Not to be too cheeky.... but I keep idly musing how interesting it would be to completely eliminate zoning (or replace it with a very simple rubric) in some sizeable neighbourhoods, and see what happens. I guess it is politically infeasible - Many people of course don't want their neighbourhoods to change, certainly not drastically - I'm on a residential street and would admittedly be ambivalent about a highrise across the street shading my garden. But honestly, there are big parts of Vancouver & Burnaby that are proximate to great transit & that lack much charm.
I keep imagining a political leader sacrificing the votes in those areas & saying - You can build six storey condos & twelve storey rentals; no onsite parking requirement; it has to be all-electric, passive-house & low embodied carbon. Have at it. Govts could buy up some parcels for parks in advance... it would be kind of an interesting experiment & much more analogous to the more laissez-faire processes that originally resulted in some of North America's best architecture.
"I keep idly musing how interesting it would be to completely eliminate zoning (or replace it with a very simple rubric) in some sizeable neighbourhoods, and see what happens."
Locally, Senakw is a good example. With no zoning restrictions (because it's on Squamish reserve land), in a location close to downtown, you get badly needed density - Senakw will provide 6000 rental apartments. As Ginger Gosnell-Myers says: "The Squamish Nation is more responsive to average Vancouverites than Vancouver city hall."
The Auckland upzoning in 2016 is another good example. Looks like it worked: morehousing.ca/auckland
"Many people of course don't want their neighbourhoods to change, certainly not drastically - I'm on a residential street and would admittedly be ambivalent about a highrise across the street shading my garden."
Brynn Lackie has a funny anecdote along these lines. "I regularly rail against NIMBYism in these columns, but when we recently learned that the Starbucks at my corner will be giving way to a new 11-story building, my immediate reaction was frustration and dread." It's a collective action problem: the benefits of new housing are spread out over the entire region, while the costs are mostly borne by the immediate neighbours, so it's human nature to oppose it. 47% of Torontonians think the city should build more housing (only 23% who think it should build less), but 73% don't want it near them.
The way to resolve this paradox is to make these decisions at the provincial level rather than the municipal level. (And within a municipality, to focus more on city-wide plans and policies rather than using a discretionary site-by-site approval process.)
Not to be too cheeky.... but I keep idly musing how interesting it would be to completely eliminate zoning (or replace it with a very simple rubric) in some sizeable neighbourhoods, and see what happens. I guess it is politically infeasible - Many people of course don't want their neighbourhoods to change, certainly not drastically - I'm on a residential street and would admittedly be ambivalent about a highrise across the street shading my garden. But honestly, there are big parts of Vancouver & Burnaby that are proximate to great transit & that lack much charm.
I keep imagining a political leader sacrificing the votes in those areas & saying - You can build six storey condos & twelve storey rentals; no onsite parking requirement; it has to be all-electric, passive-house & low embodied carbon. Have at it. Govts could buy up some parcels for parks in advance... it would be kind of an interesting experiment & much more analogous to the more laissez-faire processes that originally resulted in some of North America's best architecture.
"I keep idly musing how interesting it would be to completely eliminate zoning (or replace it with a very simple rubric) in some sizeable neighbourhoods, and see what happens."
Locally, Senakw is a good example. With no zoning restrictions (because it's on Squamish reserve land), in a location close to downtown, you get badly needed density - Senakw will provide 6000 rental apartments. As Ginger Gosnell-Myers says: "The Squamish Nation is more responsive to average Vancouverites than Vancouver city hall."
The Auckland upzoning in 2016 is another good example. Looks like it worked: morehousing.ca/auckland
"Many people of course don't want their neighbourhoods to change, certainly not drastically - I'm on a residential street and would admittedly be ambivalent about a highrise across the street shading my garden."
Brynn Lackie has a funny anecdote along these lines. "I regularly rail against NIMBYism in these columns, but when we recently learned that the Starbucks at my corner will be giving way to a new 11-story building, my immediate reaction was frustration and dread." It's a collective action problem: the benefits of new housing are spread out over the entire region, while the costs are mostly borne by the immediate neighbours, so it's human nature to oppose it. 47% of Torontonians think the city should build more housing (only 23% who think it should build less), but 73% don't want it near them.
The way to resolve this paradox is to make these decisions at the provincial level rather than the municipal level. (And within a municipality, to focus more on city-wide plans and policies rather than using a discretionary site-by-site approval process.)