A question for the various folks on here who have good perspectives on infilll development:
There are a handful of areas, like Rosedale, Hounsfield Heights and Roxboro (as well as the central part of Hillhurst not on 10th/14th/Kensington) that are today basically exclusively SFD. They have been getting redeveloped, but by a million dollar 70 year old house being replaced by a $4M new house that looks like a bunker or car dealership. Assuming the blanket rezoning passes, a lot of properties will be rezoned RC-1, permitting rowhouse-scale developments. In the medium term (say the next 10-20 years), will there actually be a significant number of this sort of intensified developments built in these areas?
The yes argument is that these are adjacent to areas where there is substantial intensification happening; Mount Pleasant has had something like 1/4 of its units built in the last decade, so why not Rosedale, which is closer to the downtown, has even nicer tree canopy and traffic calming, etc? The profit potential may be higher selling four rowhouses with four secondary suites than a single custom mansion, and the market is larger.
The no argument is that the land in these areas will be more expensive than in the areas that are seeing infill, and that even with land use changed, there is still the development permit process. And these are well-connected, well-resourced communities that will fight this sort of intensification, so why not just save the uncertainty and headaches and do your project somewhere that this is already pretty common.
Note, I'm just thinking about these specific high-wealth enclaves; a rezoning will pretty obviously cause intensification in the Capitol Hills and Killarneys of the world where it's already happening.
Thoughts? I'm genuinely unsure on this one.
