Housing affordability and the need for housing that is accessible to families is top of mind to many but as Emily Hamilton in Bloomberg CityLab points out the recent push to get rid of single family zoned areas may be the wrong focus.
Ms. Hamilton notes that it is not just zoning but also regulation that “stymie new, low-cost construction”. She defines missing middle as low rise construction that is denser than detached houses, and notes that the missing middle housing in the 20th century included “bread and butter” moderate income housing such as fourplexes, sixplexes and rowhousing.
Minneapolis Minnesota has a population of 425,000 and had 70 percent of their residential zoning designated for single family homes. In 2018 they voted to change the single family zoning to also include duplex and triplex units with the idea of increasing housing density.
Minneapolis also allowed higher density housing near transit stations of three to six storey buildings and eliminated off street parking. Ten percent of new apartment housing had to be geared to low income households and Council tripled the amount of funding for homelessness/rental relief to $40 million annually.
The City of Houston Texas allows apartments anywhere private land covenants don’t restrict it and allows three new units on a detached house’s footprint. Lot size needs to be only 1,400 square feet.
Ms. Hamilton notes that Houston also has a slew of flexible land regulations that facilitate higher density.
Looking at the City of Vancouver secondary suites are permitted in the single family zones, and a laneway house can be built in the back of those properties meaning that three units can be built outright.
Besides allowing for increased density in single family zoned areas, analysis must also centre on how to make housing construction lower cost to encourage builders to develop more dense affordable projects.
Ms. Hamilton surmises ” That’s why reforms that appear to allow more housing to be built on paper may not result in the flexibility homebuilders actually need. When that’s the case, and housing supply and affordability aren’t moving in the right directions, leaders need to identify whatever unnecessary barriers to low-cost construction remain.”
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Low cost family housing (direct access to outdoors) with environmental benefits can be achieved by employing wood frame construction (a rapidly renewable local resource), by avoiding the use of concrete and steel, by avoiding land assemblies, and by retaining and renovating existing structures. Even greater environmental benefits can be achieved by avoiding in situ construction and deploying modular factory production of housing units and components thereof. Eliminate on site parking requirements in lieu of a group owned and operated electric vehicle. Facilitate strata title ownership with zero down payment mortgages. Avoid rental projects because they carry zero financial benefits for tenants. If neighbourhoods object to this type of densification, then don’t argue but rather build new pop-up villages beyond the city limits using best practices and the principles outlined above. If you cannot imagine how this can really happen then you need to talk to an architect and hand him or her this design brief. If you are a planner you can certainly write a set of regulations around this idea. If you still can’t imagine a way forward then talk to your local credit union, they too are trying to make a difference on the issues of affordability and climate change. Thank you for your attention.
I’d talk to a structural engineer first.
While it’s possible to build without concrete it’s not necessarily the best way forward and it would necessarily be limited to relatively lightweight structures of one (or maybe two?) storeys which leads to more sprawl which leads to more car-dependence which undermines the elimination of concrete. There is ongoing research into concrete mixes that reduce and may eventually eliminate the carbon emissions associated with this strong, durable and flexible material. Especially in our seismically active zone this seems like a better route to explore.
We can certainly eliminate steel in lowrise buildings and reduce it to connections only in highrises by using mass timber construction. Mass timber sequesters carbon but comes with a responsibility to manage the source of fibre in a sustainable way too.
I certainly agree that modular prefab construction can go a long way toward reducing cost and they can be stackable too. That makes the concept flexible enough to fit in different neighbourhoods with varying densities and have the added bonus of being able to be stacked higher in future, if necessary, with little change to the original structure. It certainly is a way of reducing the waste of demolition. (It should be noted that Vancouver is working toward a policy of building deconstruction and has pilot projects already in place. An entire industry is beginning to form around this. But modular is even better.)
Cities must evolve toward sustainablity and increasing density and mixed use, and reducing mobility-dependence is but one of those ways. Shunting people to the distant ‘burbs to appease NIMBYs is not going to cut it. But it’s already clear that the resistance to increased density is waning in many parts of the city and that trend will likely continue as quality mid-density neighbourhoods demonstrate to more and more people what can be done and how livable it can (and should) be. The irony, of course, is that the more desirable it is the higher price it will command. Real affordability is only likely to come with huge policy changes and government programs and incentives. But a no down payment policy may actually backfire as it immediately increases demand in a substantial way.
I Europe, where densities are generally higher at the low to mid levels, it is still very common to rent – much more than here in most places. People look toward other avenues for investment. This may well reduce land values and rampant speculation making it easier to keep rents affordable. Buildings are often owned by big commercial enterprises like banks. This makes rental buildings more stable and maintained as the owner looks toward the long term investment rather than the short term flip.
Vancouver has no more free land. It’s all brown field development. Something has to be bought, possibly rezoned, approved, then torn down to build new. That in itself makes new real estate expensive. Yes we need more townhouses or row housing, and many places could easily accommodate that. Prefab makes sense in some forms but the only advantage is speed of construction. Prefab in itself is not cheaper. One can shave perhaps 50% of the actual build cost, but if the planning and re-zoning time frame is as lone or often 2-3 times as long as the physical construction timeline then that is where one has to focus energy and process change on !