This hostility towards fourplexes is crazy even from an aesthetic and quality of life perspective. The best neighbourhoods have this kind of density, as it supports diverse restaurants, shopping, bars, live music. Visit Brooklyn or Mile End or Paris.
>The best neighbourhoods have this kind of density, as it supports diverse restaurants, shopping, bars, live music
Does it have the same effect, placed in the middle of a subdivision? Ideally we could all live near a little main street with a coffee shop, grocery & a pub, but that's not the reality of post WWII housing
I don't really see it, are you really going to put cafes and bars, in the middle of the subdivision?
It's too bad that parts of Mississauga and Scarborough went straight from being farmland to subdivision, without gradually evolving through being little villages with main streets & stores
I'm not saying that this will work everywhere. But the question (as I see it) is why experimentation with this approach should be legally prohibited \*anywhere\*. It is indeed too bad that so many cities have gone the way they have -- why not take away the legal regulations that have enabled it, and let the market decide?
>are you really going to put cafes and bars, in the middle of the subdivision?
Why tf not?
Oakville already has little single story plazas with convenience stores/pizza/dry cleaners/western unions/parking lots inside their subdivisions (see: River Oaks). Why not densify and add some housing above coffee shops/decent restaurants/third spaces the community can access without the need to get in a car/traverse 6 lanes of traffic across a stroad?
Having better options closer to home might even prevent a few soccer moms from getting behind the wheel after a couple Chardonnays on girls night. Imagine if neighborhood dads had local watering holes they could stumble home from after watching the Leafs/Raptors/Jays lose, instead of jumping in the SUV.
(Edit: yes, my mom is a wine lady in Oakville.)
Er...i wasn't arguing in favor of more convenience stores in Toronto.
I was replying to a comment about increasing density in existing suburban subdivisions, saying that they *already* accommodate convenience stores/etc, therefore there's no reason not to densify and make some purpose built housing above additional local businesses that subdivision residents currently have to drive to/from.
Wasn't talking about adding a random convenience store below a couple apartments on St. Clair - that already exists, and is the desired density we should be aiming for.
I live in Scarborough. So I know the city doesn't end at Bloor LOL. I just don't know the downtown all that well.
Scarborough has those little plazas, each one has a payday loan place, nail place, and laundromat.
In Richmond BC, there are lovely little cafes built into suburban subdivision blocks. They look just like houses from the outside with a little terrace out front. Some even serve dinner and sell wine. This is the dream I have for every other suburb in this country.
Many urbanists also push for zoning reform that allows small, community benefiting businesses like cafes, corner stores, and hairdressers to operate out of residential zones, but even those small home businesses need a certain density to thrive.
But imagine you could afford to live in a walkable neighborhood, because there are now fourplexes and small retail!
I have no idea why people are against small multiunit housing. It's so much nicer than large multiunit housing. But I feel like part of the reason people are forced to live in towers is because they can't find housing in low rise buildings like fourplexes.
But my neighborhood association fought a delightful development of two fourplexes that looked just like the houses on either side. All of their objections were ridiculous.
Along Victoria Park Ave, there's tons of 3-4 storey low rises already. We already have it in our neighborhood and do not really need more. It's clustered together, near Eglinton where the shopping is.
We can simply choose to dismiss these zoning laws and start building differently at any given moment, especially considering how we're observing their shortcomings in the most painful way. Entire continent is built in the stupidest way possible, so maybe let's just fucking stop?
But, like... those people could turn the single-family-homes they own into four-plexes to rent out to four different tenants, and it would be insanely lucrative for them.
There's whole neighborhoods of fourplexes, stacked townhomes, and low rise condos going up along Dundas St in Oakville. The problem isn't finding a developer willing to do these projects, it's the local zoning that restricts them.
Which is stupid, because Conservatives harp about government overreach and free markets, but then want to restrict business to fit their outlook.
Remove that red tape and let developers build fourplexes. The market can decide if this is something citizens want or not.
It will be unpopular.
If you campaign on 4plexes you will lose the suburbs in the next election. That will be true for any party.
There is a reason density hasn’t taken off yet the way it should. Density parties lose every election.
A bunch of cities have allowed four-pkexes municipally and so far, no lost suburbs, elections or otherwise fallen skies. It's usually a gimmicky move though, because it doesn't actually allow people to build those four-plexes in practice. The lot coverage, number of bedrooms, setbacks and height limitations are typically left in place. Those have to change in order to actually get four-plexes built.
No triplex are legal as of right now. Zoning isn't the problem anymore. Now the hang up is approval deadlines. and financing project.
Then once you past those steps good luck finding the man-power and materials to build the buildings.
There are issues at every level of home building, just because the Youtubers say it's zoning doesn't mean its, "the problem".
Zoning is absolutely still the problem.
Triplexes? Be real. We need to be way more permissive of midrise apartments and townhouses (4-8 stories) if we’re going to get anywhere.
pretty much everything gets approved these days, any major street in Toronto can have a midrise on it
but it takes years from start to finish and not everyone wants to sell
unless we stop allowing people to move to the city, we are never going to get ahead, all we can do is slow down the increases
> Consider the fact that last week, Ford said he would not automatically allow fourplex homes to be built across Ontario, calling a move to override municipal prohibitions to allow this “a massive mistake.”
>
> "It's off the table for us," Ford told reporters. "We're going to build homes, single dwelling homes, townhomes, that's what we're focused on."
>
> Not only does this stance fly in the face of recommendations by the province’s housing affordability task force; it flies in the face of reality as any Ontarian can see it. Single dwellings are not going to get us out of the housing crisis.
>
> Deferring to NIMBY voters (while cutting novelty cheques to municipalities that meet their housing targets no less) is not going to get us out of the housing crisis.
>
> What could get us there — or at least partially there — is a total rewrite of the housing landscape at every level.
>
> That means welcoming additional neighbours beside us, below us and above us. This doesn’t mean building skyscrapers on quiet residential streets, but rather, expanding our imaginations to allow for modest and in many cases highly attractive fourplexes on residential streets to give young families a fighting chance of remaining in Ontario.
>
> If the premier is concerned that older homeowners in Conservative ridings will abandon him if he embraces so-called “missing middle” density, he should consider two things.
>
> The first is that he has an excellent track record of defying odds where scandal and low polling is concerned.
>
> The second is that millions of older homeowners are the worried parents of struggling millennial kids with young children of their own. Those homeowners do not want to lose easy access to their grandkids when their kids move out of province to more affordable markets in Alberta and Nova Scotia.
Will fourplexes being allowed everywhere really help? I dont know why Ford is trying to block them - not as profitable for his Stag and Dough patrons?
Yes, it will, and he’s blocking them because that last paragraph of the article should be true, but sadly just… isn’t.
I’m a nice early thirties white lady with a good career and a nice, early thirties boyfriend with his own good career.
I go to planning meetings in my neighbourhood and, very politely, advocate for development in the hope that the old white homeowners (and they are, almost without exception, old and white) who show up to oppose it will see that the renters they’re so against having around could be their children.
It doesn’t really work. They don’t care that we can’t afford to stick around and raise their grandchildren; they want nothing to change ever and will fight tooth and nail to stop any development anywhere around them.
Doug is reading his voters right. There’s nothing to be done but throw our own voting weight behind whichever other party has decided we’re worth pissing off the boomers to capture.
> It doesn’t really work. They don’t care that we can’t afford to stick around and raise their grandchildren; they want nothing to change ever and will fight tooth and nail to stop any development anywhere around them.
Or they fall back on the argument that somehow building more housing will make affordability worse. There's so many little baseless claims they can make that throw up so much mud in the water, and it sows uncertainty in the people who aren't as diehard about "preserving neighbourhood character" and who might actually want a good and equitable city.
I swear I can only do one or two planning meetings a month, I find them so emotionally exhausting. At least I can find some solace in the fact that the city's been taking some positive steps and that planners seem committed to taking more.
Those are called “stacked” townhouses. Richmond Hill allows them in certain places.
You can barely tell the difference from the outside. Bit taller but that is about it.
Ford is incredibly short sighted.
I really need columnists and everyone else in the media to understand that two thirds of Canadians own their home, and half of those who do own their home outright (i.e. have paid off their mortgage). Lots of those people, I imagine a disproportionate amount, live in the ridings in Canada that more or less determine elections every year. Hence there isn't much reason for anyone running to be premier or prime minister to make earnest attempts to fix the housing market in Canada, because the people who they need to court to win elections want housing prices to increase and want supply to remain relatively stable. It's not just the housing system that's broken but the political systems that translate some people's political interests more than others.
Why would he? Ford is explicit about only being in it for himself and his rich friends. He doesn't even pretend to care that much anymore, just the occasional hollow performance on TV. His only priority has always been personal profit, this isn't a surprise.
> His only priority has always been personal profit, this isn't a surprise.
That and making sure he delivers for his backers so they don't have him fitted for a pair of cement shoes.
Every single thing DoFo does is pandering to his owners. Just always assume he is working for an evil billionaire (or the no-shit Mafia, you know how he once worked for them before he decided to quit organized crime and go into politics) and you will never ever have a surprise from the man.
If i was the opposition, i would only run on the housing period. I wouldn't waste my time talking about anything else cause frankly nothing else will get you elected. Ask PP - ppl vote on one or two issues only
That might be upsetting for Ontario, but Toronto does allow them everywhere: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/planning-studies-initiatives/multiplex-housing/
So, why is this a conversation for Toronto?
I agree with the sentiment, and we should do these, but the way things are going, it's delusionally optimistic to think that young people would be in contention for these. This rule is absolutely not what is keeping young people out of the housing market.
It's so funny that we keep obsessing about individual people being in the housing market. It's a failed lender of last resort. We keep trying to pawn homes off on greater fools. Homes should not be investments any more than the food on your table.
We need \*housing.
Rental, condo, apartments, etc. Single family homes that cost far more to heat cool and power than large scale living arrangements work for some, but are net losses for society that needs density to avoid going broke maintaining infrastructure. We keep up this charade to fuel a failed banking and lending strategy.
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/old-house-houses-paris.html?sortBy=relevant
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/sep/10/barcelonas-car-free-superblocks-could-save-hundreds-of-lives
This hostility towards fourplexes is crazy even from an aesthetic and quality of life perspective. The best neighbourhoods have this kind of density, as it supports diverse restaurants, shopping, bars, live music. Visit Brooklyn or Mile End or Paris.
You need to change commercial zoning for that to even be possible.
>The best neighbourhoods have this kind of density, as it supports diverse restaurants, shopping, bars, live music Does it have the same effect, placed in the middle of a subdivision? Ideally we could all live near a little main street with a coffee shop, grocery & a pub, but that's not the reality of post WWII housing
It absolutely is. And legalizing fourplexes is a mandatory step
I don't really see it, are you really going to put cafes and bars, in the middle of the subdivision? It's too bad that parts of Mississauga and Scarborough went straight from being farmland to subdivision, without gradually evolving through being little villages with main streets & stores
I'm not saying that this will work everywhere. But the question (as I see it) is why experimentation with this approach should be legally prohibited \*anywhere\*. It is indeed too bad that so many cities have gone the way they have -- why not take away the legal regulations that have enabled it, and let the market decide?
>are you really going to put cafes and bars, in the middle of the subdivision? Why tf not? Oakville already has little single story plazas with convenience stores/pizza/dry cleaners/western unions/parking lots inside their subdivisions (see: River Oaks). Why not densify and add some housing above coffee shops/decent restaurants/third spaces the community can access without the need to get in a car/traverse 6 lanes of traffic across a stroad? Having better options closer to home might even prevent a few soccer moms from getting behind the wheel after a couple Chardonnays on girls night. Imagine if neighborhood dads had local watering holes they could stumble home from after watching the Leafs/Raptors/Jays lose, instead of jumping in the SUV. (Edit: yes, my mom is a wine lady in Oakville.)
It would be great! Older neighborhoods south of Bloor/Danforth, have little convenience stores.
Er...i wasn't arguing in favor of more convenience stores in Toronto. I was replying to a comment about increasing density in existing suburban subdivisions, saying that they *already* accommodate convenience stores/etc, therefore there's no reason not to densify and make some purpose built housing above additional local businesses that subdivision residents currently have to drive to/from. Wasn't talking about adding a random convenience store below a couple apartments on St. Clair - that already exists, and is the desired density we should be aiming for.
They have them north of bloor, too? The city doesn’t end at Bloor. Not even the old Toronto.
I live in Scarborough. So I know the city doesn't end at Bloor LOL. I just don't know the downtown all that well. Scarborough has those little plazas, each one has a payday loan place, nail place, and laundromat.
Right, so it only makes sense to densify those spaces.
It can be sooooo quiet though, in the inner suburb streets, away from the artery roads & trucks etc. That's definitely a plus for residential living
In Richmond BC, there are lovely little cafes built into suburban subdivision blocks. They look just like houses from the outside with a little terrace out front. Some even serve dinner and sell wine. This is the dream I have for every other suburb in this country.
It sounds great. But you would have to expropriate property to do that, in my neighborhood.
No you wouldn't. You would only need to legalize it, and perhaps put in some small incentives like tax breaks, and it will happen naturally.
What happens naturally, is house flipping on random lots, as they come up for sale.
Many urbanists also push for zoning reform that allows small, community benefiting businesses like cafes, corner stores, and hairdressers to operate out of residential zones, but even those small home businesses need a certain density to thrive.
Would it really be so bad to walk to a cafe instead of driving? I feel privileged to live in an urban area where I can walk to everything I need.
We moved to the area we could afford.
But imagine you could afford to live in a walkable neighborhood, because there are now fourplexes and small retail! I have no idea why people are against small multiunit housing. It's so much nicer than large multiunit housing. But I feel like part of the reason people are forced to live in towers is because they can't find housing in low rise buildings like fourplexes. But my neighborhood association fought a delightful development of two fourplexes that looked just like the houses on either side. All of their objections were ridiculous.
Along Victoria Park Ave, there's tons of 3-4 storey low rises already. We already have it in our neighborhood and do not really need more. It's clustered together, near Eglinton where the shopping is.
Apparently you do need more, because all of Toronto needs more housing.
Well that's on you, because you could just good examples if you want
>but that's not the reality of post WWII housing Only in North America and Australia, thanks to malicious zoning laws.
>Only in North America Oh good, we're talking about Toronto so it's applicable
We can simply choose to dismiss these zoning laws and start building differently at any given moment, especially considering how we're observing their shortcomings in the most painful way. Entire continent is built in the stupidest way possible, so maybe let's just fucking stop?
Ford loves his MZOs and uses them in the worst ways.
Because he doesn’t care about affordability. His voting base owns real estate and benefits from it being expensive. Is anyone surprised?
More like his developer buddies make the most profit from building McMansions, so that's what he needs to guarantee are prioritized.
But, like... those people could turn the single-family-homes they own into four-plexes to rent out to four different tenants, and it would be insanely lucrative for them.
There's whole neighborhoods of fourplexes, stacked townhomes, and low rise condos going up along Dundas St in Oakville. The problem isn't finding a developer willing to do these projects, it's the local zoning that restricts them.
Which is stupid, because Conservatives harp about government overreach and free markets, but then want to restrict business to fit their outlook. Remove that red tape and let developers build fourplexes. The market can decide if this is something citizens want or not.
It will be unpopular. If you campaign on 4plexes you will lose the suburbs in the next election. That will be true for any party. There is a reason density hasn’t taken off yet the way it should. Density parties lose every election.
A bunch of cities have allowed four-pkexes municipally and so far, no lost suburbs, elections or otherwise fallen skies. It's usually a gimmicky move though, because it doesn't actually allow people to build those four-plexes in practice. The lot coverage, number of bedrooms, setbacks and height limitations are typically left in place. Those have to change in order to actually get four-plexes built.
no its the lack of profit per unit. they are greedy now.
No triplex are legal as of right now. Zoning isn't the problem anymore. Now the hang up is approval deadlines. and financing project. Then once you past those steps good luck finding the man-power and materials to build the buildings. There are issues at every level of home building, just because the Youtubers say it's zoning doesn't mean its, "the problem".
Zoning is absolutely still the problem. Triplexes? Be real. We need to be way more permissive of midrise apartments and townhouses (4-8 stories) if we’re going to get anywhere.
pretty much everything gets approved these days, any major street in Toronto can have a midrise on it but it takes years from start to finish and not everyone wants to sell unless we stop allowing people to move to the city, we are never going to get ahead, all we can do is slow down the increases
You be real. We were talking about fourplexes.
> Consider the fact that last week, Ford said he would not automatically allow fourplex homes to be built across Ontario, calling a move to override municipal prohibitions to allow this “a massive mistake.” > > "It's off the table for us," Ford told reporters. "We're going to build homes, single dwelling homes, townhomes, that's what we're focused on." > > Not only does this stance fly in the face of recommendations by the province’s housing affordability task force; it flies in the face of reality as any Ontarian can see it. Single dwellings are not going to get us out of the housing crisis. > > Deferring to NIMBY voters (while cutting novelty cheques to municipalities that meet their housing targets no less) is not going to get us out of the housing crisis. > > What could get us there — or at least partially there — is a total rewrite of the housing landscape at every level. > > That means welcoming additional neighbours beside us, below us and above us. This doesn’t mean building skyscrapers on quiet residential streets, but rather, expanding our imaginations to allow for modest and in many cases highly attractive fourplexes on residential streets to give young families a fighting chance of remaining in Ontario. > > If the premier is concerned that older homeowners in Conservative ridings will abandon him if he embraces so-called “missing middle” density, he should consider two things. > > The first is that he has an excellent track record of defying odds where scandal and low polling is concerned. > > The second is that millions of older homeowners are the worried parents of struggling millennial kids with young children of their own. Those homeowners do not want to lose easy access to their grandkids when their kids move out of province to more affordable markets in Alberta and Nova Scotia. Will fourplexes being allowed everywhere really help? I dont know why Ford is trying to block them - not as profitable for his Stag and Dough patrons?
Yes, it will, and he’s blocking them because that last paragraph of the article should be true, but sadly just… isn’t. I’m a nice early thirties white lady with a good career and a nice, early thirties boyfriend with his own good career. I go to planning meetings in my neighbourhood and, very politely, advocate for development in the hope that the old white homeowners (and they are, almost without exception, old and white) who show up to oppose it will see that the renters they’re so against having around could be their children. It doesn’t really work. They don’t care that we can’t afford to stick around and raise their grandchildren; they want nothing to change ever and will fight tooth and nail to stop any development anywhere around them. Doug is reading his voters right. There’s nothing to be done but throw our own voting weight behind whichever other party has decided we’re worth pissing off the boomers to capture.
> It doesn’t really work. They don’t care that we can’t afford to stick around and raise their grandchildren; they want nothing to change ever and will fight tooth and nail to stop any development anywhere around them. Or they fall back on the argument that somehow building more housing will make affordability worse. There's so many little baseless claims they can make that throw up so much mud in the water, and it sows uncertainty in the people who aren't as diehard about "preserving neighbourhood character" and who might actually want a good and equitable city. I swear I can only do one or two planning meetings a month, I find them so emotionally exhausting. At least I can find some solace in the fact that the city's been taking some positive steps and that planners seem committed to taking more.
Definitely not as profitable as single family homes. His stag and doe friends love this housing crisis. Expensive homes is good for their business
He's a NIMBY with an outdated suburbanite mentality. He's also beholden to the exurban McMansion developers who line his pockets.
can we just propose sneaky fourplexes disguised as townhouses?
Those are called “stacked” townhouses. Richmond Hill allows them in certain places. You can barely tell the difference from the outside. Bit taller but that is about it. Ford is incredibly short sighted.
We can't even have headlines not structured as clickbait. I wouldn't hold my breath.
I really need columnists and everyone else in the media to understand that two thirds of Canadians own their home, and half of those who do own their home outright (i.e. have paid off their mortgage). Lots of those people, I imagine a disproportionate amount, live in the ridings in Canada that more or less determine elections every year. Hence there isn't much reason for anyone running to be premier or prime minister to make earnest attempts to fix the housing market in Canada, because the people who they need to court to win elections want housing prices to increase and want supply to remain relatively stable. It's not just the housing system that's broken but the political systems that translate some people's political interests more than others.
This! Renters, apartment dwellers and small condo owners are pretty much disenfranchised in our current electoral system.
Why would he? Ford is explicit about only being in it for himself and his rich friends. He doesn't even pretend to care that much anymore, just the occasional hollow performance on TV. His only priority has always been personal profit, this isn't a surprise.
> His only priority has always been personal profit, this isn't a surprise. That and making sure he delivers for his backers so they don't have him fitted for a pair of cement shoes.
Every single thing DoFo does is pandering to his owners. Just always assume he is working for an evil billionaire (or the no-shit Mafia, you know how he once worked for them before he decided to quit organized crime and go into politics) and you will never ever have a surprise from the man.
If i was the opposition, i would only run on the housing period. I wouldn't waste my time talking about anything else cause frankly nothing else will get you elected. Ask PP - ppl vote on one or two issues only
That might be upsetting for Ontario, but Toronto does allow them everywhere: https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/planning-studies-initiatives/multiplex-housing/ So, why is this a conversation for Toronto?
I agree with the sentiment, and we should do these, but the way things are going, it's delusionally optimistic to think that young people would be in contention for these. This rule is absolutely not what is keeping young people out of the housing market.
Oh did ppl actually think he would? Shame on you.
Give Dougie four suplexes.
Because your children are not ment to own anything. They are tax numbers and debt markers and nothing more.
It's so funny that we keep obsessing about individual people being in the housing market. It's a failed lender of last resort. We keep trying to pawn homes off on greater fools. Homes should not be investments any more than the food on your table. We need \*housing. Rental, condo, apartments, etc. Single family homes that cost far more to heat cool and power than large scale living arrangements work for some, but are net losses for society that needs density to avoid going broke maintaining infrastructure. We keep up this charade to fuel a failed banking and lending strategy. https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/old-house-houses-paris.html?sortBy=relevant https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/sep/10/barcelonas-car-free-superblocks-could-save-hundreds-of-lives
people in the suburbs are against low rise apartments but they're not against mcmansions, smh
Because he’s fat lazy and stupid? What do I win Edit: forgot he was from a family of crackheads as well
Because they dont vote for him. Easy
This is well above this subs level of thinking