Canadian City Proposals

[WhipperSnapper]

The forum tends to favour population growth as it is required to produce towers particularly small investor units average 10 or more units per floor. It's not reality for the GTA to add upwards of 200,000 a year in documented, undocumented, permanent and, temporary people within the existing urban area and expect to have affordability.

The powers that be keep pushing the GTA economy to become even more reliant on real estate development and cheap labour. It doesn't have to be this way. Setting aside skylines and skyscrapers, what exactly is so beneficial for the GTA to double it's population 10 million people within our lives? Certainly, it will raise GDP in those city lists but, to residents, the metro's overall GDP total is as superficial as the skyline or number of skyscrapers.

It's terrible that arguably Ontario's most fertile land has already been transformed in housing. You can't have it all. You can't have explosive population growth ( not to be confused with economic growth) , affordability and, protect farmland.

[dleung]

There's a yellow belt full of privileged homeowners, which if upzoned broadly to even just 1.5 FSR, will provide more than enough density without anyone thinking about the greenbelt ever again. The greenbelt is more about limiting sprawl and auto-centric/anti-transit commutes than growing food.

[J.OT13]

Proposal in Ottawa's Centretown.

Originally Posted by rocketphish

S.E.C. 381 Kent LP is proposing a development at 381 Kent Street that takes the form of a mid-rise building consisting of a mixture of residential and commercial uses. Commercial uses are proposed at the ground floor in the northwest corner of the site. A total commercial gross floor area of 171m2 is proposed. The remainder of the ground floor envisions walk-out residential apartment units. The upper floors consist of apartment uses. A total of 218 units are proposed. The overall building is 33 metres in height, incorporating 9 storeys of living space and a rooftop amenity area with internal and external elements.

Unit distribution:

• 125 x 1 bedroom
• 56 x 2 bedroom
• 10 x 3 bedroom
• 18 x Studio
• 7 x 1 bedroom walk-out
• 2 x 2 bedroom walk-out

A park of 385 square metres is proposed for dedication to the City of Ottawa in the southwest corner of the site. This contribution rounds upward from a 10% dedication of the site area (3,822m2 x 0.1 = 382.2m2). The dedicated parkland area will coordinate with a Privately Owned Public Space (“POPS”) component which serves to extend the greenspace over the underground parking deck.

Two levels of underground parking are proposed, facilitating a total 161 vehicle parking spaces. 88 bicycle parking spaces are proposed below-grade, with an additional 22 spaces being proposed at-grade. Refuse storage is located at-grade to the east of the parking access ramp.

Architect: NEUF Architects


Development application:
https://devapps.ottawa.ca/en/applications/D07-12-23-0031/details

Location:






Siteplan:







Renderings:

[TorontoDrew]

That's pretty ugly. Not worthy of the demolition of that 60's office building imo.

[kwoldtimer]

Ugly? By Ottawa standards, this is a gem.

[WhipperSnapper]

yeah, it's an odd looking duckling. Beyond looks, I don't understand the green area on the ground floor commercial side of the development.

[Maldive]

929 Queen East | 33.35m | 9s | Core Development | Arch. Unfolded l pre-construction

Nice mid-rise on Queen East in Leslieville.


UT

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

yeah, it's an odd looking duckling. Beyond looks, I don't understand the green area on the ground floor commercial side of the development.

Developers have to pay in a park fund or provide a random corner of land for a City "park". Many opt for the random corner of land. We end up with a lot of useless grass patches instead of functional City parks.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by dleung

There's a yellow belt full of privileged homeowners, which if upzoned broadly to even just 1.5 FSR, will provide more than enough density without anyone thinking about the greenbelt ever again. The greenbelt is more about limiting sprawl and auto-centric/anti-transit commutes than growing food.

Upzoning establish communities doesn't accomplish what you think it does unless you are suggesting a governing body to go community to community forcing all owners to sell for denser redevelopment. Again, there's not enough time to assemble and develop enough low to mid rise housing within the established urban area for the rapid population growth without values exploding. We must also consider people moved to Canada for a higher standard of living. Only the most desperate will find living in a tiny, modern apartment an improvement. Even among the most desperate, there are those questioning their decision to immigrate to Canada and angered at the false advertisement of the Canadian government.

The Greenbelt was sold as a green initiative to limit sprawl and preserve sensitive ecological areas plus protect cultivation. Sprawl is typically defined as low density on SSP. These high density developments on the fringes of the GTA are still auto-centric. Sprawl and auto-centricity are separate things. Anywho, the Greenbelt was sold as reducing sprawl but, it got support for the ability to drive up real estate values. (which has transpired)

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Developers have to pay in a park fund or provide a random corner of land for a City "park". Many opt for the random corner of land. We end up with a lot of useless grass patches instead of functional City parks.

Ah. Even so, why not infront of the townhomes. A front door facing a park in Toronto commands a premium price.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by Maldive

929 Queen East | 33.35m | 9s | Core Development | Arch. Unfolded l pre-construction

Nice mid-rise on Queen East in Leslieville.


UT

This is nice, I would have preferred red brick and the top section set back a few meters but overall a good addition to the area. They will need to start excavating the site soon in order to have it decontaminated from years of being a gas station. I remember in Little Italy near Dovercourt it took a few years to get the greenlight to build after excavating the site twice to remove contaminated soil. I'm not sure what the procedure is.

[WhipperSnapper]

I like the heavy mullions on the upper part. It's the only thing I like about it. It's a very generic suburban commercial base common in the last 50 years. It doesn't transition well with the upper part . The heavy mullions that I like are ruin by some random asymmetrical gaps.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by WhipperSnapper

Upzoning establish communities doesn't accomplish what you think it does unless you are suggesting a governing body to go community to community forcing all owners to sell for denser redevelopment. Again, there's not enough time to assemble and develop enough low to mid rise housing within the established urban area for the rapid population growth without values exploding. We must also consider people moved to Canada for a higher standard of living. Only the most desperate will find living in a tiny, modern apartment an improvement. Even among the most desperate, there are those questioning their decision to immigrate to Canada and angered at the false advertisement of the Canadian government.

The Greenbelt was sold as a green initiative to limit sprawl and preserve sensitive ecological areas plus protect cultivation. Sprawl is typically defined as low density on SSP. These high density developments on the fringes of the GTA are still auto-centric. Sprawl and auto-centricity are separate things. Anywho, the Greenbelt was sold as reducing sprawl but, it got support for the ability to drive up real estate values. (which has transpired)

For the most part, you don't need to do lot assembly in Metro Toronto. Most houses sit on lots that are 40 to 50 foot wide. That's big enough for a 4 to 8 unit townhouse complex. And those ground oriented units will be a lot less costly to build than high-rise units, which should mean a home buyer saves 100's of thousands of dollars compared to a similar sized condo unit.

[WhipperSnapper]

Most houses sit on 40 to 50 foot wide lots? Perhaps

You only considering the cost of construction. You are not considering the cost to purchase and purchase power of a 100 plus unit development replacing a block of ranches versus replacing just one 2 to $3 million home with 8 units A car will be a huge quality of life improvement in any area with 40 to 50 wide lots. Improving walk ability can really only be achieved with the aforementioned mass redevelopment. Car ownership is in decline is not because the alternative modes have drastically improved over the last decade or two across the GTA. It is because people can barely afford the roof over their head. The point is that underground parking will have to be seriously considered cramming 6 to 8 units on a 40 to 50 foot wide lot.

Examples exist in which developers have turned a single family home on a less than 20 foot lot in downtown Toronto into 2 or 3 back to back to back townhomes. In every scenario, the average townhome price point hasn't come out cheaper than the original as is house. Building a replacement semi or 3 plex on that 40 to 50 foot wide lot over instead of the 6 to 8 units will probably add more to the city's affordability. Higher densities add to cost too.

[Nouvellecosse]

I don't think current construction and land cost are particularly relevant in this case. Housing prices are high mainly because of the housing shortage rather than because of the physical costs. And land is also more expensive when it's one of the few places where higher density is permitted (such as when 70% of residential land is zoned for SFHs). Prices get bid higher since those are the places that offer profitable development. But regardless, it's naturally more affordable to spread land costs over multiple households rather than having a single buyer covering it.

We also can't make relevant price comparisons based on individual anecdotes because prices are driven by large scale trends. You don't reduce housing costs by replacing an individual house with multiple homes. But replacing many individual houses with multiple times the density across the city and metro area is a totally different thing.

And that's the thing that people tend to miss in discussions about eliminating exclusionary zoning. There would be a low density of development compared to highrise nodes since there'd be a small number of new homes per unit of land. But it would result in a significant number of new units because it's such a huge land area. It's basically the exact opposite of the current paradigm where a small percentage of total residential land absorbs a huge amount of growth because the growth nodes are such high density. Instead there would be a huge amount of total growth despite the low density because it would happen across such a large area.

[logan5]

It's almost like OPEC price fixing, where a limited amount of land gets released for development, so of course prices stay high.

By the end of the year there should be a new land use policy in place that will allow 4,5, and 6 ownership units, and 8 rental units on all house lots in the City of Vancouver, and the BC government will enact a policy that will allow multiple units on any house lot province wide. This opens up a lot of land for development, and should help to lower housing costs. That's the hope anyways.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by logan5

It's almost like OPEC price fixing, where a limited amount of land gets released for development, so of course prices stay high.

By the end of the year there should be a new land use policy in place that will allow 4,5, and 6 ownership units, and 8 rental units on all house lots in the City of Vancouver, and the BC government will enact a policy that will allow multiple units on any house lot province wide. This opens up a lot of land for development, and should help to lower housing costs. That's the hope anyways.

Toronto just legalized 4-plexes city-wide - with one key problem: They did not increase the allowable zoning envelope.

There remains no new actual GFA constructable.

It may allow more units to reach the market as now you can build three 1,000sf units instead of a single 3,000sf unit... but the price per SF will likely remain pretty similar between the two, so if it didn't pencil as a SFH redevelopment, it likely won't pencil as a triplex or quadplex.

I would be surprised if more than a few hundred homes a year are created from the policy shift.

Toronto's housing construction target is about 30,000 units annually. A long way to go for that.

Multiplexes legalization is a small bit to help, but it's a small bit of a wider solution.

The real solutions involves actually upzoning large tracts of the city to densities above what exists currently and making permitting processes quick and painless for that development.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Toronto just legalized 4-plexes city-wide - with one key problem: They did not increase the allowable zoning envelope.

There remains no new actual GFA constructable.

It may allow more units to reach the market as now you can build three 1,000sf units instead of a single 3,000sf unit... but the price per SF will likely remain pretty similar between the two, so if it didn't pencil as a SFH redevelopment, it likely won't pencil as a triplex or quadplex.

I would be surprised if more than a few hundred homes a year are created from the policy shift.

Toronto's housing construction target is about 30,000 units annually. A long way to go for that.

Multiplexes legalization is a small bit to help, but it's a small bit of a wider solution.

The real solutions involves actually upzoning large tracts of the city to densities above what exists currently and making permitting processes quick and painless for that development.

Yeah I forgot one key point in my previous post - the FSR goes from 0.86 (maximum FSR for a secondary suite and laneway suite) to 1.0 FSR (for the CoV), which is a significant increase in the amount of buildable sq feet.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

And that's the thing that people tend to miss in discussions about eliminating exclusionary zoning. There would be a low density of development compared to highrise nodes since there'd be a small number of new homes per unit of land. But it would result in a significant number of new units because it's such a huge land area. It's basically the exact opposite of the current paradigm where a small percentage of total residential land absorbs a huge amount of growth because the growth nodes are such high density. Instead there would be a huge amount of total growth despite the low density because it would happen across such a large area.

It's not being missed. It's been thrown completely out of proportion. Land availability is not the reason a teardown on a large lot is valued at 1.5 to $2 million dollars. It's investor driven and has been encouraged for already two decades!!!!

The purpose here is to find solutions through supplying ourselves out of a affordable housing crisis amidst record population growth. The result is warehousing people at the cost of quality of life. What Toronto needs is a pause over bandaid like building 1000s of new units in school districts that are over capacity or, another example catch up on transit initiatives. Despite the transit boom, the amount being built and the length of time needed to build it is insufficient to keep pace. What we need is a pause and get back to community planning .

Cityplace takes a lot of flack; much of it deserved. However, you can see the time taking to develop the master plan over the typical master plan today which is simply housing, housing, housing

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by Maldive

929 Queen East | 33.35m | 9s | Core Development | Arch. Unfolded l pre-construction

Nice mid-rise on Queen East in Leslieville.


UT

That's going to be a nice addition to my old neighbourhood. It will replace a weird gas station/auto repair/micro-strip mall thingy: https://goo.gl/maps/XgTtdhnficPK6kF99