallon of milk," Hartney said.
The city's transit planning has come in too late in the design of new neighbourhoods in the past, the report said, which has led to less-than-ideal transit stops that serve few people, in some areas.
"If (transit planning) is an afterthought, it's going to feel that way to the people that are living in the neighbourhood, so you get used to using your car or another mode of transportation," Hartney said.
The report also suggests the city should pursue dense urban housing near mass transit when it builds infill developments. As well, the city should change zoning policies to allow for granny or garage suites to create more affordable housing, the report said, something that's currently being considered at city hall.
SAMPLE OF HOUSING DENSITY BY NEIGHBOURHOOD (in units per acre):
Adelaide-Churchill: 3.5
Arbor Creek: 4.4
Briarwood: 3.0
Caswell Hill: 5.2
City Park: 8.0
College Park: 4.6
Eastview: 4.1
Erindale: 3.6
Evergreen: 8.6 (projected)
Exhibition: 4.2
Fairhaven: 6.0
Forest Grove: 5.3
Lakeview: 5.6
Lawson Heights: 5.4
Montgomery Place: 1.1
Nutana: 7.4
Pleasant Hill: 7.1
Riversdale: 3.7
Source: City of Saskatoon neighbourhood profiles
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