Time for a cap on retail store size?

[kettal]

I think it is time Toronto capped retail store size to 50,000 sq feet.

The mega-store, setting aside the ugliness and sprawl implications, is a drain on our transport. The large stores have a "consumer cachement" of regional proportions, meaning the customer has to drive (or otherwise travel) many kilometers to reach the shop, and the same goes for the employees. More cars on our streets travelling a greater distance obviously is having an effect on our infrastructure.

Is it any wonder Hwy 7 in York Region is the worst road in the GTA for traffic?

If we constrain the size, that would mean there would be smaller stores, but also more stores. Even if they are just mini Wal Marts, at least they will be within easy distance from their consumer base. Also it would require smaller parking lots and more overall employment.

The fact Toronto doesn't have such a law is astounding. Many US cities, and the whole republic of Ireland have it. Toronto was so quick to ban any new drive-thru restaurants, this is the logical compliment for such planning.

 

[nfitz]

I fail to see how the 1,000,000 or so square feet "Bay" on Queen and Yonge is draining our transport and infrastructure.

Surely it's not just about area.

 

[TOareaFan]

Yep...it is not about size but about location....location in relation to transit and where people live and work

Even if Toronto did have such a cap....it would not stop (in fact would encourage) the big stores from developing in the neighbouring "sprawl" regions.....so a Toronto cap on store size would, likely, worsen the very problem it sought to solve.

 

[kettal]

I fail to see how the 1,000,000 or so square feet "Bay" on Queen and Yonge is draining our transport and infrastructure.

Surely it's not just about area.

I knew that one was coming.

How about "size in relation to surrounding density"?

After all, every new mega retail in the past 50 years has been in low density suburbia, to which my original post applies.

 

[PukeGreen]

I share your dislike of big box stores, but I'm not sure that an arbitrary square footage limit would fly with most people, or if it would solve the problems.

Perhaps a more complicated formula would need to be applied, something involving miles from nearest public transit, the surrounding population density, the number of parking spaces per square foot, that sort of thing. But sadly, anything deemed to be increasing prices, inhibiting businesses or limiting job opportunities is not going to gain any support in this economy.

I see the big box phenomenon as a variation on the tragedy of commons theory: big stores far from populated areas are good for businesses, because they can buy the land cheap and then enjoy the economies of scale by buying and selling in large quantities. Shoppers also like box stores because the cheaper operating costs are passed on to them. So there are short-term benefits on an individual level.

But on a greater societal level, we now have a proliferation of huge ugly prefab buildings surrounded by seas of parking lots, all permanently destroying what was previously valuable farmland. In addition, they are forcing shoppers and employees to drive ever further, constantly fighting traffic between their homes and places of business. This is bad for everyone.

 

[nfitz]

After all, every new mega retail in the past 50 years has been in low density suburbia, to which my original post applies.

The Eaton Centre isn't mega retail?

 

[kettal]

But on a greater societal level, we now have a proliferation of huge ugly prefab buildings surrounded by seas of parking lots, all permanently destroying what was previously valuable farmland. In addition, they are forcing shoppers and employees to drive ever further, constantly fighting traffic between their homes and places of business. This is bad for everyone.

It only becomes cheaper to the consumer due to the fact that roads are so heavily subsidized. If every street was tolled-by-distance, then there would be no financial advantage to big-box shopping.

Essentially, it's just a shift of wealth out of our taxes (in the form of infrastructure) directly towards retailers (and to a certain extent, shoppers).

It's quite obvious why this is not in the interests of the city, even purely in financial terms.

 

[waterloowarrior]

The size of the store doesn't really bother me, more the orientation (far from the street, large parking lot in front, isolated from residences etc)... something like this is a lot nicer:

Of course for some people it might just be lipstick on a pig

 

[Northern Light]

Its not just about size, but what you do with it!

First, let's discuss what the problem is:

- Mega stores surrounded by acres of parking, set back from the road
- Lousy street presence
- Promotes car use over more sustainable tranport choices
- Poor aesthetic value
- Underutilization of land; too low a density.

Now the Fixes:

Parking

- Require parking lots to be located at the rear of stores, away from streets or underground, depending on location/size

PASSED - See Green Parking Planning Rules, passed a few months ago.

- Aesthetic Value

No easy fixes, except for requiring store front windows, which can be done. There may be a need for more regulation on this point.

- Transport Choice

The Green Parking laws begin to change this process, but revised parking standards (lower minimums and introducing maximums are required)

Bike Parking is already required, bike lanes are a separate issue

Transit is largely a different issue, though good connections to/from nearby bus stops are important, though this may be addressed through the Green Parking Rules.

Density

The City is reviewing requiring 2 storey minimum heights on main roads. This would resolve many issues.

Requiring minimum density on main roads such as 2x coverage would also help resolve this concern.

*******

To sum up, I think we need a minimum density rules, and tougher requirements on how much parking is allowed, and where it is located.

On store size, I think capping single-floor retail footprints would be a useful way of breaking up monolithic huge buildings by limiting a retailer to 60,000 sq ft per floor, while grandfathering exisiting stores.

This means a new Walmart Supercenter could still be built but would have to be a 3-level store with underground parking.

That would make such a store far less offensive, and would also crimp their competitive advantage, thus helping small businesses at the same time.

 

[PukeGreen]

The size of the store doesn't really bother me, more the orientation (far from the street, large parking lot in front, isolated from residences etc)... something like this is a lot nicer:

Of course for some people it might just be lipstick on a pig

Lipstick on a pig might be harsh, but it is only a partial solution, and mainly cosmetic. I can tell just by looking at that photo that cross the street from the Save on Foods to the Canadian Tire would be a "taking your life in your hands" proposition, with a constant stream of cars turning in and out, treating pedestrians as an afterthought as they race for the parking lots behind or beneath. As for the road in the foreground, I can see four lanes before the photo cuts off... it wouldn't surprise me if there were several more.

Sometimes the scale alone makes things dangerously unpleasant for pedestrians and cyclists. What frustrates me is that retailers will build something like this, then pull out statistics that say something like "94% of our customers arrive by automobile" as justification to build more of the same.

 

[waterloowarrior]

Lipstick on a pig might be harsh, but it is only a partial solution, and mainly cosmetic. I can tell just by looking at that photo that cross the street from the Save on Foods to the Canadian Tire would be a "taking your life in your hands" proposition, with a constant stream of cars turning in and out, treating pedestrians as an afterthought as they race for the parking lots behind or beneath. As for the road in the foreground, I can see four lanes before the photo cuts off... it wouldn't surprise me if there were several more.

Sometimes the scale alone makes things dangerously unpleasant for pedestrians and cyclists. What frustrates me is that retailers will build something like this, then pull out statistics that say something like "94% of our customers arrive by automobile" as justification to build more of the same.

It might just be the angle, it looks OK on Canpages (click on "Street Scene" on the map and click the icon for full screen). The store is on Cambie, a major street in Vancouver. There is also a Whole Foods with condos or offices above just down the street. It's right by an underground Canada Line station... EDIT: Here's an article about the station

BROADWAY-CITY HALL

Cambie and Broadway

By Derrick Penner

The junction of Broadway and Cambie in Vancouver is the transportation hub that needed rapid transit the most before the north-south Canada Line was announced, and needs even more running east-west, in the opinion of many.

The corner where the Broadway-City Hall Canada Line station sits was already the location of numerous bus connections, including the super-busy 99 B-Line service that links the Broadway SkyTrain station with the University of British Columbia, and will be the junction point for an eventual east-west extension of existing rapid transit out to the university.

"The Broadway corridor is [Vancouver's] second downtown," Brent Toderian, the city's director of planning, said in an interview. "It has the second highest concentration of job space in British Columbia next to our own central business district in the downtown peninsula."

When it opens, the Broadway-City Hall Station will be the junction point for Canada Line travellers headed to Vancouver city hall, of course, but it is also within walking distance of the City Square shopping centre, and is the closest station to the busy Vancouver General Hospital campus as well as the Fairview and Mount Pleasant neighbourhoods.

The intersection has already undergone a transformation in anticipation of the Canada Line with the addition of some large, prominent mixed-use developments: Crossroads and The Rise, a pair of mixed-use buildings that blend condominiums, offices and big-box retail stores.

Beneath The Rise are a Home Depot and a Save-On-Foods, across the street are a Best Buy electronics shop and a Canadian Tire. Crossroads is home to a London Drugs and a Whole Foods grocery store.

Toderian brags that this makes it North America's first truly urban "power centre," one that isn't built around the concept of people driving to its stores.

Jane Bird, CEO of Canada Line Rapid Transit Inc., noted that the Cambie-Broadway junction is incredibly busy as is. The 99 B-Line bus alone carries 80,000 riders per day.

However, she welcomes the influx of new residents to the location, because it helps transit operators on a couple of fronts.

First, putting homes on top of commercial developments provides additional riders to help support the newly installed infrastructure.

Second, but equally important, Bird said, those new riders, young professionals starting their careers perhaps, become "transit friendly" toward future expansion of the system.

"If you propose a streetcar on Broadway, or an extension of the Millennium Line under Broadway, you would be the sort of person who would say 'this [transit infrastructure] has already been of great benefit to me, bring it on,'" Bird said.

depenner@vancouversun.com

 

[W. K. Lis]

The Green Parking plans should be applied all across the city of Toronto (not just the old city), across the 905, and all urban areas of Ontario.

They can start with the areas around train stations, ie. Kingston, ON, where the VIA station is out in the middle of nowhere.

 

[Glen]

It only becomes cheaper to the consumer due to the fact that roads are so heavily subsidized.

You can't really subsidise yourself.

 

[PukeGreen]

It only becomes cheaper to the consumer due to the fact that roads are so heavily subsidized.

True. It's out of the scope of this thread, but it is amazing how people who drive daily on roads built and maintained by billions of dollars in government funding over the past half century will scream "socialist state! transit should pay for itself!" whenever someone complains that public transit is underfunded.

 

[kettal]

Re: that Vancouver intersection. Maybe it's lipstick on a pig, but I'll kiss it The Canadian Tire & Best Buy with Ryerson classrooms on top is also pretty damn good.

There seems to be a garden on top of the Cambie Canadian Tire, but no residential. What's up there?