The reason why Garrison Woods is so expensive is two-fold.
1. Because of its prime inner-city location
2. Because this kind of development is in high demand, but in short supply. If every community
at the fringe was developed in the same manner as Garrison Woods (which still does have a lot of single family homes) I would argue that housing prices would be actually less - higher density, more efficient layout means more units on the same amount of land, thereby distributing land costs across more units.
It's not even that developers wouldn't want to develop a community like Garrison Woods, it's that the rules dictating subdivisions practically negate their possibility. It took Canada Lands 7 years to get Garrison Woods approved because it had to break practically every rule in the book Calgary has. No private developer is going to go through that nightmare. The rules need to support smart growth and prohibit out of date, financially and environmentally unsustainable growth patterns.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cowboy89
Just a comment of mine about sprawl. As any informed voter should do I have been browsing candidate websites, reading newpaper articles, registering on twitter feeds, et al. I've noticed that generally any candidate who mentions development or sprawl is against it for the reasons being that it costs more in infrastructure, areas are unwalkable, transportation is car reliant, et al. To that affect I completely and utterly agree with that line of thinking.
After reading some stuff from Nenshi in developing more higher density, walkable communities with Garrison Woods being used as a beacon of enlightenment for future communities that can also feature many sizable family friendly town homes, I couldn't help but dream of living in a community like Garrison Woods. So I started looking at real estate sites and the like and found that town homes of size with backyards et al go for "From the 650,000s" according to the new 'Victoria Cross' Development http://www.homesbyavi.com/main.asp?CityID=1. Highly levered 5%, 35% mortgage option aside, realistically this dream can only be attained by a family that features a couple who both earn six figures and in the end it's still just a townhome.
Obviously when faced with a choice between Garrison Woods and a 1700 sq foot home in far flung suburbs its no wonder Joe Six Pack who makes less than $100,000 a year chooses to live in far flung suburbs. He gets more house and land for his dollar. Bottomline, there's going to be the same demand for the single family detached homes with a backyard regardless of what the city does. If the City of Calgary curbs this kind development then ultimately it will price Joe Sixpack out of the Calgary market and you'll see people like him develop the crap out of places like Langdon, Airdrie, Cochrane, Okotoks. They'll still use City of Calgary infrastructure but the City will have no ability to tax his property. |