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Urban Development and Proposals Discussion

Cowtown said:
And wouldn’t that make them cheaper to develop?
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Indeed. You might end up with more widespread lower density instead of focused high density due to that as well.

I may have cut the quote too short, I was talking about banked development sites primarily.
 
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New sunalta community centre.
 
CBBarnett said:
I think you are forgetting about markets, supply and demand. If a semi-detached or row house doesn't make economic sense in Deer Run, it won't be built in Deer Run regardless of the zoning.

But if it does make sense, let the market decide where and when this incremental intensification stuff occurs, an arbitrary 1 unit per lot rule imposed by the government is way too heavy--handed when we are only talking about adding 2, 3 or 4 units. There is no justification for that level of micro-management by government. The development process will still be required for all the infrastructure, safety and building code stuff.

On this location in Deer Run specifically, even if incremental growth occurs it won't cause crippling traffic in Deer Run because of two reasons:

1. Population remains 21% below peak population of 1998, or about 2,300 people.

View attachment 548301

2. Bow Bottom Trail SE was originally designed to be Deerfoot's southern extension before Fish Creek Park was established. As such, it's design like a high capacity freeway and has several multiple times more capacity the car volumes it sees as it doesn't connect to anything. The last traffic count I could find on Bow Bottom in this area was in 2013, and estimated 11,000 cars a day (6,000 NB, 5,000 SB). This makes this road less busy than 33rd Ave in Marda Loop, a 2 lane road.

View attachment 548302

Even if purely car-dependent, and a lot of houses turn over from 1 unit to 2 (or 3 or 4), there's no scenario in which these roads reach any sort of capacity limit. But not all houses will turn over, and all this will happen only over a long period of time so it's a moot point.
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Those are all good points, and I have no doubts that Bow Bottom Trail is an over-built road. But people living in Deer Run don't just drive down Bow Bottom Trail and park their cars at the end of it. They use Deerfoot, they use Anderson, they drive on Glenmore, they drive on Crowchild. My only concern is that a blanket up-zoning will increase the aggregate car usage in this city.

I'm not against up-zoning SFH neighborhoods to row housing. I just think that up-zoning should be done in the following areas:

- Within a 1.2km radius of a rapid transit station (or a future station).
- Within an 800m of a MAX BRT station (Or a future station).
- Blanket up-zoning within the inner city.

(And I'm not saying that we should limit the up-zoning to only row houses along those areas. High density developments would suffice on a case to case basis)

Once again, I'll make the point...there are so many vacant and underutilized lots are in Downtown and the Beltline. The areas around Westbrook, Chinook, Marlborough and Lions Park Station station look like a wasteland. It's almost a blank canvas in terms of TOD potential. Why can't the city focus development around those areas? Does the city not have the tools present to implement an additional property/land tax on underutilized or vacant lots?
 
Red Star said:
I'm not against up-zoning SFH neighborhoods to row housing. I just think that up-zoning should be done in the following areas:

- Within a 1.2km radius of a rapid transit station (or a future station).
- Within an 800m of a MAX BRT station (Or a future station).
- Blanket up-zoning within the inner city.
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Why? What harm is to be avoided? Density will flow to where you want through market dynamics anyways, without inefficient distortions.

At the cost of a loss of $228 million federal funding?
 
Red Star said:
- Within a 1.2km radius of a rapid transit station (or a future station).
- Within an 800m of a MAX BRT station (Or a future station).
- Blanket up-zoning within the inner city.
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These sound good on paper, most people living at these locations would still need a car, because the transit system is not built out and most people don't want to be constrained to the LRT.. Having moved from Toronto where there's many areas similar to what you are describing, giant towers beside transit and SFH two city blocks over. Many people still need to own a car even though they take transit most of the week.

The rezoning plan will allow density to be spread out, supporting more lower capacity transit that reaches more places. Instead of adding more capacity along LRTs, we get 3 new MAX lines with less capacity but improves the connectivity of the city overall. The densification throughout the entire city is how European and East Asian countries have the transit infrastructure that actually connects the entire city instead of a few high capacity lines and then transit dead zones.
 
Red Star said:
Once again, I'll make the point...there are so many vacant and underutilized lots are in Downtown and the Beltline. The areas around Westbrook, Chinook, Marlborough and Lions Park Station station look like a wasteland. It's almost a blank canvas in terms of TOD potential. Why can't the city focus development around those areas? Does the city not have the tools present to implement an additional property/land tax on underutilized or vacant lots?
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The short is - property rights, a firm reliance on a private market, and the fact that any taxation powers are within the province's power.

The City can not force someone to develop because it is not the City's property. Tools to incentivize such action (like a land value tax) are tools only the province can enact. There was a desire when the City Charters were done under the PCs and the NDP to give the cities additional tax options, but ultimately this was not done and then subsequently the UCP largely ripped up the charters to ensure the cities are still completely behold to the province.

At best, and what we often see if the City doing work within the local area plans and similar initiatives to encourage or make it easier for items within the City's control to redevelop these locations - eg. TOD rules, LAP guidelines, etc.
 
Chealion said:
The short is - property rights, a firm reliance on a private market, and the fact that any taxation powers are within the province's power.

The City can not force someone to develop because it is not the City's property. Tools to incentivize such action (like a land value tax) are tools only the province can enact. There was a desire when the City Charters were done under the PCs and the NDP to give the cities additional tax options, but ultimately this was not done and then subsequently the UCP largely ripped up the charters to ensure the cities are still completely behold to the province.

At best, and what we often see if the City doing work within the local area plans and similar initiatives to encourage or make it easier for items within the City's control to redevelop these locations - eg. TOD rules, LAP guidelines, etc.
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City could go the other way, and waive development fees for lots they'd like developed preferrentially.

Fact is, the city has put in place huge incentives in the past 20 years for development, in the East Village and now the greater downtown core. They have worked.

I think the resurgence of talk about a land value tax is part of a problem I call 'tool fetish'. For some reason, 'we' get fixated on a new tool, instead of thinking of new ways to use existing tools. This leads to paralysis, as we can become focused on the lack of a new tool as the source of the problem, instead of focusing on a lack of political will to accomplish an objective at a cost of raising and spending money. Even with a new tool, the will to use it would still not exist!

The city today could shift part of the property tax burden onto land area or frontage taxes accomplishing much of the same objective as a land value tax by taxing vacant property at a much higher effective rate than occupied property. The city could raise much of the money for expanding waterworks and sewer this way and get rid of development fees put in place for a similar purpose. That would handle both sides of the problem.

Yet we don't. Why? Our civic politicians despite their high minded rhetoric mostly want to raise revenues without voters noting that the revenues were raised by the municipality. Despite rhetoric about wanting to be free from provincial and federal spending power, they actually want more provincial and federal grants, revenue without accountability to those it was raised from.
 
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