High Density Development in small Municipalities?

[Steven Hughes]

I live in White Rock, B.C. and we, as a small city, have been pondering the issue of high rise / high density development in our community for the past few years. It is a highly polarized topic.

What experience can you offer? Do any of you live in smaller urban centers that have faced, or are facing the same issues? I am sure that White Rock, British Columbia is not the only town to face this!

Thanks for your input!

Steven Hughes

White Rock, British Columbia

[William Ashley]

Underground development. Offers cost savings no wind sheer or sky obstruction. There is urban sprawl where I am, in the long run though you need to incorporate food growth, and energy production and water management systems. They are key. Undergorund development is often underlooked but we have hundreds of Kilometers

below us and the effects visually are not as great.. and the energy cost savings.

Also your costal position offers other interesting posibilities.. however all in all it depends in part where your water table lies.

Edited October 20, 2008 by Charles Anthony
deleted re-copied Opening Post

[eyeball]

We have the opposite problem, our resident population is actually shrinking in our rural district yet there is little or no affordable housing for people who need it. Land values have been driven up by gorbies looking for vacation homes and property taxes have gone up accordingly. In addition to being surrounded by hundreds of unoccupied houses and building lots we're also surrounded by thousands of square kilometers of unoccupied land.

I'd rather see more crown land being opened up to take the strain off the affordable housing crunch, and to keep land values low, affordable and less prone to exorbitant taxation.

As luck would have it, many of the NEWBIES are taking up positions in local planning committees and basically re-jigging our communities official plan. These nouveau locals typically try to reduce density by outlawing secondary suites or more than one residence on a lot. These are the same sorts of people that like to buy waterfront property and keep locals from using the beach. Many also work diligently to shut down things like oyster farms or anything that might be spoiling their million dollar views.

At one recent public meeting about our official community plan some bimbo from TO or somewhere got up and declared "we need to do something about all these drunk indians". Life in a small rural community certainly has its moments.

[White Doors]

Underground development. Offers cost savings no wind sheer or sky obstruction. There is urban sprawl where I am, in the long run though you need to incorporate food growth, and energy production and water management systems. They are key. Undergorund development is often underlooked but we have hundreds of Kilometers

below us and the effects visually are not as great.. and the energy cost savings.

Also your costal position offers other interesting posibilities.. however all in all it depends in part where your water table lies.

[Mr.Canada]

I live in White Rock, B.C. and we, as a small city, have been pondering the issue of high rise / high density development in our community for the past few years. It is a highly polarized topic.

What experience can you offer? Do any of you live in smaller urban centers that have faced, or are facing the same issues? I am sure that White Rock, British Columbia is not the only town to face this!

Thanks for your input!

Steven Hughes

White Rock, British Columbia

Don't do it unless you are prepared for your crime rate to go up.

As any significant new development has to include some form of social housing. Once people move into that housing drugs, prostitution and property crime will rise dramatically. The whole culture of social housing seems to have an obligation to crime.

I've been to White Rock, it's a very nice, small community right on the border. Trust me keep it that way. Look whats happened to Surrey and Burnaby. Do you want that for White Rock as well?

Oppose public Transit at every meeting, every chance you get. Once you have public transit, it's all over as the poor people start coming and with them, the crime wave.

[jdobbin]

I live in White Rock, B.C. and we, as a small city, have been pondering the issue of high rise / high density development in our community for the past few years. It is a highly polarized topic.

I think the mistake is to put high rise and high density in the same phrasing. As people get older, they require housing that covers less space, has less maintenance, have assisted living or a full out personal care or nursing home residence.

If communities like White Rock don't do this, the older people can't live there anymore and have to move to places like Vancouver. We have seen small communities all over Canada wrestle with what to do as the population ages. Small towns were starting to depopulate due to seniors moving to where there was housing that suited their needs.

Now most small towns lobby the government, fundraise themselves and develop higher density seniors residences in the heart of their communities.

What experience can you offer? Do any of you live in smaller urban centers that have faced, or are facing the same issues? I am sure that White Rock, British Columbia is not the only town to face this!

Thanks for your input!

White Rock doesn't need high rises per se but it does have to address the needs of both old and young. If they have only one type of housing, the young can't afford it and the seniors find it too big. The housing strategy has to address that.

Likewise, it is possible to construct new shopping centers so that rather than sprawling one story in all directions, they have two stories. Each small move uses less space, save energy and money and increases density.

[jdobbin]

Don't do it unless you are prepared for your crime rate to go up.

Generally speaking higher densities aren't the cause of crime. It is the ghettoization of a community in poverty that does that.

There are some very high densities in richer condo areas of Canada and the crime rate is not that bad.

Also, the poster was not specific if this was just a housing issue or an overall view on higher density.

Sprawl can be costly to service. A city planning committee can save money just be getting a shopping center think about adding a second story. I've never heard of a shopping center having more crime just because it had one more floor. It can save a city money in servicing charges though in terms of extending water, sewer, gas and roads.

As any significant new development has to include some form of social housing. Once people move into that housing drugs, prostitution and property crime will rise dramatically. The whole culture of social housing seems to have an obligation to crime.

I suppose they can export that problem like a lot of communities do which was to give a bus ticket to those undesirable to leave town.

The issue of how to provide housing for young new people entering the market and seniors looks to downsize remains an issue for any small community looking to survive. There are modern ghost towns developing in parts of Canada in places that were not quick enough to develop seniors housing or housing that young people could afford.

I've been to White Rock, it's a very nice, small community right on the border. Trust me keep it that way. Look whats happened to Surrey and Burnaby. Do you want that for White Rock as well?

Is that a result of higher density population? Seems to me Surrey and Burnaby are about the same density.

Oppose public Transit at every meeting, every chance you get. Once you have public transit, it's all over as the poor people start coming and with them, the crime wave.

I've heard some people mention the same thing about taxis and crime.

Fact is that some people don't drive for various reasons. Some are handicapped, some too young to drive, some too old to drive and some who choose not to drive. The lack of a means of getting around is also a reason some communities lose population.

[Machjo]

The lower the population density, the more inefficient the city. You end up with a small poopulation base having to maintian a massive urban infrastructure of roads and highways. Naturally, this will tend towards higher taxes too. In a higher-density city, you have a larger tax-base population-wise having to maintian a smaller infrastructure geographically speaing, and so are more likely to face a lower tax-base generally speaking.

But hey, we get what we ask fr. Some people would rather pay the extra taxes for the Lebensraum.

[Oleg Bach]

The trend internationally is to push people into cities and maintain the population in a concentrated controled mass...it's kind of like a massive and sometimes delightful prison..

[Machjo]

Don't do it unless you are prepared for your crime rate to go up.

As any significant new development has to include some form of social housing. Once people move into that housing drugs, prostitution and property crime will rise dramatically. The whole culture of social housing seems to have an obligation to crime.

I've been to White Rock, it's a very nice, small community right on the border. Trust me keep it that way. Look whats happened to Surrey and Burnaby. Do you want that for White Rock as well?

Oppose public Transit at every meeting, every chance you get. Once you have public transit, it's all over as the poor people start coming and with them, the crime wave.

Are you sure you've got your stats straight? I remember reading last year that break and enter crimes are much higher in the suburbs owing to few people being there in the daytime.

I'd have to find the link for that again, and of course we'd have to look at the overall crime rate, but it would be nice to see statistics to confirm.

You also seem to stereotype the poor as crimnals. Some poor might be poor simply due to bad luck in life, just as some rich are rich because of under-the-table dealings.

To oppose efficient land use and fuel efficient transportation like public transit just to keep the poor away is a perfect example of NIMBYism. It just pushes the poor elsewhere, again with no clear correlation between poverty and crime. In fact, some among the middle class, such as myself, do in fact use public transit as a matter of choice to protect the environment. If Ottawa scrapped its public transit system just to get rid of the poor, it would also force me to drive to work all the time, thus increasing the need for more ugly highways. No thanks to that.

[tango]

I like the idea of some high density housing in small communities, centred in the downtown for access to services and to populate the downtowns. Small town centres are caving in due to urban mall sprawl.

I agree with those who said we have to provide convenient and affordable housing for the old and the young.

I like the new slimmer towers, spreading out on the lower floors, and the concept of retail and services on the bottom floor(s), and cafes and a street presence too.

I hate city blocks full of nothing but brick walls!

But there are much better community centred higher density housing concepts out there now.

I think you have to leave space between towers, make them narrow, and be very careful about blocking sunlight.

http://books.google.ca/books?id=NFaFZf1n8F...Mzc3FZ4Z0454Ytk

Edited April 18, 2009 by tango

[Machjo]

Why don't Canadian urban planners learn from the experience of cities that do have a high population density?

When I wa in Hong Kong, I was amazed at how well-planned it was. In spite of the population density, it was a truly pleasurable city. We had walking paths aboe the streets downtown so that pedestrians didn't hinder car traffic. That was brilliant. Instead of building more roads to compensate for all the extra traffic caused by pedestrians, just get the pedesrians off the road. It benefits the pedestrians since they don't have to wait at traffic lights anymore. And it benefits drivers since they don't have as many pedestrians crossing the road, thus speeding up street traffic. And it benefits taxpayers by not having to build more roads (though granted that last point is not an option in Hong Kong).

But certainly our urban planners could learn from cities like London, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and see how they've done it.

[DFCaper]

The lower the population density, the more inefficient the city. You end up with a small poopulation base having to maintian a massive urban infrastructure of roads and highways. Naturally, this will tend towards higher taxes too. In a higher-density city, you have a larger tax-base population-wise having to maintian a smaller infrastructure geographically speaing, and so are more likely to face a lower tax-base generally speaking.

But hey, we get what we ask fr. Some people would rather pay the extra taxes for the Lebensraum.

Then why when a big city takes over a small surrounding town, do the tax rates in the small town skyrocket, while services are eliminated?

I don't think they should force small towns to maintain a high population density. I live in a small town because it allows me to maintain a larger home with a larger piece of property. If my wife would let me, I would move ot of town to have a larger lot. These benefits make the sacrifice that comes along with country living worth while. If I had to live in an apartment like a third world person, I would move to TO so I would have all of the benefits of a large city.

I'm not against higher density housing, just against Government mandated.