Urban Sprawl in Hamilton

[markbarbera]

This may help slow down the rapid urban sprawl... or at least increase the funds available to pay for servicing new sprawl lands. Posted today on 900CHML.com:

Development fees to rise
Dec, 05 2007 - 6:00 AM



HAMILTON (AM900 CHML) - Developers in Hamilton are going to have to pay more for certain fees, including applications for zoning and official plan changes.
Councillors have agreed to hike the fees by 50 percent.

However, a review will be done by city staff before the increase gets final approval.

[markbarbera]

From today's Spec:

December 05, 2007
The Hamilton Spectator
(Dec 5, 2007)
The city has found a compromise with local builders that raises the cost of doing business but less than originally proposed.

Councillors agreed yesterday to increase fees for development applications including subdivision applications, zoning and official plan changes by 50 per cent, instead adopting a proposal to match Burlington's significantly higher fees in the short term.

The Hamilton-Halton Homebuilders' Association was outraged last month after Councillor Brad Clark recommended Hamilton match Burlington to help the city recoup the cost of planning applications. City staff supported the fee hike, despite their original recommendation to only increase fees 25 per cent until a review was done.

Builders argued it was unfair to double charges without a complete report. Burlington had a comprehensive report finalized first, they said.

Council delayed the decision, giving Clark time to meet with the association. Yesterday, they agreed to compromise with a 50 per cent jump until the full review and pending final approval.

Apparantly the other shoe will drop on the developers at the end of the study period. I would expect a rush on construction permits, but tehn again Hamilton developers don't feel they need permits to start building anyway, do they

[raisethehammer]

hahahahahahahahahaha....slow the spread of sprawl?? this is peanuts to these guys. and still not high enough IMO.

[matt602]

The Hamilton-Halton Homebuilders' Association was outraged last month after Councillor Brad Clark recommended Hamilton match Burlington to help the city recoup the cost of planning applications.

waaahhh, call the whaambulance.

[raisethehammer]

found some more reading on this topic....

http://raisethehammer.org/blog.asp?id=870

[thistleclub]

Provincial intensification efforts now a "patchwork"
(Toronto Star, Susan Pigg, Nov 5 2013)

Provincial growth policies aimed at curbing urban sprawl and boosting intensification have been so compromised, much of the 1,000 square kilometres of land that was at risk of low-density development almost a decade ago remains just as endangered today, says a report by the non-profit Neptis Foundation.

The province’s Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe has become an inconsistent “patchwork,” largely because the government has granted so many exemptions and didn’t set penalties for municipalities failing to meet intensification targets, says the 128-page report by the non-profit think-tank on urban planning issues.

The result is that only two cities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe — the City of Toronto and Waterloo — are exceeding what were meant to be minimum standards for building up, instead of out, and easing demand for costly new roads, sewers, transit and other infrastructure, says the report.

In fact, most municipalities are treating the requirements — that 40 per cent of all new residential development per year be located in built-up areas, and every hectare of new “greenfield” development accommodate 50 people and jobs — as if they are maximum targets, it notes.

That, on top of a lack of clear direction from the province, has resulted in crippling intensification battles before the Ontario Municipal Board and left the plan, implemented in 2006, “under pressure and behind schedule,” says Neptis researcher Rian Allen.

He, along with fellow researcher Philippa Campsie, spent 1½ years studying the planned rate of intensification in some 110 cities, towns and villages from roughly Waterloo and Brantford, to the GTA and east to Peterborough on behalf of Neptis.

“Little has changed as far as land consumption goes since the government carried out its original studies for the Growth Plan,” and there is no evidence that developers are running out of land to build, it says.

In fact, while the plan was also aimed at preserving agricultural and rural land, more than half the municipalities surveyed in the Outer Ring around the GTA greenbelt have actually lowered their targets below those set by the growth plan.

Back in 2004, the province warned that it no longer made economic, social or environmental sense to continue the unbridled, low-rise suburban sprawl that had characterized growth in the GTA in the 1980s and 1990s.

Under Places to Grow, 25 urban growth nodes were created to concentrate higher density building around transportation corridors and new subway lines and some, in fast-growing suburban communities such as Vaughan and Markham, are coming along nicely, notes Allen.

But in other areas, such as Halton region where the cities of Oakville and Burlington already have transportation and other infrastructure that could accommodate denser growth, some intensification targets aren’t being met, he found.

Instead, the bulk of new land the region has approved for development is around Milton where new roads, transit and other costly services have to be built, which appears to be contrary to the plan, says Allen.

Last month Ontario municipal affairs and housing minister Linda Jeffrey announced a series of consultations aimed at improving the land use and development approval process in the province.

The umbrella group for the province’s development industry has also raised concerns about how Places to Grow is being implemented, but its concerns — spelled out in a recent full-page ad in the Star — focus mainly on delays in approvals and outdated municipal official plans that, in too many cases, don’t reflect the objectives of the plan and are adding to delays and complications in getting developments approved.

Officials with the Building Industry and Land Development association had yet to read the Neptis report or were unavailable for comment Tuesday.

[thistleclub]

Ontario Liberals undermined own plan to control sprawl
(Toronto Star, Thomas Walkom, Nov 8 2013)

Seven years ago, the Ontario Liberal government trumpeted its new law to curb urban sprawl as bold and visionary.

“People want to see action,” David Caplan, the province’s then infrastructure minister, said after announcing the province’s fully fleshed-out Places to Grow Act in 2006.

Acting in tandem with the Liberal plan to create a green belt, Places to Grow was designed to protect farmland in southern Ontario’s so-called Golden Horseshoe.

Unless something drastic was done, an earlier government study had warned, rampant urban development would result in an additional 1,000 square kilometres of mainly agricultural land — an area twice as big as the entire City of Toronto — being paved over by the year 2031.

Caplan called the new law Ontario’s “last chance to build the future we want.”
The Liberals were lionized for the new scheme by both press and public. The government even won a prestigious U.S. planning award.

But seven years later, it is as if nothing had ever happened.

A new study by the Neptis Foundation, an urban think tank, calculates that the amount of prime farmland slated for urban development by 2031 has in fact increased since the government uttered its first, dire warning.

That new total now stands at 1,071 square kilometres.

What happened? As the Star’s Susan Pigg reported this week, Neptis found that the Liberal government simply never bothered to implement its bold new law.

[bigguy1231]

Reality set in with the Liberals. They have learned that if people don't get what they want, suburban houses with driveways and backyards, then they won't vote for them. Thats not to say that some may want to live in an urban environment , but I don't think many people aspire to live in apartments or townhouses unless they are forced to.

The whole idea of a Greenbelt was never going to work and was nothing other than pandering to minority interests.

[Beedok]

Unfortunately that just means we won't have the build form we'll need in 20-30 years when energy prices render our current city designs unsupportable.

[CaptainKirk]

Originally Posted by bigguy1231

Reality set in with the Liberals. They have learned that if people don't get what they want, suburban houses with driveways and backyards, then they won't vote for them. Thats not to say that some may want to live in an urban environment , but I don't think many people aspire to live in apartments or townhouses unless they are forced to.

The whole idea of a Greenbelt was never going to work and was nothing other than pandering to minority interests.

Disagree. I'm convinced the old sprawl method of planning is unsustainable an the main cause of why taxes are so high. It's getting too expensive to service.

Just wait until Mississauga runs out of land to develop and their infrastructure starts aging.

And further to that point, revitalizing areas like downtown and lower Hamilton increases those property values, resulting in the decrease in the property tax burden of the mountain/suburban dwellers.

It all makes perfect sense to me.

It's not about forcing anyone anywhere, it's about nudging, encouraging and creating incentive in pursuit of a sustainable and equitable balance.

[Innsertnamehere]

reasons its been behind is because developers went on an approval binge right before the legislation came into place, getting approval for huge tracts of suburban housing that had to be honoured after the legislations introduction. being the fact that it can take a decade or more to build out a subdivision, most subdivisions today come from these old pre-greenbelt plans.


We will see how this works out in the coming years, but with the 427, 404, and 407 extensions the liberals don't seem to have a plan to slow it down that much. they need to start enforcing the 40% intensification plans.

[bigguy1231]

Originally Posted by CaptainKirk

Disagree. I'm convinced the old sprawl method of planning is unsustainable an the main cause of why taxes are so high. It's getting too expensive to service.

Just wait until Mississauga runs out of land to develop and their infrastructure starts aging.

And further to that point, revitalizing areas like downtown and lower Hamilton increases those property values, resulting in the decrease in the property tax burden of the mountain/suburban dwellers.

It all makes perfect sense to me.

It's not about forcing anyone anywhere, it's about nudging, encouraging and creating incentive in pursuit of a sustainable and equitable balance.

I wasn't saying it's good or bad, just pointing out political reality. Politicians will give the people what they want whether it's urban sprawl or intensification. It's in the politicians best interests to do so.

[bigguy1231]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

reasons its been behind is because developers went on an approval binge right before the legislation came into place, getting approval for huge tracts of suburban housing that had to be honoured after the legislations introduction. being the fact that it can take a decade or more to build out a subdivision, most subdivisions today come from these old pre-greenbelt plans.


We will see how this works out in the coming years, but with the 427, 404, and 407 extensions the liberals don't seem to have a plan to slow it down that much. they need to start enforcing the 40% intensification plans.

If we should ever be cursed with a Conservative government the whole idea will be discarded.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by bigguy1231

Reality set in with the Liberals. They have learned that if people don't get what they want, suburban houses with driveways and backyards, then they won't vote for them. Thats not to say that some may want to live in an urban environment , but I don't think many people aspire to live in apartments or townhouses unless they are forced to.

The whole idea of a Greenbelt was never going to work and was nothing other than pandering to minority interests.

The Greenbelt isn't the key issue here. It does act in concert with the development policies by placing a hard boundary on development, preserving open space, rural land uses, and natural areas in the process (something many, many people value whether they live downtown or in a subdivision on the edge of the city... I'm not sure how anyone can say it won't "work")

The issue is the way the intensification and sprawl limitation policies have been working. Some of that development being grandfathered because it pre-dates the policy is one issue, but slow buy-in from local governments is another.

Thing is, this tendency toward a suburban growth mindset has taken about 60 years to become what it is. So it's going to take time for a different philosophy to take root and 7 years is far too short a period to evaluate anything here.

The true costs of ever-expanding urban areas may start to tip the balance and convince cities to develop more intensively, but demographic changes in the coming decades may also prove there was wisdom in these policies.

[HillStreetBlues]

I think that the past decade has been a particularly inopportune time to implement real change on this front. Our housing market has been on fire: buying land to pave it over and sell suburban tract housing to young families who, armed with looser credit and the belief that any kind of real estate is a risk-free “investment”, that’s been a very profitable thing to do for the last few years.

There’s evidence that this is about to end. Developers are no longer buying land like they were even a couple of years ago, and the construction of homes is about to slow (homes already on contract are of course proceeding, but developers are preparing for a real slow-down, and soon). If the real estate bubble bursts to any degree, it will slow this kind of development for a long time. I think that a very significant proportion of the sprawl we have seen is due to home ownership rates increasing ever higher. That’s been driven by easy credit, and reinforced in a cycle by increasing real estate values.

In Europe, very few countries have home ownership rates even approaching ours, which is now 70%. They simply don’t have the belief that a prosperous and happy life is inextricably linked to owning real estate. I think that many Americans are shaking that belief since their experience a few years ago. And, without that, you don’t have the “drive until you qualify” mentality, and you don’t have families outbidding one another for far-flung suburban plots, the losers going to bid on even further-flung suburban plots. If we do have a change in the real estate market (I mean, if it ever slows down significantly, which logically it will eventually), that would do a lot to change those mindsets, and put the brakes on suburban sprawl for a while. And give governments real opportunities to adjust behaviour long term.

[coalminecanary]

Originally Posted by bigguy1231

I wasn't saying it's good or bad, just pointing out political reality. Politicians will give the people what they want whether it's urban sprawl or intensification. It's in the politicians best interests to do so.

"What people want" is driven not only by their inner feelings. It's driven by the world around them - a world which is largely controlled by land use policies.

One of the best ways to get rich in this world is to buy very cheap land that you can sell for very high prices later. And the best way to do that is through sprawl. Developers can make a lot more money with a lot less work by building on fresh exurban land. Developers are huge political contributors. A lot more money can be made by everyone in that scenario if the government creates land use policies that make suburban housing cheaper and easier to obtain, and service it using public money with roads and sewers. Selling sprawl to the public is BIG BUSINESS. And as much as it sucks to admit it, "what people want" is largely determined by what we are sold.

Creating and following a sustainable growth plan may earn politicians votes from some citizens who pay attention to these sorts of things. But most politicians can buy a lot more votes through campaign ads etc using money that's contributed by those who make millions from sprawl.

In most cases, the "political reality" has a lot more to do with money flow than it has to do with appeasing voters directly.

"What people want" probably does not include sitting in traffic, crippling car payments, breathing polluted air, and all of the other side effects of an inefficient population distribution.

But when we build according to bylaws that only allow you to get what you want by getting in a car and driving there, then what people want gets skewed by their physical reality.