News   Apr 03, 2020
Pastel Morning
 5K     1 
News   Apr 02, 2020
A Message to Our Readers
 6.9K     3 
News   Apr 02, 2020
Soon to be Gone
 4K     0 

Infill Development Discussion

Urb said:
A few communities are in the process of registering a blanket restrictive covenant to preserve their single family only status. Roxboro and Rideau are doing it and I'm sure there will be others. The appeals lawyers are going to get very rich.
Click to expand...
This might be a stupid question, but always cloudy to me how restricted covenants works, especially new ones that are retroactively applied after a community exists. If I own a house in Roxboro and don't want a new restricted covenant added, the community can't force me to do anything, right?

This differs from the other restricted covenant issues in the past because those were applied so long ago at original subdivision, so there were no exceptions - the community was entirely covered by the restrictions, in which I as a single land owner could not remove one without consent of the other parties.
 
CBBarnett said:
This might be a stupid question, but always cloudy to me how restricted covenants works, especially new ones that are retroactively applied after a community exists. If I own a house in Roxboro and don't want a new restricted covenant added, the community can't force me to do anything, right?

This differs from the other restricted covenant issues in the past because those were applied so long ago at original subdivision, so there were no exceptions - the community was entirely covered by the restrictions, in which I as a single land owner could not remove one without consent of the other parties.
Click to expand...
My understanding is it's up to each individual homeowner to add the RC to his/her title. I suspect there will be a lot of pressure from neighbours to conform.
 
There was a sign posted for development of a long vacant lot on the south side 5th Ave NW between 10th St and 14th St in Hillhurst. It's only for 3 units (I'm guessing luxury townhouses) but better than a vacant lot.
Does anyone know if they'll ensure that this gets oriented towards 5th Ave (as it should be) rather than towards 11th St (?) as the current address is. I'd hate to see the south side of 5th Ave get redeveloped with the sides of buildings/houses fronting it. Not as bad as the south side of Kensington Rd but still....
 
This one?
1715984279069.png
 
Regarding Restrictive covenants vs RCG zoning, is the following the correct answer based on the one ruling on Banff trail?
  1. The City has the power to allow developers to build an increased density despite existing restrictive covenants by requiring a minimum density allocation for a given land use.
    • If true, the city may have other powers to overrule restrictive covenants and force density directly or indirectly, although, the City deems restrictive covenants as a civil matter and they have no involvement.
  2. RCG will not be enough to overrule restrictive covenants to increase density as there is no minimum density requirement within RCG, only a maximum.
I guess the questions will be, did wording with the covenants on Banff trail that led the judge to their decision reflect the majority of existing covenants within the city, and if the judge's ruling is sound.

I understand that each one is different and this might be overly simplistic, but I have yet to see any specifics on this forum (or anywhere) that actually challenge the above.

 
Last edited:
Does anyone know if there are any R-CG rowhouses built in the past decade that are in the traditional form of a rowhouse, ie units face the street with normal backyards that run to the back alley?
I've always been curious because it seems 100% of new RC-G rowhouses actually are being built to H-GO density, ie one narrow corner lot with a home facing the main street is converted to 4-5 units facing the side street. Almost a back-door 1/2 sized H-GO implementation in R-CG.
 
JoeUrban said:
Does anyone know if there are any R-CG rowhouses built in the past decade that are in the traditional form of a rowhouse, ie units face the street with normal backyards that run to the back alley?
I've always been curious because it seems 100% of new RC-G rowhouses actually are being built to H-GO density, ie one narrow corner lot with a home facing the main street is converted to 4-5 units facing the side street. Almost a back-door 1/2 sized H-GO implementation in R-CG.
Click to expand...
I was under the impression that the reason we don't see them is direct and indirect policy choices, namely that R-CG wasn't a thing until around 2014. I recall some of the criteria where R-CG was appropriate was deliberately isolated to corner lots of certain sizes. Someone might know better but I thought it was pretty rare/impossible to get a R-CG not on a corner lot for a while. With citywide re-zoning approved, perhaps these conditions are now obsolete so you could do a whole block R-CG.

The more indirect issue is front setbacks - you can't get good sized backyards if the house has to be set back arbitrarily far from the street. Almost every place that has seen infill in Calgary has these contextual setbacks. Results in townhome design that are common elsewhere being impossible here.

I do wonder what Calgary would look like had something like R-CG been approved in the 1980s, instead of the RC-2 citywide rezoning that occurred back then. Have 40 years of incremental infill, up and down markets in land prices and housing - would probably have led to many examples of traditional townhomes and a huge range of housing types that we don't currently have. I assume Calgary 40 years from now may have that diversity. I write this as I am sitting in a semi-detached infill that only exists thanks to that 1980s-era citywide RC-2 rezoning (but with an annoying large front lawn that's useless, and an annoying small backyard).
 
Last edited:
CBBarnett said:
I was under the impression that the reason we don't see them is direct and indirect policy choices, namely that R-CG wasn't a thing until around 2014. I recall some of the criteria where R-CG was appropriate was deliberately isolated to corner lots of certain sizes. Someone might know better but I thought it was pretty rare/impossible to get a R-CG not on a corner lot for a while. With citywide re-zoning approved, perhaps these conditions are not obsolete so you could do a whole block R-CG.

The more indirect issue is front setbacks - you can't get good sized backyards if the house has to be set back arbitrarily far from the street. Almost every place that has seen infill in Calgary has these contextual setbacks. Results in townhome design that are common elsewhere being impossible here.

I do wonder what Calgary would look like had something like R-CG been approved in the 1980s, instead of the RC-2 citywide rezoning that occurred back then. Have 40 years of incremental infill, up and down markets in land prices and housing - would probably have led to many examples of traditional townhomes and a huge range of housing types that we don't currently have. I assume Calgary 40 years from now may have that diversity. I write this as I am sitting in a semi-detached infill that only exists thanks to that 1980s-era citywide RC-2 rezoning (but with an annoying large front lawn that's useless, and an annoying small backyard).
Click to expand...
Amen 🫡
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top