Topic: Housing

[tpl]

Sprawl? Seems like it's still held up by regulations because of the Green Belt... which I have no issue with, the green space is needed

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/01/28/greenbelt-forcing-up-home-prices-in-gta-critics

But what happens when demand forces development to jump over the green space, as has happened in Ottawa? You just end up with even worse sprawl.

And even wider expressways running through the green bits.  However much the government would like people to commute by train, the public will end up deciding at election time.   For example, the 401  between Mississauga and KW is being widened all the way through the green belt.

I am ambivalent about the social engineering keeping roads small and crowded but I'd feel better if they extracted their fingers and built the rails first and provided the 15 minute service that they blather on about in 2019 not 2030. My local example is the dual tracking of GO between Georgetown and Kitchener...no sign over even a single surveyor...but perhaps it is all done with Google Earth nowadays.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for long term planning, but allowing the market to dictate what gets built isn't the worst thing as long as you don't have highly restrictive zoning. I shared an article a few weeks back about Houston and its relative lack of zoning laws and how that has resulted in affordable housing. Obviously the city has issues with sprawl but it's also seeing urbanization in its suburbs and a huge diversity in housing types.

And that's correct. Zoning exclusively low density housing without provision for mass transit, and commercial/retail space makes transportation a nightmare.

[Gurgie]

Sprawl? Seems like it's still held up by regulations because of the Green Belt... which I have no issue with, the green space is needed

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/01/28/greenbelt-forcing-up-home-prices-in-gta-critics

But what happens when demand forces development to jump over the green space, as has happened in Ottawa? You just end up with even worse sprawl.

Yup, but what is the solution then? Really at the end of the day, we've gotta huge country here & there's a lotta room for everyone... just let it grow & sprawl 

[tpl]

How the hell would encouraging higher density - and hence the supply of housing, create a supply problem and raise prices?

Well mostly b/c families don't want condos.  They want ground level homes.   

But you can't have your cake and eat it too.  Either people need to adjust their expectations for what a family home looks like in the GTA or let it sprawl baby.

This is exactly what has happened in KW. The region wants to socially engineer the population to build up and curb sprawl. They are doing this my limiting greenfield development. Fine, I do this for a living but as a civilian I don't like spawl. This is part of their master plan which includes the LRT. A combination of people not wanting to live in condos, a massive influx of people from the GTA buying here (in an already robust and affluent market), and limited (read: no) supply has made housing prices soar.

In exactly what Evil Twin said I think we need the pricing to go crazy in order for people's attributed to change. As long as people can "afford" (get into) single family homes or townhomes they are going to do that. For the most part people still want to raise a family with some space and a yard. It's the dream. I wouldn't want to raise my family in a condo highrise either.

 People do want their cake and to eat it too. How many times on this forum do I read some horseshit comment about postage stamp sized lots? Then people about all the sprawl and how awful it is. Do you want massive sprawl with acre lots or not?

I'd go for some sprawl.  Maybe not 1 acre lots for all...they'd still be too expensive for most people but it should be possible to buy a 1 acre  serviced lot  and build a single family dwelling on it...after all, what is the point in living in a province the size of western Europe if you can't have a big back yard. 

[Sir Osis of Liver]

As far as cities are concerned, the problem with sprawl is cost.

Take the area of a circle to represent typical area of a city from the core: A = πr²

The area to be serviced increases with the square of the radius. So does the tax base. So far, so good. But, as the radius grows, the width of existing roads, capacity of water and sewage and mass transit has to be re-developed and increased, so costs increase as a multiple of the increase of the radius. So increased taxes of some form are needed. Long term, it's not sustainable.

And that's before you get into political issues like zoning and city boundaries.

[OliverD]

How the hell would encouraging higher density - and hence the supply of housing, create a supply problem and raise prices?

Well mostly b/c families don't want condos.  They want ground level homes.   

But you can't have your cake and eat it too.  Either people need to adjust their expectations for what a family home looks like in the GTA or let it sprawl baby.

This is exactly what has happened in KW. The region wants to socially engineer the population to build up and curb sprawl. They are doing this my limiting greenfield development. Fine, I do this for a living but as a civilian I don't like spawl. This is part of their master plan which includes the LRT. A combination of people not wanting to live in condos, a massive influx of people from the GTA buying here (in an already robust and affluent market), and limited (read: no) supply has made housing prices soar.

In exactly what Evil Twin said I think we need the pricing to go crazy in order for people's attributed to change. As long as people can "afford" (get into) single family homes or townhomes they are going to do that. For the most part people still want to raise a family with some space and a yard. It's the dream. I wouldn't want to raise my family in a condo highrise either.

 People do want their cake and to eat it too. How many times on this forum do I read some horseshit comment about postage stamp sized lots? Then people about all the sprawl and how awful it is. Do you want massive sprawl with acre lots or not?

I'd go for some sprawl.  Maybe not 1 acre lots for all...they'd still be too expensive for most people but it should be possible to buy a 1 acre  serviced lot  and build a single family dwelling on it...after all, what is the point in living in a province the size of western Europe if you can't have a big back yard. 

The infrastructure and servicing costs for one acre lots are insanely high though. Almost no one would be willing to pay the property tax necessary to make a neighborhood like that sustainable.

I also don't think that single family homes go hand in hand with sprawl. There's a lot of other contributing factors to sprawl, like unnecessarily wide roads, complex street patterns that waste a lot of space, huge parking lots for commercial spaces that are under-utilized 98% of the time, etc.

You can also achieve reasonable density by mixing single family homes with other housing types ("missing middle") that are small in scale and actually can blend into single family neighbourhoods. We were out for a walk last night and we were commenting on how nice this four-unit rental property looks and it blends in very nicely with the surrounding single family homes: https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.9577698,-66.6385291,3a,75y,323.7h,90.63t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sf3KjhRo_JHR_NV1h6hmhyg!2e0!5s20161001T000000!7i13312!8i6656

[OliverD]

As far as cities are concerned, the problem with sprawl is cost.

Take the area of a circle to represent typical area of a city from the core: A = πr²

The area to be serviced increases with the square of the radius. So does the tax base. So far, so good. But, as the radius grows, the width of existing roads, capacity of water and sewage and mass transit has to be re-developed and increased, so costs increase as a multiple of the increase of the radius. So increased taxes of some form are needed. Long term, it's not sustainable.

And that's before you get into political issues like zoning and city boundaries.

Not only that, but the ultra low density associated with most sprawl means that the tax revenue by area is very low, further exacerbating the issue.

[OliverD]

Jesus guys I was being facetious about the acre lot, lol.

As we've discussed in this thread already we're already doing subdivisions with mixed density for the reasons you describe....even some some light commercial built into it. The problem is that textbook mixing of densities and people of different SES doesn't always work. I'm just the messenger.

What's SES? 

[OliverD]

If you're going to have large cities they are going to end up sprawling. That's just the way it works. But that doesn't mean you can't have urbanization outside of the traditional city core.

The public tends to think that people who are against sprawl want everyone to give up their cars, live in tiny condos, etc. That isn't true at all. They simply want people to have actual choices of different housing types, the ability to choose to live in a walkable neighbourhood, and to not have everything designed to favour the car over everything else.

[johngenx]

SES = Socio-Economic-Status

Mixed SES groups benefit the lower income people significantly, but it's a balancing act.  Having worked my life in affordable housing, the trick is to "scatter" affordable housing into developments to that we don't cluster low income families and so that low income housing blends completely into the community.

Honestly, Canadian cities weren't ready for the mass rush to urbanization of our populations.  When we moved to Alberta in the early 80's, the population was 50% urban.  Now we're over 80%.  That's a dramatic shift in less than 40 years.  It's meant that the city grew so fast that development plans got left behind and the desire for "country residential" housing drove sprawl that was created with little to no infrastructure to support it.  Edmonton basically has one new road since 1983.  Our traffic infrastructure is suited to 500K people and we have over 1M.  Same for transit.  Shopping developments have popped up to service regional neighbourhoods, but these are also infrastructure nightmares with poor ingress/egress and hap-hazard layouts.  Several of these developments have traffic on main arteries blocked due to interior congestion during peak periods.  Stupid.

We aren't facing the affordability nightmare that Toronto and Vancouver residents are.  Thank god.  The cooling of the oil business has helped that, and it looks like the energy industry might be approaching an equilibrium spot where it makes sense at $50/bbl oil - and that's actually good for the province.

If Canadians want to all live in two of our largest cities, and they want to have affordable rents and housing prices, they won't be able to raise their families in single family dwellings with a yard and a driveway and so on.  They're going to have to rethink things.  One thing we MUST do is create urban shared spaces.  You don't need a yard for your kids to play in if we have parks and other common areas.  Canadian cities are terrible for having these types of spaces because traditionally families had their own outdoor space.  That's not the new reality.  Shared park space is much more efficient, but it has to be created.

When I see the GTA has all these massive traffic headaches thanks to massive 6,8, 10 or more highways I have to wonder if mass transit can't solve a lot of those problems.  I get why Edmonton and Calgary have crap transit, but the GTA has been a sprawling urban center for far longer and should have been investing heavily in road reduction.

It still amazes me that Canada, a nation with perhaps the most usable land mass on the planet, has a population that wants to all live in one of two relatively tiny spaces.

[dkaz]

I live in an older 12 unit townhouse complex and it's actually been great, my kids play with the other kids in a nice common courtyard. We know they're safe and having fun, something that's difficult to do in a single family house. Arranging playdates, having to drive kids around, etc. gets really tiring.

[SKYMTL]

If you're going to have large cities they are going to end up sprawling. That's just the way it works. But that doesn't mean you can't have urbanization outside of the traditional city core.

The public tends to think that people who are against sprawl want everyone to give up their cars, live in tiny condos, etc. That isn't true at all. They simply want people to have actual choices of different housing types, the ability to choose to live in a walkable neighbourhood, and to not have everything designed to favour the car over everything else.

that quite frankly isn't happening.  their idea of good design is a mess of super tall block buildings creating wind tunnels, this is my idea of innovative design.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoR_LMi8Lx8

The problem is also land cost.  Having courtyards, green space, etc is a financial burden developers have to take into account and not many opt for that due to them wanting to maximize ROI / sq.ft. 

There is certainly innovation around.  Take BIG Design project on King West for example:  http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2016/06/design-review-panel-digs-bigs-mountain-king-west  Innovative but ultimately short-minded people shot it down right after poking it full of holes. 

[Rupert]

It's a half century old now. One of the few 'major extravaganza events'...projects, that still leads a valuable existence.

[EV-Light]

How the hell would encouraging higher density - and hence the supply of housing, create a supply problem and raise prices?

Well mostly b/c families don't want condos.  They want ground level homes.   

But you can't have your cake and eat it too.  Either people need to adjust their expectations for what a family home looks like in the GTA or let it sprawl baby.

This is exactly what has happened in KW. The region wants to socially engineer the population to build up and curb sprawl. They are doing this my limiting greenfield development. Fine, I do this for a living but as a civilian I don't like spawl. This is part of their master plan which includes the LRT. A combination of people not wanting to live in condos, a massive influx of people from the GTA buying here (in an already robust and affluent market), and limited (read: no) supply has made housing prices soar.

In exactly what Evil Twin said I think we need the pricing to go crazy in order for people's attributed to change. As long as people can "afford" (get into) single family homes or townhomes they are going to do that. For the most part people still want to raise a family with some space and a yard. It's the dream. I wouldn't want to raise my family in a condo highrise either.

 People do want their cake and to eat it too. How many times on this forum do I read some horseshit comment about postage stamp sized lots? Then people about all the sprawl and how awful it is. Do you want massive sprawl with acre lots or not?

I'd go for some sprawl.  Maybe not 1 acre lots for all...they'd still be too expensive for most people but it should be possible to buy a 1 acre  serviced lot  and build a single family dwelling on it...after all, what is the point in living in a province the size of western Europe if you can't have a big back yard. 

The infrastructure and servicing costs for one acre lots are insanely high though. Almost no one would be willing to pay the property tax necessary to make a neighborhood like that sustainable.

I also don't think that single family homes go hand in hand with sprawl. There's a lot of other contributing factors to sprawl, like unnecessarily wide roads, complex street patterns that waste a lot of space, huge parking lots for commercial spaces that are under-utilized 98% of the time, etc.

You can also achieve reasonable density by mixing single family homes with other housing types ("missing middle") that are small in scale and actually can blend into single family neighbourhoods. We were out for a walk last night and we were commenting on how nice this four-unit rental property looks and it blends in very nicely with the surrounding single family homes: https://www.google.ca/maps/@45.9577698,-66.6385291,3a,75y,323.7h,90.63t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sf3KjhRo_JHR_NV1h6hmhyg!2e0!5s20161001T000000!7i13312!8i6656

Absolutely can! I live in an engineered neighbourhood - some condos, some townhouses and lots of single houses....

The development costs - sewer, etc - were all paid by buyers because the price was baked into the lots, condos, etc. 

It's sad ON government keeps burying their head in the sand and blaming foreign investors for the out of control prices - and looks like some of you just can't accept the fact that people want ground level homes...so instead of buying in TO they keep going farther and farther away to buy what they want.

Now I really like the idea someone else offered here - time to move some of those offices away from the big centres!


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[dkaz]

The problem is also land cost.  Having courtyards, green space, etc is a financial burden developers have to take into account and not many opt for that due to them wanting to maximize ROI / sq.ft. 

There is certainly innovation around.  Take BIG Design project on King West for example:  http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2016/06/design-review-panel-digs-bigs-mountain-king-west  Innovative but ultimately short-minded people shot it down right after poking it full of holes.

Fortunately, developers don't have free reign in most municipalities.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

-Live in a metropolis
-Live in low density housing
-Affordable price

Pick two.

[Fobroader]

Pick one

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[johngenx]

Pick one

We're getting to that point.

[Fobroader]

Pick one

We're getting to that point.

Well just around these parts, whats a decent apartment for a family to buy, $200K plus, townhouse, $300K plus, house, ~$400k.....thats not cheap, in a GTA setting yes, but not cheap.

[Barton]

How the hell would encouraging higher density - and hence the supply of housing, create a supply problem and raise prices?

Well mostly b/c families don't want condos.  They want ground level homes.   

But you can't have your cake and eat it too.  Either people need to adjust their expectations for what a family home looks like in the GTA or let it sprawl baby.

How do you explain the 30%+ y/y increase in prices for not just SFH but also condos?  This isn't a supply issue, it's a problem of speculators (both local and foreign) driving up the prices.  Simple solution would be to tax the gains as ordinary income, increase interest rates, or a combination of both.

I'm still a fan of CMHC.