Real estate in Calgary - another bubble?

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

No it isn’t shocking. That’s literally my reply to cliff is that it is expected for a multitude of reasons.

To make inner city living more attractive and seen as better value, cities like Calgary need to prioritize inner city infrastructure. It’s all right there in my post. And the posts from blankall.

It’s never going to be that though. That’s the point. Not in Calgary.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

To make inner city living more attractive and seen as better value, cities like Calgary need to prioritize inner city infrastructure. It’s all right there in my post. And the posts from blankall.

But Calgary is, just look at the investment into the East Village. $400+ million spent by CMLC using funds backed by property taxes to make it liveable and attractive but it'll just house 10-11K residents. None of the new suburbs will ever come close to that kind of cost per resident.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by accord1999

But Calgary is, just look at the investment into the East Village. $400+ million spent by CMLC using funds backed by property taxes to make it liveable and attractive but it'll just house 10-11K residents. None of the new suburbs will ever come close to that kind of cost per resident.

“Just” 10-11K residents in an eighth of the area of McKenzie Towne. Plus the visitors to the library, River Walk, St. Patrick’s Island, NMC, hotels, etc.

Seton has a couple billion dollars worth of public investment and projects into the area. How many residents does it have?

[81MC]

Originally Posted by peter12

I have lots of hobbies I do in my 1000sq ft condo.

Well, of course. It’s not like I said condos mean you stare at the ceiling.

[Roughneck]

Originally Posted by 81MC

Well, of course. It’s not like I said condos mean you stare at the ceiling.

That would imply enough space to lie down. I have to stare at the wall.

[calgarywinning]

Originally Posted by Winsor_Pilates

Weird story. Of course people prefer detached housing.

What matters is whether they can afford it, where they're willing to go to afford it and what municipalities/developers can do to keep people in the city cores by providing attractive alternative options.
Keeping people in the city is good in many ways. It's good for traffic, transit planning, pollution, infrastructure, culture, local businesses.

Vancouver has finally rezoned a few areas to create much more townhouse type development, typically 3 bedrooms. A good move, but 15 years later than it should have been.
Now the land value in those areas is $4M+ per lot and the townhouses have to sell at $1.7M.

A city like Calgary should get ahead of this and rezone inner city single family neighbourhoods to townhouse developments now while young families will be able to afford the end product.

Problem is a restrictive covenant. The area trades like bitcoin, it's not supposed to be turned into something else.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Roughneck

“Just” 10-11K residents in an eighth of the area of McKenzie Towne. Plus the visitors to the library, River Walk, St. Patrick’s Island, NMC, hotels, etc.

Seton has a couple billion dollars worth of public investment and projects into the area. How many residents does it have?

Isn't that mostly the South Health Campus; which is a benefit to Seton but is also meant to serve Calgary's SE and far south and hundreds of thousands of Calgarians and Albertans. And if Seton ends up like its neighbors and most new neighborhoods, it'll probably end up at around 16-18K residents.

In addition to the $400+ million solely on infrastructure to make the EV livable, you also have the large investments like the library, the NMC and the major capital projects nearby. Plus, thanks to the massive budget overrun of the Green Line, especially the downtown section, the first phase will end up only helpful to some inner city residents and practically useless to most suburban commuters.

Clearly, the inner city is getting significant investment from the City, but it sure seems like supporters of that area won't be happy until they get all of the City's investments.

[boogerz]

Originally Posted by accord1999

Isn't that mostly the South Health Campus; which is a benefit to Seton but is also meant to serve Calgary's SE and far south and hundreds of thousands of Calgarians and Albertans. And if Seton ends up like its neighbors and most new neighborhoods, it'll probably end up at around 16-18K residents.

In addition to the $400+ million solely on infrastructure to make the EV livable, you also have the large investments like the library, the NMC and the major capital projects nearby. Plus, thanks to the massive budget overrun of the Green Line, especially the downtown section, the first phase will end up only helpful to some inner city residents and practically useless to most suburban commuters.

Clearly, the inner city is getting significant investment from the City, but it sure seems like supporters of that area won't be happy until they get all of the City's investments.

You've undershot the population target for East Village by a substantial amount. The planned build-out of East Village is supposed to support 13-14k permanent residents, not just 10-11k.

Naturally, people aren't going to be happy until the full East Village area is built-out because East Village isn't the same as a far flung suburb like Seton. It's supposed to support 5-10x its permanent population by way of it being a central gathering area for all Calgarians. Imagine if the city finished East Village, but didn't tie it into existing surrounding public works and communities like Riverwalk, St. Patrick's Island, and Inglewood...that would be a textbook example of incredibly bad urban design.



Also, a lot people overlook the scale of East Village. The city is essentially building a new community that's the same size as Douglasdale or Huntington Hills in a tiny eight-block land area. Of course the costs are going to look eye popping, but infrastructure isn't cheap and that's the point of high-density development...it's significantly easier to get a ton of bang for our buck with $400M of infrastructure spending (and more) across such a small area.

[cam_wmh]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I live right on the west edge of the city and it’s 22 minutes door to desk (driving). I moved from west hillhurst and it was 20 minutes walking or 18 minutes by train door to desk. Will never regret the move.

8 months of the year, looking at double that for the other 4.

[jwslam]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

8 months of the year, looking at double that for the other 4.

Your realtor didn't tell you Airdrie is 15min to downtown Calgary?

[Weitz]

Originally Posted by cam_wmh

8 months of the year, looking at double that for the other 4.

Was 22 minutes this morning.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

78 per cent of young urban families (20-45) in major cities (Van, Cal, Tor, Mon) express a preference for detached homes. In Calgary, it’s 91 per cent.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/...-condos-survey

100% of people prefer mansions with a fully staffed house keeping and grounds crew with a large treed yard, a 1 minute walk away from downtown, the mountains, skiing, the beach, restaurants and bars in a neighbourhood with zero crime.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Weitz

It’s never going to be that though. That’s the point. Not in Calgary.

Then what's the end-game for Calgary? Endless sprawl all concentrated around an increasingly distant - and emptying out - city centre?

Proponents of the suburbs never think about costs of infrastructure and land, conveniences of being close to the labour market, and the economic benefits of even slightly densifying neighbourhoods situated on high value land.

It's thinking caught in a 1983 North American time capsule.

[blankall]

Do people actually think the library and the East Village was a bad investment. When I went back to Calgary last I walked from the library to my brother's home in Ramsay. It was a night and day difference from what it used to be. This was the area outside my boxing gym in the early 2000s, which was a place that if I parked my car 2 blocks away I felt was genuinely dangerous. Mostly decaying warehouses, railyards, and industrial buildings.

$400 million is peanuts. The area was full of people when I went through, which, unless you were on 17th, was very uncommon for a commercial district in Calgary up until recently. The taxes generated must be massive. You've got property taxes, the taxes from all the businesses, and even the parking.

Some of the infrastructure projects were great. The library itself was amazing. What's the point of having a city, if you aren't going to pull together and get projects like that built?

Calgary is a city of 1.5 million people now. Having a massive chunk of desirable real estate occupied by decaying warehouses is just not something you should have. It's not just an opportunity cost, after a certain point, you physically can't have it there without it causing some kind of major disaster.

As the city grows you're going to also see a more diverse set of housing wants beyond the typical 2500-3000 sq foot cookie cutter house in a planned outlying community. A significant portion of Canadians aren't even having children anymore.

Calgary should be looking towards a city like Montreal for what to do with their downtown and the surrounding area. They should be trying to avoid the mistakes that a city like Vancouver made, with overly restrictive zoning.

Calgary IMO seems to be on the right track. Once the East Village gets built up and the new stadium/entertainment district gets sorted out, Calgary will have a pretty solid foundation to build a top notch inner city around. As the city grows into the 2+ million population level, it simply needs to add a more diverse set of housing/entertainment options if it wants to attract businesses and not end up a Canadian Detroit.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

100% of people prefer mansions with a fully staffed house keeping and grounds crew with a large treed yard, a 1 minute walk away from downtown, the mountains, skiing, the beach, restaurants and bars in a neighbourhood with zero crime.

Did you bother to read the comment I was responding to?

Overall, I'd say people aged 20-50 are even moving away from the house and yard model, but Canada largely doesn't offer anything but house/yard and condo. No middle.

People aged 20-50 aren’t moving away from the house and yard model. They desperately want detached homes, and they’re willing to pay an extraordinary premium - in money, commute time, etc - to own them.

I understand the reasoning behind densification. But advocates need to stop deluding themselves that they’re offering Canadians a housing model they really want. The hundreds of articles and think pieces from a decade ago predicting that Millennials were going to transform cities by eschewing the suburban lifestyle and choosing to stay in dense inner-city neighbourhoods proved to be woefully mistaken.

[peter12]

There's a huge misconception around density and the paths that North American cities take to achieve it. The ideal should be large mixed-use neighbourhoods with medium density. There are plenty of neighbourhoods like that in the inner-city suburbs surrounding Tokyo city centre, for example.

Hatagaya contains detached homes, townhouses, condos, and SROs all in abundance with restaurants, shops, parks, and businesses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatagaya,_Shibuya

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Weitz

I live right on the west edge of the city and it’s 22 minutes door to desk (driving). I moved from west hillhurst and it was 20 minutes walking or 18 minutes by train door to desk. Will never regret the move.

The west end is the only end of the city to live in if you’re going to choose the edge of the city. That’s the easiest area to get to and from quickly and easily (to inner city). When I have clients out there it’s always the lowest stress compared to the schmucks in the south, southeast and north.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

The west end is the only end of the city to live in if you’re going to choose the edge of the city. That’s the easiest area to get to and from quickly and easily (to inner city). When I have clients out there it’s always the lowest stress compared to the schmucks in the south, southeast and north.

Actually if your concern is commute time, it's the East edge, Calgary is largely a rectangular shape and the east/west is just a much shorter commute in terms of distance

Distance by road to City Center.
East Hills ~15KM
Crestmont ~18KM
Evanston ~28KM
Legacy ~33KM

None of the areas really have roads that are all that much faster during rush hour.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Did you bother to read the comment I was responding to?



People aged 20-50 aren’t moving away from the house and yard model. They desperately want detached homes, and they’re willing to pay an extraordinary premium - in money, commute time, etc - to own them.

I understand the reasoning behind densification. But advocates need to stop deluding themselves that they’re offering Canadians a housing model they really want. The hundreds of articles and think pieces from a decade ago predicting that Millennials were going to transform cities by eschewing the suburban lifestyle and choosing to stay in dense inner-city neighbourhoods proved to be woefully mistaken.

I disagree pretty strongly with your report. Firstly, the number of people having children and the size of families in Canada is rapidly declining. As someone who did not have children until a few months ago, I can say that I had zero desire for a detached home until I had children. The same was true of just about everyone I knew without children.

As for Calgary specifically, there is massive demand for the new townhouses in the Altadore area. Mostly from small families. Quite frankly, I think a lot of people would prefer a townhouse with a foot top patio over a detached garage. I can't comment on how this will affect Calgary's craft wood working industry.

If you're telling me there is simply no demand for a townhouse that's walking distance from a bunch of bars, restaurants, and other forms of entertainment and also a very short commute from downtown, I'm telling you that I don't believe you.

[Mazrim]

Originally Posted by accord1999

But Calgary is, just look at the investment into the East Village. $400+ million spent by CMLC using funds backed by property taxes to make it liveable and attractive but it'll just house 10-11K residents. None of the new suburbs will ever come close to that kind of cost per resident.

Seton wouldn't exist without the $800 million SE Ring Road being built. We probably shouldn't forget the $30 million 212th Avenue interchange either. Suburbs are really expensive.