MF YYC Politics - there, I mega did it

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

Can we talk about the neighbour 3 doors to the east? What in the mother of sweet #### is that 'corner' lot? A publicly owned and maintained private cul-da-sac because they couldn't come up with another solution for the laneway? Does Elbow Drive's totally only in the name of safety super duper special speed limit* also make it impossible to have a laneway intersect with the road like it does in hundreds of other places in the city with higher speed limits?

*FWIW I'm generally in favour of lower speed limits on residential arterials



Missing middle.

I've always wondered about some of the homes in that area. It must be kinda noisy with the constant traffic al the time. Nevermind the non-stop glare of headlights from cars turning left aimed at your home all night. Same with the homes at the end of Sifton.

[timun]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

If you want to continue to be condescending by all means, but please show more official wording that states what you’ve said because all I see is “Make the base residential district Rowhouse-Ground Oriented (R-CG) with guidance for single, semi-detached, row and townhouses”.

You believe it’s the gist to unify all R into one land-use. If you’re right, you’re right, but you’re still interpreting that and there’s no actual language that makes that so.

There is an actual language that makes it so: English.

"Make the base residential district Rowhouse-Ground Oriented (R-CG) with guidance for single, semi-detached, row and townhouses into a single land use district."

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by timun

There is an actual language that makes it so: English.

"Make the base residential district Rowhouse-Ground Oriented (R-CG) with guidance for single, semi-detached, row and townhouses into a single land use district."

Great, well R-CG is already a single land use district.

P.S. PFO

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Slava

Comments like that make me wonder if this more about spite or envy as opposed to affordable housing or helping students and recent immigrants. If that was a new block of townhouses, for example, what would they sell for? $1m each?

Its looking long term at building a sustainable dense city. If a person can afford the SFH in the city they should pay tax on best use, pay tax on the square footage of land and the value of land should be not artifically restrained by zoning rules preventing development.

None of the zoning changes make it better for low income or housing threatened people. What they do is increase the potential supply of desirable housing which over time will have a positive affect on affordability.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

So expropriate the land, evict the homeowners, and bulldoze them all?

No, that would be ridiculous. Im pretty sure you didnt think that was the intent of my post.

[timun]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Great, well R-CG is already a single land use district.

P.S. PFO

For your sake I hope you're trolling, and aren't actually this obtuse.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by timun

For your sake I hope you're trolling, and aren't actually this obtuse.

That’s one angle. A single angle. Which is the base angle?

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by timun

As someone who drives that intersection often, it's actually one of the few reasonable "traffic calming" measures the City put in ~20 years ago. That intersection used to be a ####-show. The cul-de-sac was previously a one-way from southbound Elbow to westbound Sifton. That corner house's driveway and the alley connected to this one-way link, and you could not see incoming traffic. The whole thing was kind of screwy because it was a turnaround loop for the streetcars way back in the day.

I wanted to dig through historical aerial imagery to see the history of it but browser wasn't cooperating. It looks like the main dwelling goes back to the 60s or even 50s (but has obviously been hugely updated with a major addition). You're definitely right that it was an absurd design before that; I begrudgingly withdraw most of my outrage.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

That’s one angle. A single angle. Which is the base angle?

Very funny TFR, very acute. I don't quite get it, but very acute.

If Paulie Walnuts is a true fan, he'll get this obscure reference.

[timun]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

That’s one angle. A single angle. Which is the base angle?

Actually it's the infinite number of angles between 90° and 180°.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GGG

No, that would be ridiculous. Im pretty sure you didnt think that was the intent of my post.

I think you wish there were no SFH in Elbow Park. But you underestimate the degree of coercion that would be necessary to make that so.

There is no reason for SFHs to exist that close to downtown.

So we shouldn’t have SFH anywhere in the near-inner-city (Sunalta, Bankview, Lower Mount Royal, Sunnyside, Westmount, Ramsay, etc). I mean, the homes are there, and they exist because they were built almost a century a go and people continue to want to live in them. So what exactly do you think should have been done to replace them all over the last few decades? Do you really think rezoning would have made them all go away?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I think you wish there were no SFH in Elbow Park. But you underestimate the degree of coercion that would be necessary to make that so.



So we shouldn’t have SFH anywhere in the near-inner-city (Sunalta, Bankview, Lower Mount Royal, Sunnyside, Westmount, Ramsay, etc). I mean, the homes are there, and they exist because they were built almost a century a go and people continue to want to live in them. So what exactly do you think should have been done to replace them all over the last few decades? Do you really think rezoning would have made them all go away?

You usually are much more willing to engage in an honest discussion. You don’t appear to want to have one here.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by GGG

Its looking long term at building a sustainable dense city. If a person can afford the SFH in the city they should pay tax on best use, pay tax on the square footage of land and the value of land should be not artifically restrained by zoning rules preventing development.

None of the zoning changes make it better for low income or housing threatened people. What they do is increase the potential supply of desirable housing which over time will have a positive affect on affordability.

It's that second paragraph that is the most interesting though. In not convinced that this helps with low and affordable housing, and obviously not for many years if it does. But that's what the protests and a chunk of the speakers to council this past week wanted.

And of course, these are complicated issues and there's no one easy to enact policy that fixes everything. But there are still a lot of housing issues in Europe (where it seems like we see less restrictive zoning). I don't know how many cities in North America have really implemented these policies at this time, but I think Houston is the only one. And frankly, they're dealing with the same housing crisis as we are. They went to a full "no zoning" in 1993, and it's a bit of a misnomer because there are some base restrictions, but largely people can build whatever they want. But over the past couple years they had less inventory, prices shooting up and a housing crisis just like we have.

[Bigtime]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

The base residential zoning is R-1. Then there’s R-1N, R-1s, R-2, R-2M, R-C1, R-C1L, R-C1N, R-C1s, and R-C2 before you reach R-CG.

Throughout the entirety of this there’s been no clarification that everything below R-CG becomes R-CG.

A member here that is at the city just confirmed with me that all R districts will move to R-CG as part of this. So nothing missed.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by GGG

You usually are much more willing to engage in an honest discussion. You don’t appear to want to have one here.

I’m just trying to unpack “there’s no reason for SFHs to exists that close to downtown.” It’s a pretty bold statement. Maybe it’s just hyperbole, but it’s a weird way to say ‘it would be better if there were fewer SFHs close to downtown’ (if that is what you actually meant).

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

I’m just trying to unpack “there’s no reason for SFHs to exists that close to downtown.” It’s a pretty bold statement. Maybe it’s just hyperbole, but it’s a weird way to say ‘it would be better if there were fewer SFHs close to downtown’ (if that is what you actually meant).

No, you’re just being pedantic.

It was clear what he meant from the beginning and then he went on to clarify it, and you’re still struggling to “unpack” it.

SFH. No reason to have those that close to downtown. Pretty simple.

[Roughneck]

It's definitely less weird to think they sincerely wanted to bulldoze huge swaths of neighborhoods after expropriating land.

[Nufy]

Do you really think that any of the homes in U/L Mt Royal / Britannia / Elbow Park etc...will be sold and developed int multi family homes.

The NIMBY factor, plus a few lawsuits will come out in full force.

Extra housing will happen...but nowhere nears where its needed most.



.02 from a Cynical 30 year resident.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

A member here that is at the city just confirmed with me that all R districts will move to R-CG as part of this. So nothing missed.

Ok.

Where their poor wording lies that timun failed to understand, once you make everything in R one single zone, there's pedantically no longer a "base". There's just one zone, you can't call it a base without anything to be base to. So by act of describing it as base, you generate confusion as to what the expected other layers are.

I had a mud pie for dessert last night. Well, I mean we made the base whipped cream instead of the regular base so we just had whipped cream.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by Nufy

Do you really think that any of the homes in U/L Mt Royal / Britannia / Elbow Park etc...will be sold and developed int multi family homes.

The NIMBY factor, plus a few lawsuits will come out in full force.

Extra housing will happen...but nowhere nears where its needed most.



.02 from a Cynical 30 year resident.

Exactly. It will even go the other way. Those areas will get even more expensive as there will be even more buyer interest in sales in those areas from those who desire to find those neighbourhoods (ones likely to remain high in SFH) where they would have considered other areas, now heavily redeveloping R-CG.