haltcatchfire
Senior Member
There was some soil core sampling the other day and I temporarily got excited thinking foundation engineering for something new might be upon us but it was probably just due diligence for conditions of the sale.
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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion
- Thread starter Surrealplaces
- Start date
Given the prime location, right in the heart of 10th street, I can't imagine it'll stay empty for too long.
Mountain Man
Senior Member
Bucci should buy it, they do good stuff!
MichaelS
Senior Member
The nearby JEMM project will be a good test of the willingness to increase the height over what the ARP says, but I can't imagine it would be easy to do so on that lot, considering it is across a (narrow) lane from houses on 10A street. The fight would be huge.
zagox
Active Member
If I bought this lot, I would apply for 3-5m less than whatever JEMM can get approved across from Safeway. Presumably you can find 8 votes on council for that.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
I think this is the right place to put this but maybe not...
Spent my lunch walking around downtown listening to this: Why Canadian cities just generally suck
Spent my lunch walking around downtown listening to this: Why Canadian cities just generally suck
YourBoy007
Active Member
Yup. When almost every downtown in the US and Canada has a "revitalization project," something has to change.
CalgaryTiger
Senior Member
That something that has to change is the avenues and streets. And to be optimistic, it is happening in Calgary. It will probably take a few tries to get it right (see bike lanes as an example, some great others not so much). You're having to change the culture of a society. But it is happening. IMO it won't be the electric car that pushes us to better, at least in the cities. If this summer has shown me anything, it will be the electric bike/scooter.
goodcitywhenfinished
Active Member
Congrats you're now orange-pilled
Dārayavauš
Active Member
The problem is actually restrictive zoning that is harming Ontario. The Greenbelt is just an easy scapegoat for the fact that they will not allow any sort of densification at all across enormous swathes of the cities neigbourhoods.
UrbanRED
Active Member
It's a mix of both. Greenbelt = no suburban development, NIMBY = no urban development. No development of any kind = insane prices for housing
Silence&Motion
Senior Member
They’re not equivalent. One of those policies protects a vulnerable ecosystem and some of the best farmland in the country. The other policy protects McMansions. And the protections around the McMansions have proven far more effective than those around the farmland and forests.
UrbanRED
Active Member
Did I say they were equivalent? I only said that they're both contributing to the problem, which is true
Silence&Motion
Senior Member
Apologies if that came off as accusatory. It was merely a defence of the Greenbelt in general, since it has come under fire on this message board.
Growing up in the GTA, I spent my entire life seeing this get turned into this. Meanwhile quality of life had declined precipitously as people spend an ever increasing portion of their day sitting in a car in gridlock on the completely overwhelmed 400-series highway system.
Canadians are going to have to come to the realization that they do not have a God-given right to live in a metro area of over 7 million people AND have their own massive front and backyards, two-car garages, 4 or 5 bedrooms, etc. I full support blocking greenfield development until Ontario gets its sh*t together in terms of land use planning. However, my prediction is that Ontario continues to chip away at the Greenbelt, building the same car dependent subdivisions and power centres they always have. Continuing to drop 50-storey condominiums along the sides of highways and 7-lane arterial stroads. Continually drawing up new mass transit maps but not actually building anything. And the stations they do build will be placed next to highways, surrounded by parking garages and do nothing to increase the actual capacity over the already overburdened transit system. None of this will actually reduce real estate prices, though. The only real solution is to give Toronto Barcelona-level density. (End rant!)
artvandelay
Active Member
I have a few projects on the go in Southern Ontario, and the amount of bureaucratic red tape you need to endure even for simple projects is staggering. Zoning is incredibly restrictive: almost every significant project requires a rezoning and bylaw amendment, the municipalities are incredibly slow at providing review comments, there are multi-level municipalities reviewing most applications (eg. region of Peel etc.), conservation authorities have jurisdiction over areas that are completely illogical - I could go on...
All of the these issues, plus the greenbelt, have created the mess they are in down there. It's such a disaster that I don't even know where they would start to fix the problem.
If the highest and best use of the land is for agriculture, then it will be agricultural land.
All of the these issues, plus the greenbelt, have created the mess they are in down there. It's such a disaster that I don't even know where they would start to fix the problem.
You could argue that a portion of it is is a vulnerable ecosystem - the Niagara escarpment, the river valleys etc. but the vast majority of protected lands are unremarkable farmland that has been cleared of forest and cultivated with crops for hundreds of years. There's no valid rationale for protecting farmland - it's a naïve idea that sounds good to the layperson uneducated in urban land economics. There is no shortage of farmland, and agricultural yields have been continuously improving and are forecast to continue to do so - more than offsetting the miniscule loss of production from farmland that is consumed by development.
If the highest and best use of the land is for agriculture, then it will be agricultural land.