Quote:
Originally Posted by you&me
I think we're saying the same thing?
To be clear, I think we should be focussing on upzoning along arterial roads, along with under-utilized commercial properties. If you take inner city SW Calgary, I'm thinking Elbow Dr, Richmond Rd, 50 / 33 / 26 / 17 aves & 14 / 20 / 33 / 37 streets... That's probably dozens of kms of frontage, all with existing transit infrastructure.
Napkin-mathing that as 24kms of linear development, divided by 6m of frontage for your average 2 story, 3 bedroom row/townhouse, you get about 4,000 units or housing for more than 10,000 people. And that's the lowest of the low-hanging fruit as far as built form goes. If you go to a 4 story condo, like this new development in Marda Loop, you get 74 units over about 80 linear meters, or roughly 1 unit per meter... You're now accomodating >30,000 people by upzoning just those 8 streets (not including Richmond and Elbow), and that's barely scratching the surface.
IMO, once that's more established / exhausted, then we can start knocking on Sliver's door to build a midblock 4-plex in Bonavista. |
But this has already happened to a pretty significant degree - most arterials are upzoned (though maybe there is some room to densify them further).
While I'd totally support a blanket change, how about this for a compromise:
- every lot adjacent to an R-C2 zone becomes R-C2, too
- repeat the process every ~10 years
Anyone living next to an R-C2 zone is already used to dealing with the
horrors!!!! of living near duplexes. But it would be a gradual and consistent change with plenty of lead time for most people.