Fully agree with your point. I just feel like pointing out that, ironically, 17th Avenue SW has a 5.182m public realm setback on it, so this project will need to be pushed back from the current property line by 5.182m, to widen the ROW for 17th Avenue. You can see this in the DP drawings. I am being a bit tongue in cheek though, the City has at least started allowing these setbacks to be used for widened sidewalks, street furniture, trees, etc... But, this setback table has existed in the land use bylaw for decades, and for the longest time was meant to preserve land to allow for road widenings as you described.
I guess that is not really ironic, I just felt like pointing out this technical requirement on this project, as it relates to the above post.
That setback table in the land use bylaw used on 17th Avenue and other places in the bylaw is pretty wild artifact in that it's just there by itself . As you said, these setbacks were for road widening originally but that's not really a thing that seems to be captured anywhere in official reports, strategy or policy. I actually wonder how old those setbacks are?
Without any documentation all that remains is the setback rules themselves. The start of the story is something like 1960s-era engineers and planners got together and said all these corridors are too narrow given future car transportation forecasts that showed infinite volume growth everywhere on all corridors. At the time - just like today - can't just afford to widen 17th Avenue to it's ultimate "final design" right now. So the strategy became to slowly get the corridors ready by using the land use regulations to require a setback on land development so that one day all the land is set aside for their future project once all parcels redevelop.
The benefit to this approach is that it's "painless" - don't need to argue with the community and get into big, messy road expansion battles, all the city has to do is wait for all the lands to turn over naturally, apply the setback rules and then expand the road. It appears cheap too - no costly expropriation, the city will just get the land one day.
However, the problem with this approach should have been immediately obvious - this will take a couple hundred years to accumulate all the land this way. Land parcels are redeveloped at the random whims of land owners, many go their whole lifetimes without ever thinking about redevelopment. It should have been pretty obvious even at that time that this parcel-by-parcel approach won't achieve the stated needs (more land for a road widening to match a travel demand projection), yet they went ahead and implemented the setback anyways.
Fast forward 60+ years, and the result is this: some parcels have turned over, some not. Land use decisions have drifted as interpretation of the setbacks shifted over the years the result is a jagged block pattern with total inconsistency on how to use this setback space but also how to orientate buildings. Developments all choose different paths to use that space that's dedicated to the setback based on the whims of the transportation department and the individual application at the time - sometimes it's a patio space, sometimes a wide sidewalk, sometimes a parking bay. The setback creates inconsistent walking environment for a goal that doesn't even exist.
Compare that to a city like Toronto where they never tried the same approach. Notice the consistent parcel boundaries:
At no point in our lifetimes - let alone the lifetimes of the planners who can up with this strategy as they are likely all dead by now - will the setback be fully implemented so that dreamed about widening can occur. That widening isn't even contemplated anymore and I don't think has been contemplated in any official way for a few decades. The city's own public transportation modelling assumes 17th Avenue will remain 4 lanes out to 2076.
I am sure in the rooms where developments argue about this stuff today, there's still lots of arguments to keep using the setbacks in the same spirit of future-proofing - "sure we don't want to do widening now, but who knows in 100 years? That's valuable corridor space we could need for any number of reasons." This is why the setbacks haven't gone away even if the reason they were put in at the beginning has long been forgotten.
Future-proofing like this seems prudent and strategic but it has a real downside: inconsistent public realm, more complicated and negotiated developments, risk of some sites becoming less developable etc. It isn't free - these setbacks have real impacts that prevent the street from evolving consistently and becoming more productive. 17th Avenue's hodgepodge of development and weak walkability in this area is a direct byproduct.
By sticking with the setbacks even though the reason we started them no longer exists, we've let the rule become it's own justification. The references have became circular - in effect, the point of the setback rules on main streets is so we can satisfy the needs of the setback rules. We shouldn't have these types of rules unless they are tied to a clear vision, project or strategy of what we want to achieve by enforcing the rule.
