Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

[maestro]

Okay. so there are about 527000 dwellings which makes 33728 units in 5+ storey buildings. I actually thought more than 10,000 units were sstarted in the last 10 years. That is still a large percentage of the units being 10 or less years old.

 

[Cowtown]

With roughly 10,000 units started in the last six years, I would say the last 10 years would be about 12,000 maybe as 2007 up to 2011 was slower.
Certainly a big change from what calibre used to be. If I had the time I'd go back and look at the percentage of units before say 2000. That's roughly when the recent high-rise building trend started. Calgary. had a few high-rise apartments in the West End of downtown and a few in the beltline area but virtually nothing else.

Okay. so there are about 527000 dwellings which makes 33728 units in 5+ storey buildings. I actually thought more than 10,000 units were sstarted in the last 10 years. That is still a large percentage of the units being 10 or less years old.

 

[maestro]

There has to be at least a 100, 5+ storey apartment buildings around town. Maybe they just don't pack them in like they do today.

 

[Silence&Motion]

That said, I don't know why we are only looking at buildings five stories or more . In my opinion a good measure would be buildings three stories or higher, as good urban form and density can be accomplished just as well, using low rise buildings and townhouses.

Because that's what the census measures. It doesn't necessarily tell us about urban form, since townhouses can be much more urban and walkable than high-rise "towers in the park". On a cultural level, however, it does tell us that apartment living is something that is much more foreign to Calgarians than to Torontonians. I can't count how many times I've heard the derogatory term "shoe box in the sky" used since I moved to Calgary. I never heard anyone use that term in Toronto.

 

[maestro]

Exactly. Even a lowrise walkup is quite different from a midrise elevator building. The 4 storey wood framed apartment blocks so popular in Alberta do have a place in this count.

 

[Silence&Motion]

Just pulled the 2011 census numbers myself so that we can see the absolute number of households counted, plus the breakdown of all of the dwelling types recorded by the census. Toronto is included as a reference category.

 

[Always_Biking]

So a fairly high number of 4 storey walkups for Calgary. I think the percentage might even go up in 2016 numbers as there have been alot of those developments lately. Unfortunately most of them are in the suburbs.

 

[Always_Biking]

Going back to this list, I noticed Ottawa has a decently high percentage of dwellings in the 5+ storey category, but having lived there, I recall a good number of these high rises being in clusters in the areas out of the downtown. There were quite a few where I lived (Nepean)

Toronto did ban apartment buildings in 1912, which is why it has nowhere near the number of pre-WWII mid-rise buildings as NYC, Montreal, Chicago, etc. I suppose that is what allowed it to retain a lot of Victorian townhouses, though.

With regard to the lack of mid-rise in Calgary, I was struck by a recent tweet by Greg Morrow:

Full tweet: https://twitter.com/gregmorrow/status/843508185021333504?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=https://twitter.com/gregmorrow/status/843508185021333504

 

[Beltline_B]

Yeah, it's funny the attitude towards apartment buildings in Calgary. I know what you mean, but it is changing.

My parents are from Toronto, and when they moved Calgary. they were first looking at apartment buildings to live in, and some of my dad's coworkers were saying 'you're a stockbroker, why would you move into an apartment building'? Lol
But thankfully that mentality is changing, especially with younger people.

Because that's what the census measures. It doesn't necessarily tell us about urban form, since townhouses can be much more urban and walkable than high-rise "towers in the park". On a cultural level, however, it does tell us that apartment living is something that is much more foreign to Calgarians than to Torontonians. I can't count how many times I've heard the derogatory term "shoe box in the sky" used since I moved to Calgary. I never heard anyone use that term in Toronto.

 

[Oddball]

Toronto did ban apartment buildings in 1912, which is why it has nowhere near the number of pre-WWII mid-rise buildings as NYC, Montreal, Chicago, etc. I suppose that is what allowed it to retain a lot of Victorian townhouses, though.

With regard to the lack of mid-rise in Calgary, I was struck by a recent tweet by Greg Morrow:

Full tweet: https://twitter.com/gregmorrow/status/843508185021333504?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=https://twitter.com/gregmorrow/status/843508185021333504

Yet another bizarre case of Edmonton being omitted from a list of Canada's major cities. Interesting to see that Montreal is also so low.

 

[maestro]

Going back to this list, I noticed Ottawa has a decently high percentage of dwellings in the 5+ storey category, but having lived there, I recall a good number of these high rises being in clusters in the areas out of the downtown. There were quite a few where I lived (Nepean)

The post war housing programs supported suburban tower in a park communities. Any city of size in Ontario will have a lot of these high rise clusters.

Thanks for the numbers. They are really quite fascinating.

 

[BKha]

Yet another bizarre case of Edmonton being omitted from a list of Canada's major cities. Interesting to see that Montreal is also so low.

Edmonton was apparently omitted because it was further down the list ~5%

 

[CBBarnett]

Yet another bizarre case of Edmonton being omitted from a list of Canada's major cities. Interesting to see that Montreal is also so low.

Part of the reason for Montreal being low is that the has several hundred thousand "plex" units in all older areas. There are typically 2-4 storey walk-ups, that max out from property line to property line. Super dense style of housing, which is why the Le Plateau-Mont-Royal and many of Montreal's inner city neighbourhoods are among the densest in Canada despite not as many high-rises as other places.

 

[Oddball]

I was wondering if the age of the city was a factor. Thanks for the info.

 

[BKha]

Age is definitely part of it. Calgary being a young city doesn't have much in the way of older dense buildings. As much as I like the new high-rises and the density they are bringing to neighbourhoods like EV and Beltline, I wish we had more low and mid-rise developments going into those areas.