23-year supply of vacant suburban residential land

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by rodionx

Cut off the endless supply of cheap vinyl boxes in the outer suburbs, and those little old houses on the edge of places like Carlingwood and Vanier will start looking good to people.

They already are.

[McC]

Originally Posted by rodionx

It's true that in Ottawa as a whole, the assessments even out, but when you live in neighbourhood where property values are climbing significantly faster than the city as a whole, you do gotta pony up at tax time.

Thanks, that was one of the two point, that I was trying (admittedly, clumsily)to make

[McC]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

They already are.

My "survey" is quite unscientific, but I had been watching the listings for about 3 years until we bought this past winter, and list prices in North Vanier ("Beechwood Village") seemed to me to be increasing by over 10% a year during that time (and this agent semed to be listing most of the best properties, each listed at prices considerably more expensive than the last: http://www.nataliebelovic.com/home/index_e.php)

[DubberDom]

Don't confuse Intensification and Urban Renewal

I dabble in real estate, I can assure you that the number 1 factor behind the price increases in the last 5 years is the cost of land, in many cases they are up 300%+. Cost of building residential homes has not increased that much.

My family sold their farmland to a developer a few years ago, the rate was $25k/acre in 1999, $55k/acre in 2005 and now its upward of $120k+/acre for residential zoned farm land within the urban boundaries in suburbs.

[waterloowarrior]

RURAL RESIDENTIAL LAND SURVEY, 2009-10 UPDATE
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...S-PGM-0143.htm

report itself isn't there, just the summary

[waterloowarrior]

2010 vacant urban residential land study
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...S-PGM-0207.htm

[waterloowarrior]

2011 Vacant Urban Residential Land Survey update
http://ottawa.ca/calendar/ottawa/cit...d%20Survey.pdf

[waterloowarrior]

Vacant Urban Land Survey 2012 http://app05.ottawa.ca/sirepub/mtgvi...&itemid=303069

Key findings for 2012 include:
• The inventoried supply of vacant urban residential land and its unit potential stood at 2 478 net hectares (ha) and approximately 103 407 units at the end of 2012 compared to 2 093 ha and 88 875 units in December 2011. (These figures include urban land that was added by the Ontario Municipal Board decisions on Official Plan Amendment 76.) This is sufficient for significantly more than the 10 year requirement of the PPS.
• The supply of land serviced with trunk sewers and watermains represents approximately 15 years of supply based on projected demand. This significantly exceeds the requirement of a three year supply of serviced land set out in the PPS.
• The supply of serviced land by area is: Inside the Greenbelt 2.3 years; Kanata/Stittsville 16.4 years; South Nepean 8.6 years; Riverside South 79.9 years; Leitrim 13.0 years; and Orléans 9.7 years.
• The supply of registered and draft approved vacant land with servicing in 2012 (745 ha) represents a 6.5 year supply based on projected demand. This serviced supply exceeds the PPS requirement for a three year supply of serviced registered and draft approved lots.
• Consumption of urban residential land in 2012 totalled 84 net ha, down from 116 ha in 2011, and well below the five year average of 119 ha. Dwelling units constructed on these lands totalled 3 291, down from 4 204 in 2011.
• The average density of housing built on land surveyed in 2012 was 39.1 units per net ha, the highest ever recorded by the survey. The density of single-detached homes edged up to 22.9 units/net ha after falling slightly to 22.3 units/net ha in 2011.

Vacant land supply shares by area:
• Kanata-Stittsville 36%
• Riverside South 19%
• Orléans 20%
• South Nepean 15%
• Leitrim 6%
• Inside the Greenbelt 4%

The 10 largest landowners held 56.2 % of the residential land supply in 2012, down from 61% in 2011. Major owners were Richcraft (9.7%), Urbandale (9.5%), Minto (8.4%), Taggart/Tamarack (5.4%), Mattamy (5.0%), Claridge (4.9%), KNL (4.6%), Ashcroft (3.1%), CRT Developments (3.1%), and Tartan (2.4%). If partnerships are considered, Richcraft and Urbandale together accounted for about 24% of the land supply.

[J.OT13]

Thanks for all your City Hall reports!

[Richard Eade]

Based on the numbers presented, it looks as Riverside South isn’t being developed anywhere near as fast as we are led to believe.

Vacant land supply shares by area:
• Kanata-Stittsville 36%
• Riverside South 19%
• Orléans 20%
• South Nepean 15%
• Leitrim 6%
• Inside the Greenbelt 4%

The supply of serviced land by area:
• KanataStittsville 16.4 years
• Riverside South 79.9 years
• Orléans 9.7 years
• South Nepean 8.6 years
• Leitrim 13.0 years
• Inside the Greenbelt 2.3 years

If you look at most of the given values, the number of years to use up the available land supply is roughly half of the supply area (i.e., 9.7 years for 20% in Orleans; 16.4 years for 36% in Kanata). Leitrim is developing more slowly than suburbs west and east (13 years for 6%). However, it is Riverside South which really stands out. According to the report, it will take almost 80 years to fill its available space (19%). People are flocking to Kanata and Orleans at a rate more than eight times faster!

Of course, there are questions as to why development is so slow in the Riverside South area. Is it because of the poor road connections into the downtown area? Is it because the NS LRT was canceled? Is it because the Strandherd-Armstrong Bridge isn’t completed? Is the neighbourhood lacking too many amenities to draw in people? Is it because people don’t want to live so close to the airport? Are market forced leading the developers to hold-off building in that area?

[waterloowarrior]

Infrastructure/transportation uncertainty and lack of services I think are a big factor. Perhaps there is also a major infrastructure project they need in order to move forward...there are a couple major projects in the draft infrastructure master plan affecting part of the area to be developed.

Land ownership is another factor for Riverside South. It's the most concentrated of all the suburbs. Two developers that frequently partner (Urbandale and Richcraft) own about 80% of the land. They would have the luxury of waiting for their initial phases to mostly sell out before moving onto the next phase.

In any case they only have about 53 ha of serviced registered and draft approved land, but 479 net ha of supply (11% of land has a subdivision plan). The other suburbs have a much higher percentage of serviced land with plans draft approved or registered (e.g. South Nepean 40%, Kanata 60%) So there is a lot of land sitting there with no plan.