This article is critical to counter the fear-mongering about “Vacant Landlords” building four units with potentially 25 occupants that destroy established neighborhoods. Well done!
Thanks for your note, and for responding to my email.
My first two points are intertwined. It is illegal to park on the street during 8 months of the year in Fredericton as it impedes snow plows. When people choose to do so anyway, the streets become inadequately plowed, narrowing the streets and driveways in the process. This further limits parking options and can become a safety hazard.
With respect to emissions, achieving density in housing does not automatically equate to achieving density in traffic patterns. The vast majority of people in Fredericton drive to their workplace and would do so regardless of the distance between their residence and their workplace. Can this be improved upon? Absolutely! But in the meantime, adding more vehicles to individual streets and subdivisions, adds more vehicle emissions to those spaces.
Unless you have lived next to a multi-unit development, you may not be familiar with the ‘traffic jams‘ created by waste management trolleys and other garbage receptacles every week. They inevitably end up blocking driveways or coasting into the street. Both create visual hazards for drivers and pedestrians. If the proposed multi unit developments had to arrange for private waste collection this would solve that issue, but encourage more rodents. (it is a commonplace occurrence).
As to your point about friendly neighbourhoods, it takes considerable effort in an era of increasing isolation for strangers on a given city block, or street within a subdivision to get to know and establish a rapport with neighbours. The benefit, especially for seniors and new Canadians, is that it can make people feel like they belong, co-supported, and safer in their neighbourhoods. Again, unless you have experienced having police cruisers turn up at neighbouring homes on a regular basis because an absentee landlord has not appropriately screened tenants, I would caution against dismissing this as some form of xenophobia or hyper-sensitivity.
The winter parking ban is for overnight only, midnight to 7 AM. While I'd agree that there are potential safety issues with snow removal or the lack thereof, it's also relevant that street parked cars and narrower streets slow drivers down. As counterintuitive as it may be, narrower streets tend to be safer than wider ones for this reason.
Emissions are not only about driving but also about energy consumption. While there are of course individual exceptions, on aggregate higher density leads to lower per capita emissions.
I think it's important to remember that any of the issues we're talking about will exist in some form regardless of where people live. On balance, I don't think that giving up the benefits of this zoning reform – greater diversity in housing options, making housing more affordable, and the inherent benefits that come from gentle density – just to push these issues into specific neighborhoods where they would be exacerbated is worth it.
No one disputes the need for housing, and especially reasonably priced housing. That said, there are practical considerations associated with enabling this kind of density-building. They include parking, snow removal, garbage collection, water run-off, increased emissions, decreased green space, increased traffic, and associated safety issues.
And no one is fear-mongering over absentee landlords; rather just pointing out the obvious from lived experience. The proposed bylaw may apply only to ‘owner-occupied’ dwellings but in truth this is impossible to monitor or police.
As I have suggested to City Council, this approach could be achieved with fewer units per residence and/or being made applicable to the largest residential properties only.
Finding reasonable compromise will still enable the City to collect federal funds, will provide additional housing, while simultaneously maintaining liveable neighbourhoods throughout the city.
Thanks for the feedback. Regarding the practical considerations you list:
- Parking: Many cities have actually removed parking minimums entirely in combination with this type of zoning change, opting to let homeowners decide how much or how little parking is necessary for the occupants. Fredericton has not gone that far. I'm not even sure what the specific concerns are around parking; someone at PAC mentioned that people may park in the street at time to avoid shuffling cars. Depending on where exactly you are this is usually legal and I do it myself with multiple cars and a single lane driveway.
- Snow removal is again up to the property owner, I'm not sure what the concern is here.
- What is the concern with garbage collection?
- Water run-off is always a concern with new developments but can always be mitigated.
- Increased emissions? You'll need to elaborate on what you mean here. Higher density is directly proportional to decreased emissions.
- Decreased green space: This is up to the property owner, just as it is today. Low density residential zones are not subject to having a minimum landscaped area, except within the required setbacks and even then excepting driveways, walkaways, patios, etc.
- Increased traffic: There may be small localized increases but in general traffic decreases with higher density because people are not as car dependent, and the trips taken by car are shorter than they would otherwise be.
- Safety issues: Not sure what you mean by this. There was one person at PAC who made a comment about first responders not being able to locate the correct unit but that is fear mongering. We already have plenty of 2-6 unit residences all over the city and I have not heard this to be an issue, here or elsewhere.
In applying this only to larger properties you're effectively asking for it be more difficult to build more housing, which is why we are facing these challenges to begin with. When cities broadly apply zoning that theoretically allows for more density but attach all sorts of caveats the outcome is obvious: Little to zero new housing gets built under the new rules.
The vast majority of the arguments we see against this bring up worst case scenarios, vague talk of neighbourhood character and family friendliness, and issues that are minor nuisances in the grand scheme of things. These are not the sort of factors that should shape public policy.
I would say that the most legitimate of the complaints I have seen is about enforcement, and I agree that the city can and should do more on this front.
This article is critical to counter the fear-mongering about “Vacant Landlords” building four units with potentially 25 occupants that destroy established neighborhoods. Well done!
Thanks for your note, and for responding to my email.
My first two points are intertwined. It is illegal to park on the street during 8 months of the year in Fredericton as it impedes snow plows. When people choose to do so anyway, the streets become inadequately plowed, narrowing the streets and driveways in the process. This further limits parking options and can become a safety hazard.
With respect to emissions, achieving density in housing does not automatically equate to achieving density in traffic patterns. The vast majority of people in Fredericton drive to their workplace and would do so regardless of the distance between their residence and their workplace. Can this be improved upon? Absolutely! But in the meantime, adding more vehicles to individual streets and subdivisions, adds more vehicle emissions to those spaces.
Unless you have lived next to a multi-unit development, you may not be familiar with the ‘traffic jams‘ created by waste management trolleys and other garbage receptacles every week. They inevitably end up blocking driveways or coasting into the street. Both create visual hazards for drivers and pedestrians. If the proposed multi unit developments had to arrange for private waste collection this would solve that issue, but encourage more rodents. (it is a commonplace occurrence).
As to your point about friendly neighbourhoods, it takes considerable effort in an era of increasing isolation for strangers on a given city block, or street within a subdivision to get to know and establish a rapport with neighbours. The benefit, especially for seniors and new Canadians, is that it can make people feel like they belong, co-supported, and safer in their neighbourhoods. Again, unless you have experienced having police cruisers turn up at neighbouring homes on a regular basis because an absentee landlord has not appropriately screened tenants, I would caution against dismissing this as some form of xenophobia or hyper-sensitivity.
Thanks for listening,
Elizabeth
The winter parking ban is for overnight only, midnight to 7 AM. While I'd agree that there are potential safety issues with snow removal or the lack thereof, it's also relevant that street parked cars and narrower streets slow drivers down. As counterintuitive as it may be, narrower streets tend to be safer than wider ones for this reason.
Emissions are not only about driving but also about energy consumption. While there are of course individual exceptions, on aggregate higher density leads to lower per capita emissions.
I think it's important to remember that any of the issues we're talking about will exist in some form regardless of where people live. On balance, I don't think that giving up the benefits of this zoning reform – greater diversity in housing options, making housing more affordable, and the inherent benefits that come from gentle density – just to push these issues into specific neighborhoods where they would be exacerbated is worth it.
No one disputes the need for housing, and especially reasonably priced housing. That said, there are practical considerations associated with enabling this kind of density-building. They include parking, snow removal, garbage collection, water run-off, increased emissions, decreased green space, increased traffic, and associated safety issues.
And no one is fear-mongering over absentee landlords; rather just pointing out the obvious from lived experience. The proposed bylaw may apply only to ‘owner-occupied’ dwellings but in truth this is impossible to monitor or police.
As I have suggested to City Council, this approach could be achieved with fewer units per residence and/or being made applicable to the largest residential properties only.
Finding reasonable compromise will still enable the City to collect federal funds, will provide additional housing, while simultaneously maintaining liveable neighbourhoods throughout the city.
Thanks for the feedback. Regarding the practical considerations you list:
- Parking: Many cities have actually removed parking minimums entirely in combination with this type of zoning change, opting to let homeowners decide how much or how little parking is necessary for the occupants. Fredericton has not gone that far. I'm not even sure what the specific concerns are around parking; someone at PAC mentioned that people may park in the street at time to avoid shuffling cars. Depending on where exactly you are this is usually legal and I do it myself with multiple cars and a single lane driveway.
- Snow removal is again up to the property owner, I'm not sure what the concern is here.
- What is the concern with garbage collection?
- Water run-off is always a concern with new developments but can always be mitigated.
- Increased emissions? You'll need to elaborate on what you mean here. Higher density is directly proportional to decreased emissions.
- Decreased green space: This is up to the property owner, just as it is today. Low density residential zones are not subject to having a minimum landscaped area, except within the required setbacks and even then excepting driveways, walkaways, patios, etc.
- Increased traffic: There may be small localized increases but in general traffic decreases with higher density because people are not as car dependent, and the trips taken by car are shorter than they would otherwise be.
- Safety issues: Not sure what you mean by this. There was one person at PAC who made a comment about first responders not being able to locate the correct unit but that is fear mongering. We already have plenty of 2-6 unit residences all over the city and I have not heard this to be an issue, here or elsewhere.
In applying this only to larger properties you're effectively asking for it be more difficult to build more housing, which is why we are facing these challenges to begin with. When cities broadly apply zoning that theoretically allows for more density but attach all sorts of caveats the outcome is obvious: Little to zero new housing gets built under the new rules.
The vast majority of the arguments we see against this bring up worst case scenarios, vague talk of neighbourhood character and family friendliness, and issues that are minor nuisances in the grand scheme of things. These are not the sort of factors that should shape public policy.
I would say that the most legitimate of the complaints I have seen is about enforcement, and I agree that the city can and should do more on this front.