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General Infill Discussion

A zoning podcast like you’ve never heard because you’ve never listened to a podcast about zoning

Yes, zoning. With one z. Not zzzz-oning. Too often, how we talk about zoning gets people to tune out. It’s complex. There’s all kinds of specialized language the experts use. The lawyers and the planners and the politicians get it, but that leaves a lot of us who might not.

Which is wrong.

Because zoning—basically, the rules for how land can be used and what can be built where—affects everyone.

 
This Blob of infill just north of 104 Ave
Grovenor and Canora

Yes these are all infill.PNG
 
Walked down 114 Ave through Spruce Avenue last week and came across this infill. It's 4 homes (and perhaps basement apartments) replacing a single family home. Nothing remarkable, really, until I looked along the entire length of the avenue between 106 and 101. Almost all of the corner lots on the south side of the street (and many on the north side) have been converted to these developments. It's a really nice addition of density to the neighbourhood without sacrificing livability (and along a bike route, no less)
PXL_20220729_232647027.jpg
 
I wonder why the 2026 % infill growth target is less than what was actually achieved in 2020
 
^

there’s also a few other things that haven’t been mentioned that differentiate the two cities.

a vancouver project can easily take 5-7 years to complete with the permit and approval process typically consuming 2-4 years of that. land costs and holding costs are so high that it forces new development to cater to the upper end of whatever market segment is being pursued which in turn demands/enables better architecture.

as for the “missing middle”, there is a “middle” in economic status as well as physical/architectural form and while vancouver can be held out as doing a better job with physical form, they are not on the economic side. the divide between those that can afford housing and those that cannot is much more pronounced and problematic in vancouver than edmonton despite the very real problems we are struggling with in edmonton.
 
It is true that plans that allow for intensification are all right and good but will be useless if it is prohibitively expensive for industry to fund the necessary infrastructure upgrades themselves. A cost-sharing agreement of sorts (City-EPCOR-Developer) should be looked at, if it hasn't already.
 
Offsite levies are a VERY hot topic across Alberta right now. Some of the new EDCG requirements/standards are pushing reasonability to say the least; I am not sure municipalities are fully capturing the future O&M impacts to their budgets as well.
 
Offsite levies are a VERY hot topic across Alberta right now. Some of the new EDCG requirements/standards are pushing reasonability to say the least; I am not sure municipalities are fully capturing the future O&M impacts to their budgets as well.
EDCG? Engineering...Design...Construction...?
 

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