Intensification: Randall Denley Unvarnished
Citizen columnist Randall Denley answered this pressing question on intensification posed by Your Applewood Acres (And Beyond) Neighbours community group. This organization does outstanding work:
My opinion on so-called “gentle intensification” is … the situation has gotten worse.
First, the province passed a rule saying that three units could be built on any vacant lot without requiring special approval. Then the feds upped it to four units and Ottawa accepted that so they could get some federal money. To make it worse, the new draft zoning regulations don’t call for the provision of parking for these new developments, so people can look forward to a lot more cars parked on their streets.
It’s the sort of development that has the potential, over time, to change the nature of neighborhoods, but not in an especially positive way, in my view. The upside, if there is one, is that these little boutique projects will be expensive to produce and the development industry isn’t much interested in them. They are a niche market, at best, and I don’t see much support for the idea, outside of government.
The other interesting thing I came across recently is the discrepancy between the city’s “pledge” to build 150,000 homes over 10 years, and the Official Plan, which calls only for about half of that.
In my view, the main idea driving the new official plan is a loathing of suburban development and the unrealistic wish to reinvent perfectly acceptable neighborhoods to make them what contemporary planners would have liked, had they been on the job decades ago.
—
This excerpt is courtesy of the city-wide community group Your Applewood Acres (And Beyond) Neighbours
For You:
Release Fails To Mention Rail Start Date
Yoo-Hoo. Night Mayor? Are You There?
Hurray For The Activists Who Promote City Democracy
Bookmark The Bulldog, click here
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
– The Bulldog – News Feed Enter 
Good post
Problem Solving 101 – once you have determined the solution you’re going to implement determine the impact. If you can’t figure it out or the solution causes another or more problems, find a fix or move to another solution.
When you step back and understand the big picture, you see what is being done. Please take a look at “Complete-Streets-and-the-15-minute-city”. Also look at “Complete Streets in The 15 Minute City”. This is what is driving the build type and the intensification that is ruining mature neighborhoods. Within the document “Complete Streets in a 15 Minute City” there is a bulletin point “a case study of a Canadian city (Ottawa) that uses it as a policy strategy for growth management within its 2021 Official Plan”. Wonder where Ottawa is heading, you can read all about it. Another good read, which I find interesting is; “ICSC – Canada Report On the City of Ottawa’s Climate change Master Plan” (Jan 27/22). Don’t know how Ottawa is going to afford that.
Ken,
What was the question that Randall was “answering”?
Voter:
He was asked if he had changed his views on intensification.
cheers
kgray
Sisco, may I amend your experience based advice? First – ensure that the solution addresses the problem. Therein the challenge lies with one size fits all solutions.
Re-zoning a wide swath of existing residential neighbourhoods to allow up to three or four dwellings is easy. A wave of the royal sceptre is all it takes. Administrative ease is what those who have to implement policy consider paramount. Effectiveness of the policy is not even on the first page.
However, as Denley points out, it is unlikely that much in the way of volume will be achieved. Derelict homes in older neighbourhoods are among the more likely to be targeted. Not by the high volume tract builders. Perhaps by ’boutique’ builders who have limited capital. Limited capital constrains the number of simultaneous projects. The cost of the land for an inner city parcel is high. That leads to a one project at a time, perhaps two, but at different stages.
To tie a ribbon around it, all this policy accomplishes is providing something politicians can point to as ‘doing something’.