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Originally Posted by powderjunkie
I am generally with you until these last two paragraphs. But to the bolded I would point out that in this case making a profit involves building something people really really really want to buy (it's a 6 figure+ purchase based on the desirability of human occupation, after all), and the land-use and building codes are still heavily regulated. Of course this may not always jive with a neighbours desires, which is the crux of the whole thing.
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No, developers just need to build a house. If it looks as fancy as that house down the street that sold for $1.4M then this house can also sell for $1.4M, even if it only cost 900K to develop. If someone built the exact same house for $400,000 less then there would be a tidal wave of buyers trying to get to the cheaper house. But no private developer would want to give up that much profit and neither would the private realtors.
You would need a non-private developer to step in and change how the market works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
And it does NOT "eliminate zoning"! It consolidates about 15 different (often barely different) residential zones into 3 zones. A dozen mixed use zones into 3. And similarly cleans things up for commercial/industrial/etc. It still specifies setbacks, heights, uses, etc. Give it a read (or maybe a skim...it's 300+ pages) and tell me if you still think it isn't "thoughtful":
PDF of the proposed bylaw |
All of the "R" zoning gets smashed into a single H-1 zoning. So yes, that is exactly what I was talking about when I said it is pretty thoughtless considering the impact to people who invested to live in those areas. If this is just about cleaning up the zoning then fine, what they should do is clean up the zoning and leave the R1 and R2 designations separate as that impacts a lot of people's homes and communities. I would bet that 99% of the complaints are coming from the changes to those 2 zones specifically.
However, providing (incomplete) details about the new zoning does not make the strategy thoughtful. All it really shows is that they are copy/pasting details that were in the old zoning documents while mucking with the numbers a bit to allow houses to take up more space on the lot.
I guess the real joke to how thoughtless the rezoning effort is can be demonstrated by how many "Placeholders" they have in that document.
"How to use this Zoning Bylaw" - "Placeholder"
"Zoning Maps" - "Placeholder"
"Flood Hazard Areas Map" - "Placeholder"
"Sunlight Protection Overlap Map" - "Placeholder"
etc.
In my opinion, it is a poor move when you are trying to handle the change management of a diverse city where people intentionally bought houses in locations that they want and now the city is rolling in these changes with half assed details and limited support. They say it is to bring down costs but costs are only going up and the only people that seem to be winning are the private developers who are extracting more and more profit out of home buyers, but that's okay because "someone buys it" (like they have a choice...).
Maybe they should have put more time and energy into making their last strategy (Main Streets) more successful and build trust with the people as to how these plans can create the correct results.
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Originally Posted by powderjunkie
How are we messing with people's assets? Rezoning does not require anybody to do anything with their property that they don't want to, nor does it stop anybody from building a SFH if they wish. Again...its about what neighbours MIGHT do with their own property.
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You mentioned yourself (when defending private builders) that people are making a massive investment when buying a house. When you buy a house you are not just buying what is inside the lot, you are also buying what is outside the lot - the street, the traffic, the neighbourhood, the choices to live in a place that is more or less busy based on what you prefer. Disregarding the impact of this rezoning strategy just shows a lack of empathy, which again will lead to more failure in the strategy, failure in the execution, and will lead to an election where this zoning issue will dictate who will be on the next city council.
People are not worried about what their neighbours might do, they are worried about what developers will do when a neighbour decides to sell. Corporations have the advantage here. They have enough money that they can buy up lots and pay above list prices and take those houses offline, redevelop them, and then sell the new houses for a significantly higher cost than the original house.
The game is rigged against home buyers and most people know it. Those developers will not make choices that are best for the people living in the area, they will make profit. This is why people are talking about building restrictive covenants to try and protect the neighbourhood from developers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by powderjunkie
To your plan...what about people who live next to corporate owned land? Do those people matter less?
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I would love to hear an example of how you think developing a warehouse or a downtown at grade parking lot would negatively impact anyone. Like that patch of gravel that was on 17th ave and 11th street forever. Just sitting there with a "no parking" sign as the landowner was refusing to build but also wouldn't sell because they wanted more profit.
As long as the project is good and the supporting infrastructure is there (or is included in the project) then I expect most people would celebrate the effort.
Or, ignoring the likelihood for a moment, who would actually object to the railyard redevelopment? I highly doubt that the people living in Inglewood love living beside train tracks or warehouses or any of that stuff around Blackfoot Tr and Ogden road. They would likely welcome a massive development project to convert all of that land into livable space.
Or, going back to Westbrook. They could build 6 30+ story towers and people would be happy to get that field developed and that one project would likely generate more density and homes than the rest of West Calgary combined. With the two other towers already there, it is hard to argue against building more towers right on top of a train station. That could be an amazing project, unless they give it to another private developer that puts in half the effort and totally blows the opportunity.
To flip the question back to you: Why do you want to go after people's assets more than corporation's assets?