This ought to be the norm along arterials as you mentioned
@Northern Light
Quick thought exercise, the net new unit total here, after replacement is 423.
That's over a span of only 135M of frontage on Steeles.
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Forget huge towers and just replicate this (average height of the 2 buildings is 13 storeys).......... apply the same rough density plan to the south side of Steeles only, from Yonge to Bathurst only (I'm removing sites that are already similarly dense); you get roughly 7 of these built..........or just over 2,900 units, housing about 4,300 people.
Forget the whole city (just for a moment), and apply that only to residential/mixed use areas of Steeles; west of Yonge to York U; but both sides of the road. You get something like 18,000 units for 27,000 people.
Without getting caught up in the details, imagine something similar for every major E-W arterial from Eglinton north. You now have 108,000 units; add the same east of Yonge..........216,000 units, cover the same distance on N-S roads, 432,000 units; and over 650,000 people housed without touching a single interior site, or any building greater than 13s.
We also didn't add a single unit south of Eglinton (which we obviously could, should and would in this hypothetical)
It just goes to show how much is possible, relatively easily, if we just want to let it happen, never mind making it happen.
Assume some higher buildings at key nodes; Assume similar intensification south of Eglinton, and in the far flung wilds of Scarborough and Etobicoke........; bisect just a couple of tracts with new arterials around which density can be established...
You just found space for 2,000,000 people within the City proper.
I'm not going to suggest that level of growth would be desirable; nor than the infrastructure could support it..........
But it just goes to show how we get caught blathering about the need for 40s towers..............and to tear into the midst of the Yellow Belt (which I agree we should in places)..............but we can do neither and still add gobs of density.
