Quote:
Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bigguy1231
It is already serviced. Water and sewers extend up past this area. It is already fairly developed on the other side of Upper James.
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Serviced doesn't necessarily equate to adequate servicing capacity.
My two cents, if you're going to do greenfield development, this is generally how to do it. I would prefer to have seen the densest parts of the concept located adjacent/proximate to the A-Line bus route on Upper James St, because right now basically nothing is reasonably within walking distance of transit. I do, however, appreciate that this is a secondary plan concept, of which only the areas with red outline are subject to actual planning and consultation.
With that said,
traditional greenfield suburban development is a net-negative to a city's financial picture. With such a gargantuan backlog of infrastructure capital spending required to bring the city up to a state of good repair, I genuinely hope that the many dozens of millions of dollars in capital projects that will be required to enable this development to proceed do not leap-frog other more critical projects. Even if development charges will fund most of the capital spending required to support the project, there's a finite capacity on the city's part to undertake infrastructure work (or monitor/inspect contractor work).
Traditional greenfield suburban development is a fiscal ticking time bomb to cities (i.e. the tax revenue from traditional suburbs cannot service the infrastructure they require and once repair/upgrades to the initial developer-built/funded infrastructure is required, the rest of the city subsidizes the cost). To ameliorate this, I think that a fiscal report should be part of the submission requirements for new planning applications. If a proponent can't show that the project won't represent a long-term net-deficit on the broader community, it should have to alter the proposal to make it pencil or the developer should have to contribute the difference or put up a bond to an infrastructure permanent fund. That will absolutely drive up the cost of housing in such a development, but it's (finally) reflecting the actual cost of such forms of growth to society.
It's no coincidence that periods of major suburban development and settlement area expansion in a city are followed 20, 30, 40+ years later by an immense infrastructure repair bill. We're living through the municipal finance crisis and infrastructure repair hangover that resulted from the suburban housing boom of the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Let's not keep making the same mistake (and the proposed density of this project indicates we likely aren't).