Great Canadian Skyline Thread II

[Coldrsx]

https://www.linkedin.com/company/explore...tainer&lici=8FKhRY083uS4DPbBEZZV1Q%3D%3D

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

And when people say they want high-rises they imagine Manhattan, but in Waterloo they look like this: https://goo.gl/maps/hJt1332shkadAV237

It's mostly just an exceptionally ugly place, regardless of housing typology. There's otherwise no reason that missing middle neighbourhoods can't look something more like this with the right regulations & culture in place: https://goo.gl/maps/nBUGhHA6PkuCBouPA

Narrow streets like that can be great if lined with a variety of colourful and interesting buildings, but not when lined by block-long repetitive monotony. There's barely even room for any trees with the few that are there looking feeble enough they could die at any second. All that is ok with more interesting architecture composed of narrow individual buildings like this for example. Or this. Obviously those are older and their visual interest comes from the older styles along with the general weathering of time. But there's a lot more to it than that. It's the variety of shapes, colours and materials.

Lowrise apartment buildings like these can easily be plopped down in any residential area as long as exclusionary zoning doesn't ban it. And so could midrises like this or thisthis. They're not architectural marvels but they can be mixed with a variety of other forms like houses to make for an interesting streetscape. And in suburban areas, the traditional bastion of banality, I'd just be happy to see more stuff like this rather than just detached houses and highrises.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Even Montreal doesn't build Plateaus anymore, not even in the inner city.

Hence why it's the missing middle.

Originally Posted by hipster duck

One reason "missing middle" will not look like that Amsterdam example is that that neighbourhood is a complete new build by a single developer. To achieve that on our yellow belt, one developer would have to be successful in buying out both sides of an existing SFH street, demolishing it all, and building a townhouse area from scratch.

Beyond the logistical nightmare of attempting that, I don't know if that pencils out in Toronto or Vancouver. That's the other thing about "missing middle" - it's been sold to the public as a gentle density increase that will lead to affordability, but I don't see how existing land costs can be recouped through lowrise construction and still be affordable to the masses.

I don't want to be this forum's Randall O'Toole, and I'm sorry if this post strays too much from skylines, but I feel like the whole "missing middle" idea has been sold as a panacea to our housing crisis without too much real thought.

That Amsterdam shot perhaps wasn't a great example. I was just trying to find a quick shot of modern development with moderate density & attractive architecture. Here's perhaps a better example of what missing middle can actually look like in a more contemporary Canadian context: https://goo.gl/maps/uLDfVn32QLFhbPYV9

You're not wrong in that missing middle is not a panacea to our housing crisis, but the fact is that it's currently not even allowed in the vast majority of most of our cities is part of the problem. Simply permitting it and reducing barriers to its development (ie. development fees, etc.) is at least a start, and an essential part of a multi-pronged solution. The fact that it's easier & cheaper within our current planning regime to consolidate multiple lots into a single McMansion or to replace a triplex with an SFH than it is to sever lots or replace an SFH with a triplex is just plain old bad policy.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

It's mostly just an exceptionally ugly place, regardless of housing typology. There's otherwise no reason that missing middle neighbourhoods can't look something more like this with the right regulations & culture in place: https://goo.gl/maps/nBUGhHA6PkuCBouPA

Am I the only who finds that Amsterdam street doesn't look like a very nice place to live?

It looks like a reasonably well-maintained version of those streets where those violent cop shows taking place in Baltimore are set.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

One reason "missing middle" will not look like that Amsterdam example is that that neighbourhood is a complete new build by a single developer. To achieve that on our yellow belt, one developer would have to be successful in buying out both sides of an existing SFH street, demolishing it all, and building a townhouse area from scratch.

Beyond the logistical nightmare of attempting that, I don't know if that pencils out in Toronto or Vancouver. That's the other thing about "missing middle" - it's been sold to the public as a gentle density increase that will lead to affordability, but I don't see how existing land costs can be recouped through lowrise construction and still be affordable to the masses.

I don't want to be this forum's Randall O'Toole, and I'm sorry if this post strays too much from skylines, but I feel like the whole "missing middle" idea has been sold as a panacea to our housing crisis without too much real thought.

If land costs were too high for lowrise construction, no houses would be built. Only highrises. But lots in detached SFH areas in high demand metros will in fact be built on quickly even if with just houses. But of course whatever is built there won't be affordable because the whole cost to develop the plot is being carried by one person or family. So the only people who will build on it are wealthy and willing/able to pay a premium for a detached SFH. But if suddenly all residential areas could host dense low/mid rise development with say, 2-4x more people on the same land, then that same lot would be within reach of more people. Not everyone of course, but many of the people that would have that new option would previously have been competing for other housing and having them withdraw from that competition would lower its cost.

Land costs - and real estate costs more broadly - are not fixed. They go up and down on the basis of supply, demand, and regulations. If prices are artificially high because one of the ingredients has restrained supply, it doesn't follow that prices will remain artificially high once supply is no longer artificially restrained and that therefore it's pointless to release the constraints.

I just listened to the episode of 99pi podcast that talked about the missing middle in Toronto and after discussing the history, they even had examples of developers who wanted to build other types of housing by couldn't due to institutional restraints.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Am I the only who finds that Amsterdam street doesn't look like a very nice place to live?

No it's kind of awful. I mean I'd still take it over a bland, low density suburb, but awful for what one would expect of a dense, urban street in western Europe.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

No it's kind of awful. I mean I'd still take it over a bland, low density suburb, but awful for what one would expect of a dense, urban street in western Europe.

I think some context would help, because the rest of the area looks like converted industrial warehousing into residential flats. That, and summer streetview is always going to look better than winter streetview, especially on streets that need foiliage in order to look appealing.

There are plenty of other examples of Amsterdam providing a very good pedestrian realm and residential experience that aren't located in former industrial zones, but I think this area looks fine considering. It even has tram access to major stations.

(a very quick google search tells me this neighbourhood was previously the docking area for the Dutch East Indies Company)

[thewave46]

Ottawa is hard to quite describe without getting into more detail. There's no one way to quite nail the city.

It's almost two different cities. There's the section roughly bounded by the Rideau River to the east and south and Parkdale Ave./Experimental Farm to the west. It roughly correlates with the old city boundaries. It seems like a proper aspiring 'capital'-ish city of a small country, with the core having some proper gems.

Alas, this small country being Canada, it wasn't really the nexus of anything but the federal government in a serious way. The business and culture hubs were Montreal, then Toronto.

Then there's the suburbs of Gloucester, Nepean, Kanata, and Orleans, which are very Ontario-ish post-WWII suburban in nature. That influence somewhat finds its way into the core - the Commie-block Lees and Bronson apartments will attest to this, as does the various banal office buildings in Centretown. Value-engineered for mass production zone.

As for the pulse of the place? The mandarins (good descriptive term, Acajack) definitely view it as a waystation on their path. There's less long-term elite power-broker base. You either are headed on up in the world to the various business or diplomatic capitals of the country/world, or you're headed back to where you came from. It leaves the top-tier world capital types kind of breathing thin air. For an allegedly important place in national context, it feels extremely unimportant.

So, the lifers that remain are the lower rungs of the ladder. They're nice people and they have that easy, unpretentious vibe. Which is nice and easy to break into coming from podunksville, but those 'higher ambition' types kind of fizzle out in Ottawa at a point. So, one is left with a larger version of a smaller Ontario city, somewhat slovenly-dressed as that may be.

Small European countries generally had their primate city and capital as the same city, so they've hundreds of years of pre-modern layers and ambitions. They're the nexus of that particular culture, the natural gravitational centre of the country. Business, government, and culture intertwined; anyone with big ambition and dreams in Sweden more than likely ended up in Stockholm at some point. Foreign cities were....foreign. One might go for awhile to get the abroad bit, but there would be no other city in the world that was the next rung up and still was Swedish.

Ottawa kind of misses the mark. Maybe not as badly as Canberra, but it was never the natural centre of this country. It was an artificial choice for reasons. So, the other legs of the power structure of a culture never coalesced in one location as they did in Europe. Double whammy: It always walks in the diplomatic shadow of Washington and London, cities that the elite of this country don't feel near as foreign in those cities as my Swede example probably does.

Will Ottawa ever become Washington or London? Nah. London has the trifecta, a global city of business, culture, politics, and history to match. Where America meets Europe. Washington is planned like Ottawa, but is the capital of a superpower. The closest we ever came to a nexus city in this country was Montreal, and its built form and attitude reflects that history. Alas, that energy was diffused across a huge country for reasons.

I would like Ottawa to aim to be more Wellington in the context of New Zealand.

[WhipperSnapper]

I agree its bad policy with some caveat. Potentially doubling or tripling the population of an established, stable community without the finances to expand its assets and infrastructure is going to end up as poor as some rapidly intensifying Toronto neighbourhoods are already experiencing. I firmly believe this idea is a false start given the commoditization of real estate holdings. Several Toronto neighbourhoods have had the single family zoning successfully appealed and has only spurred a handful of multi-family on previous single family lots. The price difference between a single family home and a flat in the multi family building at the very best is 40%. 60% of $2 million is still out of most people's price ranges. Cutting development charges would certainly improve the affordability to purchase but the lost revenues will just be made up in property taxes.

Pleasantville is simply not economically feasible in the GTA. Passing as of right zoning for up to four units per property will get a whole bunch of applications seeking review with some advancing to construction. It will peter out very quickly.

This is a development forum so, of course, more development to address the real estate bubble will be the preferred direction. That's just throwing gas on the fire.

[Kilgore Trout]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Even Montreal doesn't build Plateaus anymore, not even in the inner city.

It builds Griffintowns, which are considered a "win" in contemporary Canadian urban design circles.

But they're not like the Plateau.

That's not quite true... there's plenty of stuff like this which is more Plateau than Griffintown:

https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/village-urbain-lachine-4-etages/3158
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/668-670-rue-st-elie-2-etages-2022/956/
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/florence-condos-3-etages/1135/11
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/tak-village-7-7-etages/364/17
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/grace-ii-3-etages/3719
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/canoe-3-a-12-etages/282/48

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

Land costs - and real estate costs more broadly - are not fixed. They go up and down on the basis of supply, demand, and regulations. If prices are artificially high because one of the ingredients has restrained supply, it doesn't follow that prices will remain artificially high once supply is no longer artificially restrained and that therefore it's pointless to release the constraints.

Maybe in a normal housing market where end users makeup the majority of the demand. There's no value in income generating properties if prices stabilize or decline. It's always about planning policy. It's never about the actual market contributing to limiting supply to maintain these high values. Also, The pre-selling or pre-leasing system developed to mitigate risk from past speculative failures means that supply will always be years behind demand.

[Martin Mtl]

Originally Posted by Kilgore Trout

That's not quite true... there's plenty of stuff like this which is more Plateau than Griffintown:

https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/village-urbain-lachine-4-etages/3158
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/668-670-rue-st-elie-2-etages-2022/956/
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/florence-condos-3-etages/1135/11
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/tak-village-7-7-etages/364/17
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/grace-ii-3-etages/3719
https://forum.agoramtl.com/t/canoe-3-a-12-etages/282/48

Yes, not true at all in fact. It’s not because nobody noticed on SSP, that it doesn’t exist. The whole Angus community is larger than Griffintown and much closer to the Plateau model, to mention just that exemple.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Nouvellecosse

If land costs were too high for lowrise construction, no houses would be built. Only highrises. But lots in detached SFH areas in high demand metros will in fact be built on quickly even if with just houses. But of course whatever is built there won't be affordable because the whole cost to develop the plot is being carried by one person or family. So the only people who will build on it are wealthy and willing/able to pay a premium for a detached SFH. But if suddenly all residential areas could host dense low/mid rise development with say, 2-4x more people on the same land, then that same lot would be within reach of more people. Not everyone of course, but many of the people that would have that new option would previously have been competing for other housing and having them withdraw from that competition would lower its cost.

Even if there were no planning obstacles or development charges, a 3,000ft2 $3 million monster home is still more profitable to both the land owner/seller, and more appealing to prospective buyers, than three 1,000ft2 $1 million 2BR strata units in a triplex. At Toronto or Vancouver land prices, missing middle can be a luxury housing product that attracts more prospective condo buyers (read: speculators), but it's not going to be a solution to housing affordability.

I agree that we should open up more of our SFH lands for redevelopment, but we shouldn't sell the public on the idea that affordability can be achieved via piecemeal developments on your typical 30' lot. There will have to be lot assemblies, and the projects will have to be much bigger in scale.

We might as well start with building missing middle in the areas where it's already allowed. I live in a relatively central neighbourhood where duplexes are allowed as-of-right, but few land owners have chomped at the bit. There are about a dozen bungalows within a 5 minute walk of my house that have been torn down to build a taller single family homes, though.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Am I the only who finds that Amsterdam street doesn't look like a very nice place to live?

No, I'm with you on that. I've complained about oppressive Dutch streetscapes on SSP before.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Even if there were no planning obstacles or development charges, a 3,000ft2 $3 million monster home is still more profitable to both the land owner/seller, and more appealing to prospective buyers, than three 1,000ft2 $1 million 2BR strata units in a triplex. At Toronto or Vancouver land prices, missing middle can be a luxury housing product that attracts more prospective condo buyers (read: speculators), but it's not going to be a solution to housing affordability.

I agree that we should open up more of our SFH lands for redevelopment, but we shouldn't sell the public on the idea that affordability can be achieved via piecemeal developments on your typical 30' lot. There will have to be lot assemblies, and the projects will have to be much bigger in scale.

We might as well start with building missing middle in the areas where it's already allowed. I live in a relatively central neighbourhood where duplexes are allowed as-of-right, but few land owners have chomped at the bit. There are about a dozen bungalows within a 5 minute walk of my house that have been torn down to build a taller single family homes, though.

As-of-right zoning is mostly an illusion in Toronto. While there are areas in Toronto that technically permit triplexes and small apartments, there are other competing zoning by-laws & regulations that make them functionally impossible to build without variance. And then there are the development fees that make it economically infeasible. Insertnamehere had a good post on this topic recently: https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=9638908&postcount=14381

I don't see the benefit of starting with missing middle only in areas where it's currently permitted. These tend to be the areas with the best urbanity and the highest land values already anyway. We aren't really losing anything of value if post-war suburban neighbourhoods start sprouting the occasional multi-plex.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Even if there were no planning obstacles or development charges, a 3,000ft2 $3 million monster home is still more profitable to both the land owner/seller, and more appealing to prospective buyers, than three 1,000ft2 $1 million 2BR strata units in a triplex. At Toronto or Vancouver land prices, missing middle can be a luxury housing product that attracts more prospective condo buyers (read: speculators), but it's not going to be a solution to housing affordability.

A major goal of missing middle housing is to more fully and efficiently utilize lots. If a lot could only host a maximum of 3000 ft2 of built density then it's already built out. But MM housing tends to focus on scenarios where instead of building to a FAR of say 0.25 or 0.5, you're building to say 1.0 or 2.0. In that case instead of 3000fts total built area, you're getting 6000-12,000ft2 by either using more of the lot surface, building taller, or both. While you're right that dividing the same built area into more units and selling them for the same total price would be less profitable, selling far more total built area - like double or quadruple - is a completely different story. Even if the price per sq ft was only half as much, if you can built four times more then you double the profit.

It should also be noted that your scenario would be very unusual since a larger number of smaller units usually has a higher price per sq ft meaning that the three units would sell for a greater total than the single large one. That's why it's often so hard to get developers to build condos with bedrooms. The central service areas of a unit like the kitchen and bathroom tend to fetch higher prices than peripheral areas like bedrooms (and they likewise tend to be more expensive to construct). SO you'd end up with something like 3 units selling for $1.33 million each yielding a total revenue of $4million rather than 3. This is still a win for affordability though because being able to buy in smaller quantities is important. But now its hard to do unless you want a highrise condo.

[Martin Mtl]

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Planet Alignment Montreal 25 June 2022 by Jim Royal on Flickr

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by rousseau

No, I'm with you on that. I've complained about oppressive Dutch streetscapes on SSP before.

In the newer or repurposed areas, yes.

But a large segment of Amsterdam has beautiful, sustainable, human-scaled urbanity that most North American cities could only dream of.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Acajack

In the newer or repurposed areas, yes.

But a large segment of Amsterdam has beautiful, sustainable, human-scaled urbanity that most North American cities could only dream of.

I've been to Amsterdam. The thing that makes the city is the canals (obviously).

Aside from this, it is a dense low rise city with fairly utilitarian northern European architecture and feels somewhat monolithic in character. Any street without a canal can feel a little oppressive.

Also, I generally have a good sense of direction, but Amsterdam was one of those cities where I always felt in danger of getting lost just walking around. I think it was because every street felt so generic, without many visible landmarks that could serve as guideposts to mark your way.

Having said all this however, I did like Amsterdam. The canals made the city quite unique.

[J.OT13]

Never heard so much criticism about Amsterdam. So it seems like it's a great city to get around by walking/cycling/transit, but pretty generic outside the canaled areas?