Quote:
Originally Posted by DizzyEdge
I think you could have support (or lack of outrage anyway) between 16th and McKnight, for something half that height with the occasional development of that height, but north of that the quality and shape of housing adjacent to Centre markedly improves, and you would probably run into trouble there. I'm sure the fact that Tuxedo and Mount Pleasant usually run about 50:50 owner occupied to renters, particularly Tuxedo Park which a few years ago was 60:40 rental:owner, helps in that regard.
I think you could have something like this
http://maps.google.com/?ll=51.074116,-11...olbFMteBZmsQoqmw&cbp=12,247.94,,0,-12.75
(but hopefully a better style) built all the way from 16th to Mcknight with nary a peep, probably even 50% taller. As for structures the height of what you showed as an example, I could see something like that at major intersections (16th/centre, Mcknight/centre). But north of McKnight would get iffy. |
I think that north of McKnight is the segment where limited tower developments could actually be built in the future. There could theoretically be a major core around the area of 16 Ave (it could really become a secondary downtown after the primary one becomes nearly built out in the not too distant future) but beyond that, I would think that the area south of McKnight would generally be restricted to low/mid rise development. It is only north of McKnight, specifically the Superstore at 72 Ave and the Beddington Town Centre at Beddington Boulevard, where large enough commercial sites exist that towers could be accommodated with minimal affect on the existing residential building stock. There would still likely be opposition but it would be more akin to the opposition to University City @ Brentwood TOD/Ovation @ Westgate/London @ Hertitage as opposed to the kind of opposition that would come from dropping a tower in a residential area. That is to say, people might complain but it would happen anyway.
That said, it really doesn't take much in the way of single family homes being turned into low rise apartments to significantly increase an areas density. Already, some of the communities along Centre street have a significant proportion of their housing units in the form of apartments despite the vast majority of their land area being dedicated to SFHs. When a 50' lot means either a single house or a four story apartment with 16 units it is easy to see that density can increase substantially with limited change to a neighbourhood's character. A community with 500 housing units, all in the form of SFHs, can end up with 1250 units by only redeveloping 10% of the building stock into small apartment buildings that can easily fit into the area with limited opposition. That easily doubles the population of a neighbourhood without anyone really even noticing. Combine that effect with the rest of the housing stock slowly being replaced with infills at the rate of two new SFHs for every old one, and it isn't very hard to see a major population boom in the area between Crowchild, McKnight, Deerfoot, and the Bow River. I just don't think it would be that hard to turn the current 150 000 people that live in the area into 300 000 or more people. Indeed, it will likely happen eventually no matter what we do. If/when it does, the existing bus system (given that the road system is already essentially maxed out) will not be able to cope with the demand.
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