Building cities up and not out
By Mark Schadenberg
When playoffs are looming in any sport, a coach may talk about the
team’s intensification.
In terms of developing subdivisions, intensification is a much
different term.
Don’t blame your local municipality as residential lots shrink, and
apartment buildings are taller and closer together.
The Ontario government – likely in an attempt to preserve farmland,
but for many other reasons as well – has created laws and rules about municipal
growth.
The creation of the so-called green belt in the GTA and through the
Golden Horseshoe along Lake Ontario has increased the value of land in that
area as it’s become rare to find a possible subdivision or commercial or
industrial locale. At the same time, it has also made ‘defined’ residential
planned areas more valuable outside the green belt, especially in neighbouring
communities such as Brantford, Guelph and even Waterdown.
If you want to point fingers, the direction should be at the Ontario
ministry of municipal affairs and housing. It is their ‘provincial planning
framework’ (Their term and not mine) which indicates how cities can and will
grow (Link and excerpt details below).
In Woodstock, for example, the purchasing premiums on buying a property
with more than 50 feet of frontage becomes obvious and necessary as the
developer only needs to explain provincial legislation and guidelines. Lots are
now often sold per-foot frontage. Most new residential areas in Woodstock
thereby feature lots about 40 feet wide and not 50.
The Ontario plan also favours (desires / requests / insists upon) in-fill,
re-development of retired industrial buildings into apartments (Example: Homestead Christian Care apartments in old Harvey Woods plant on VanSittart), and even
stretching upwards in building to more than 12 storeys.
Intensification
means the development of a property, site or area at a higher density than
currently exists, through development, redevelopment, infill and expansion or
conversion of existing buildings. Each community’s form and level of
intensification will differ, based on their specific characteristics such as
location, history, community strengths and preferences
Planning
and design features that support intensification may include:
-Street-level
awnings for shade
-Wide
sidewalks and street furniture for pedestrian comfort
-Mobility-friendly
curb cuts
-Light
coloured surfaces for pavement, roads and buildings
-Energy-efficient
lighting to increase safety
-Human-scale
designs that create active streets and promote physical activity
-Adaptive
reuse of heritage buildings
-Transit
stops and stations
-Permeable
pavement
-Smaller
lot sizes
-Pedestrian
and bicycle pathways.
The
above was simply copied and pasted from the provincial government website.
Increased
density is an increase in intensification.
When
a final analysis can be made (read two of the Free Press links below about
expansion), the city is caught in the middle and therefore attempts to
compromise between what a developer requests, what the province is mandating,
and what is preferred by the local residents in a neighbourhood.
This
is the main reason why nothing taller than four stories will be built on the
former Woodstock General Hospital site on Riddell Street. The city would never be
able to pass a zoning for only low density for this re-development, especially
since the hospital was also multi-floors. The city can suggest and insist upon
medium density, however.
Anything
high density would be much taller than a four-storey structure.
This
is yet another story (pun intended) in which there is no reason to point your
fingers at city council or the local engineering office or city planners when
announcements / proposals of any type are made public as those holding the red
tape at City Hall are bound (another level of red tape) by the rules set out at
Queens Park in Toronto.
LINKS:
http://www.thestar.com/business/real_estate/2013/11/05/provincial_intensification_efforts_now_a_patchwork.html
Mark
Schadenberg, Sales Representative
Senior
Real Estate Specialist (SRES designation)
Royal
LePage Triland Realty
757 Dundas
St, Woodstock
www.wesellwoodstock.com
(519) 537-1553,
cell or text
Email:
mschadenberg@rogers.com
Twitter:
markroyallepage
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