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Originally Posted by Kitchissippi
I don't think this city and its developers are mature enough to consider developing the Greenbelt. Only a few years ago we were squandering available land within the Greenbelt on single family homes in Centrepointe and Central Park. Even in the Westboro area, I have seen 2 or 3 homes demolished only to provide larger lots for McMansions (go to Denbury between Dovercourt and Tilbury and you'll see reverse intensification happening).
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I'll have to go check that out. In my neck of the woods, they keep knocking down tiny cottages and bungalows on 50' lots just to replace them with semis that completely fill the building envelope while uprooting every tree on the lot - it's intensification but the semis are mini-McMansions that are each bigger than most of the two-storey detached houses that are around them. See Kirchoffer. Somehow, I don't think that is what intensification was supposed to be about, especially the loss of trees. Up until about 10 years ago, most of the semis that were going in "fit in" - they were not oversized monsters and they even left behind most of the trees. Now, my parents have got so sick of it all (the McMansion pissing contests - more of the developers and the people coming in have a suburban mentality that they refuse to leave behind) that they are going to move out into the country. Five years ago the thought would not even have crossed their minds.
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I think the Greenbelt should be held intact for at least another 50 years before considering development. We should even look at its purpose as carbon offsetting. While it has not contained urban sprawl, I think it will force the development of the suburban town centres into denser satellite cores.
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Except for a few "obvious" places like around Moodie and Carling, I agree. If the NCC does start selling chunks of it, the funds should be used to purchase more land further out (or at least to pay off the development rights), especially for the areas between Kanata and Barrhaven in particular but also between Orleans and South Gloucester (i.e. the Mer Bleue and Pine Forest Reserve areas should be extended into the area south of Leitrim and east of Bank Street). The last thing we need is to have our suburbs spill into one another.