News   Jul 22, 2024
Hazelview and Fitzrovia Break Ground on Affordable Housing at Bloor & Dufferin
 680     0 
News   Jul 22, 2024
News Roundup for July 22, 2024
 491     0 
News   Jul 22, 2024
Colour and Texture
 529     0 

Places to grow intensification targets

Memph said:
@jn_12, well it's difficult to force areas to grow if the economy is not doing well. At least Niagara Region isn't expanding it's suburbs very significantly, which is something that can be stopped. Maybe with increasing oil prices the area will get a boost from greater use of the Welland Canal?
Click to expand...

Well St Catharines can't sprawl thanks to the green belt, though Fort Erie is starting to sprawl quite a bit and it's the fastest growing (and perhaps the ugliest/worst) centre in the region. I'm not sure if the canal is the key to the future there, but I'd maybe argue that the various rail links through the mid-penninsula (particularly through Welland) could be a solution. Welland was in a great economic state when the Canal and Rail were the most popular means of shipping (in fact, the town's motto is "where rail and water meet") and could be a solution going forward.

My greatest concern is that a place like Welland is growing properly. They're about 15-20 years behind the GTA in terms of planning. It's a city that follows planning trends often to a detrimental effect and very late in the game. They built the Seaway Mall in the mid-70s which killed the downtown, and most recently started building massive box stores on the periphery of the city because that's what they saw the GTA do in the 90s. Of course, we now know better that Big box retail is horrible urban planning, but they see it as progress.
 
I agree than Waterloo is doing relatively well with intensification, with RED Condos, Westmount Grand, the Barrel Yards (multi tower), 144 Park and tons of student rentals under construction, but intensification doesn't seem to be moving as fast in Kitchener. From what I can tell, in Kitchener, there's just one or two municipal buildings U/C right now, plus the conversion of the Breihaupt lofts.
Click to expand...

Kitchener is trying pretty hard, though it's obviously got less money sloshing around than Waterloo. There have been a lot of warehouses and old factories that have been converted into offices, including the big Lang Tannery project. They've also got the condos planned for the old Forsyth/Lyric lands and the Pharmacy School at King and Victoria. I think the Collins & Aikman factory is also supposed to be converted into offices.
 
There needs to be more emphasis on employment intensification in the GTA. The popularity of "business parks" in distant suburbs that are poorly served by transit is disappointing.

Given that the downtown core (particularly the Yonge-University-Spadina subway line south of Bloor) has a limited amount of developable land and it is expensive, office building developers who want to build in the city will likely have to build in the edges of downtown. The Portlands, Liberty Village, Yonge/Eglinton, Yonge/Sheppard are all sites for urban office space where there is a fair amount of room for growth. Like any big city as Toronto grows the area that is considered "downtown" will cover a larger and larger area.

More suburban sites with a lot of vacant land for development in Toronto include DVP/Eglinton, Consumers Road, Scarborough Centre and Downsview Airport. The latter could potentially have a huge amount of employment/residential growth if Bombardier sold the Downsview Airport lands. If the areas north of downtown see significant employment growth this should make a better case for subways on Eglinton & Sheppard :)

In the 905 employment intensification could occur at Mississauga Centre, Thornhill, Yonge/Highway 7, Kennedy/Highway 7 in Markham (with better GO train service), and various GO train stations like Pickering. Sadly all we see in the 905 is endless business park sprawl at Leslie/7, Airport Corporate Centre, Meadowvale and along the QEW in Oakville/Burlington :(
 
I've been thinking about this again. I still think Toronto is going to have to prepare for a lot more growth. Looking at condo/appt projects and their locations, it seems many growth centres in the suburbs aren't seeing as much activity as they should be, while Downtown Toronto, Midtown, NYCC and Humber Bay Shores continue to boom.

Despite the fact that Mississauga has basically run out of land now with the development of Meadowvale Village and Churchill Meadows wrapping up, there doesn't seem to have been much of an increase in condo development, keeping in mind that in 2006-2011 there were already a lot of developments in Mississauga Centre, as well as others in smaller nodes, but these areas still grew by only around 17,000, with about 28,000 in population growth happening in greenfields in East Credit, Churchill Meadows and Meadowvale Village. It seems like population growth will be slowing down, unless you see a change in the trend in household sizes.

Pretty much only Mississauga, Vaughan, Markham and Richmond Hill are seeing significant infill right now. The other 905 municipalities are seeing a few projects here and there, but it's basically a drop in the bucket. Durham and Halton saw essentially no net population increase in their established areas. Brampton has about 1% of the condo activity that Downtown Toronto has, despite the fact that it's sprawling like there's no tomorrow and added 200,000 people from 2001-2011. At this rate, Brampton will probably run out of land in 10-20 years and have no idea how to intensify. Not to mention limitted areas suited for intensifcation.

Even York Region intensification, while significant compared to the rest of the 905 is not that much in the grand scheme of things. As I said last year, about 10-20% of the growth in these 3 municipalities is debatably infill/intensification, which has increased to maybe around 25% now (keeping in mind that condos have smaller households than houses). However, greenfield growth in Richmond Hill and Stouffville will pretty much be shut off, it seems like there was still a lot in 2006-2011, but going forward, I don't think they can have any. These areas have grown by about 53,000 in the last decade (2001-2011) which is about equal to the total amount of intensification happening in York Region. There was already intensification before the greenbelt though, so growth in York Region will either have to slow down, or intensification will have to increase further, or the other municipalities will have to use up their greenfields sooner.

Soon (within a decade or less), Ajax, Newmarket and Burlington will join Mississauga, Richmond Hill and Stouffville as built out suburbs. The next decade will see Brampton's sprawl machine slow down significantly, as well as Vaughan and Markham. All this growth can't just be transferred to Milton, which is basically already growing as fast as it can and will hit 243,000 people in 2041 if it continues to add 53,000 per decade like it did from 2001 to 2011.

It seems like the Growth Plan seems to be expected all this growth to be transfered from the greenfields of the traditional sprawlburbs to currently slower growing suburbs and 905 intensification. These slower growing suburbs would be places like East Gwilimbury, Georgetown/Halton Hills, Caledon and Pickering (Seaton)... which is not very desirable and will probably be met with resistance. Not to mention it will be difficult to support much of this growth without new highways which seems unlikely.

Since much of the 905 doesn't seem to be infilling as fast as the targets require, and Toronto is exceeding them, I feel like we'll have to prepare for even more growth to be transfered from the 905 than today. So Toronto was supposed to be growing by about 200,000 per decade, now it's more like 300-350k and in the not so distant future, it might be close to 500k per decade. This will mean mass rezoning will likely be required, especially since the areas where most of the growth seems to want to go right now (Downtown, Midtown, NYCC and Humber Bay Shores) are filling up pretty fast within the areas that are zoned high density.

It also means that certain transit projects will really have to be fast tracked. If Toronto is going to add 500,000 people in the next 15 years, and there's only room for about 1/3 of that in the parts of downtown that are already well served by transit and have very high rates of biking/walking, many projects will have to start very soon. The Waterfront/Port Lands streetcars for instance. But also the DRL, considering how long we seem to take to plan and build subways... I mean imagine what the King streetcar and subway will be like with just 150,000 of that growth which would happen in about 5 years at this rate. LRT to Etobicoke will also be needed quite soon, as well as LRT/subways in North York and Scarborough.

On the plus side, if we there is more growth in Toronto proper, that means fewer far flung transit lines will have to be built into the 905. Overall, we could probably served the same amount of people with a less expansive rapid transit system.

By the way, it's possible that what's holding back intensification in some of the 905 is lack of transit, but first of all, that will continue to be a problem in many areas for 1-2 decades, and even when the transit does arrive, I'm not sure how much intensification will happen. The areas served by rapid transit in Scarborough and Etobicoke for instance aren't exactly booming. They're seeing steady growth, yes, but we're talking maybe a few thousand people per decade? There would have to be a lot more intensification then that. In Etobicoke, it seems like about 90% of the condo projects are not near the subway but in Humber Bay Shores, Mimico, Long Branch, Sherway, 427, Queensway and a few elsewhere. Scarborough is similar with a lot of projects around Sheppard East and Kingston Road as opposed to the Scarborough RT/Subway.
 
Interesting analysis Memph. I suspect that while some growth may shift to Toronto the 905 will continue to absorb the bulk of population growth. If there is a development land crunch I think it's more likely that the population growth rate of the city region will just continue to slow. Basically as Toronto chokes on itself and becomes more and more expensive less people will choose to live here and the overall population growth rate will taper off. Most global cities grow not because they offer a great standard of living but because they offer a relatively higher standard of living (although still low) for a pool of economically disadvantaged people.
 
I think Toronto doesn't have to be more expensive. It could become more affordable by allowing intensification to occur in more areas and laxing parking requirements. The main types of housing that you can build now in Toronto are highrise condos and tearing down bungalows to build big custom homes. The custom homes only make sense to build if they're quite big with high end finishes, so obviously they will be expensive, and highrise construction is expensive too, especially if only allowed in a limitted number of areas. Highrise condos make sense if you have no kids and want to live right where the action is, but otherwise, less so. More flexible zoning that allows for more competition in the real estate market with a greater supply of development sites, housing and more places where you can build more modest lowrise units (ie not $2mil custom homes) would help quite a bit.

I think the housing is getting expensive largely because of development restrictions which is attached to a postive feedback of speculation. Loosen the restrictions and you make housing more affordable, thus reducing speculation and make housing even more affordable. And by speculation I don't just mean foreign investors buying condos and leaving them empty, but also foreign investors buying condos and renting them out with the expectation that they will be worth more in the future, and even Canadians who buy a home for themselves they can't (or struggle to) afford because they expect prices to go up.
 
A question, not a criticism:

Why do you say high rise condo construction is expensive? When the city-commissioned 3rd party urban planners to work community members for the rezoning of Kingston Road in our neighbourhood, they kept on emphasizing that the developers will push for as high a building height as possible, to maximize profits. We ended up settling on mid-rise heights based our the planners' recommendations and our committee preferences, but the planners were open to the idea of high rises.
 
Well, generally the construction costs increase as the building gets taller. There's also a big increase in costs when you go from wood frame construction to concrete, which developers are required to do once a building reaches (or it goes past now?) 5 stories. Just based on that, it would be cheapest if all the housing was bungalows... but that doesn't take into account land costs. If you can build more housing units on a certain piece of land, the land cost per unit goes down.

Tangent:
There is another factor, which is that height doesn't always mean density. If you have a tower surrounded by lots of open space and surface parking, compared to a much lower building that takes up almost the whole lot with just a little courtyard, they might be the same density. Developments with taller buildings would need a larger portion of the land dedicated to open space to let in the same amount of sunlight because taller buildings cast longer shadows. Taking this into account, you could still get higher densities with taller buildings, but the density increases get smaller and smaller with each additional storey until the density increase is reduced to essentially nothing. When this happens depends on how much shadowing you're willing to put up with, but it does happen eventually.

Easing zoning rules like setback requirements means you can achieve the same density with lower buildings, making the housing more affordable. These sorts of requirements can have benefits, you just have to keep in mind the drawback of less affordability when you're trying to decide if they're a good idea.


So as you go higher and higher, construction costs per unit go up (with a big jump at 5 stories), and land costs per unit go down. You're essentially looking at where these two factors balance out. The higher the land value the higher the density that makes sense. It's possible that along Kingston Road, the land values are high enough that the land and construction costs balance out with highrises. Developers will typically want to build a building that minimizes the land+construction cost to maximize profit. There's a reason why they're pushing to build skyscrapers in Downtown Toronto instead of Milton though, which is that land values are much higher in Downtown Toronto.

Land costs depends on location, so factors like safety, distance to stores, jobs, good schools, etc... but also zoning. If you have two lots next to each but one is zoned for high density and one for low density, developers will be willing to pay more for the lot where they can build more, driving up the land costs so that the high density zoned lot is worth more. Much of Toronto is not zoned to allow intensification, so where the zoning does allow it, land costs are quite high, higher than they would be if more of Toronto was zoned to allow intensification. This higher land cost in intensification areas leads to less affordable housing. That doesn't mean Toronto should rezone all the land in the city to allow skyscrapers, any change would be better than nothing (from an affordability POV), and in any case, even if you did rezone all the land for skyscrapers, I suspect in most places, land values wouldn't be high enough to justify building them.
 
Memph said:
Well, generally the construction costs increase as the building gets taller. There's also a big increase in costs when you go from wood frame construction to concrete, which developers are required to do once a building reaches (or it goes past now?) 5 stories. Just based on that, it would be cheapest if all the housing was bungalows... but that doesn't take into account land costs. If you can build more housing units on a certain piece of land, the land cost per unit goes down.
Click to expand...
Well, that was my point, increased density with high rises.

However, I find it curious you mention 5 stories, because that's a mid-rise. ie. Both mid-rises and high-rises would be concrete construction.

There is another factor, which is that height doesn't always mean density.
Click to expand...
Understood, but I was just ignoring that for the purposes of the discussion. :)

If you have a tower surrounded by lots of open space and surface parking, compared to a much lower building that takes up almost the whole lot with just a little courtyard, they might be the same density. Developments with taller buildings would need a larger portion of the land dedicated to open space to let in the same amount of sunlight because taller buildings cast longer shadows. Taking this into account, you could still get higher densities with taller buildings, but the density increases get smaller and smaller with each additional storey until the density increase is reduced to essentially nothing. When this happens depends on how much shadowing you're willing to put up with, but it does happen eventually.
Click to expand...
Makes sense. I will note though that the new guidelines in our area with the mid-rises remove surface parking. Currently the area is composed of mainly strip malls with tons of surface parking, with the strip malls separated from the main road by the large parking lots. The new guidelines have the buildings pushed right up against a (large) sidewalk right next to the road, which would hopefully serve to slow traffic in that corridor - "side friction". Parking would move mainly underground. See pix below.

If I remember correctly there were a couple of spots that could likely accommodate somewhat taller buildings due to the big lot depths - pushing things into the high rise category - but the decision was to stick with a maximum height corresponding to tall mid-rises. (That's on the south side where lots are deep. On the north side the maximum height was still in the mid-rise category, but much shorter mid-rises.)

even if you did rezone all the land for skyscrapers, I suspect in most places, land values wouldn't be high enough to justify building them.
Click to expand...
Due to the rezoning a few years ago, units are now being sold for an 11-12 storey condo development in our area.

urbantoronto-6626-21609.jpg
thebluffssiteplancontent.gif


As you can(not) see, no visible parking lot.

If this turns out to be successful, I wouldn't be surprised to see other developers applying for zoning adjustments for specific sites to push the buildings slightly higher, into the lower high-rise category.

Anyhoo, I realize this is very specific to my particular neighbourhood, but I figure it's good to have a real-world example. And as you may have surmised, I'm no urban planner myself, but I am interested for my particular neighbourhood, esp. since we're already starting to see movement (with the development mentioned above) just a few years after those meetings with the city-hired urban planners.
 
Last edited:
^The same size in my opinion. Some of the sprawl may have shifted around to other areas but I think we would have the same amount of sprawl and I believe the condo boom in general has nothing to do with places to grow.
 
Memph said:
Many of the smaller suburbs like Milton, Oakville, Aurora, etc have probably seen even less intensification, in fact, some might have seen negative growth within the built area (looks to be the case for Milton).
Click to expand...
Apparently, traffic in Milton is a disaster now. My friends who live there say that the development there has been massive, but pretty much all of it seems to me to be sprawling subdivision type development.
 
TrickyRicky said:
^The same size in my opinion. Some of the sprawl may have shifted around to other areas but I think we would have the same amount of sprawl and I believe the condo boom in general has nothing to do with places to grow.
Click to expand...

There are definitely areas where the greenbelt is truly curbing sprawl. Places like Stouffville that are hemmed in on all sides by the greenbelt would be expanding well beyond their current boundaries (maybe not immediately, but in the near future). In Markham, areas like Markham Road north of Major Mac and Cornell east of Donald Cousens Parkway would be preparing for development. The big difference, IMO, would be that with a greater supply of land you'd see far more detached homes and far fewer townhomes. Some municipalities may have taken up the fight against sprawl without intensification targets, but the targets have provided useful political cover and leverage when dealing with the development community.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top