Duplexes, like this newly construed building in Riverside, are allowed in low-density zones without special exemptions, but a new zoning proposal could allow four-plexes and townhomes in certain areas under a similar legal definition. -- News photo Collin gallant, March 11,2024
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
City planners will suggest adding a residential land classification that would allow row housing and four-plexes in lower-densisty neighbourhoods as a way to draw development dollars to older neighbourhoods without wholesale blanket changes.
That goal has been the focus of a year-long program to study “Strong Towns” concepts in the city with the group that advocates for more intense development – additional housing or commercial units – and “as of right” for property owners.
Planners told a committee meeting on March 7, that the overall process is already saving the city money being applying small scale solutions to some infrastructure issues.
As the two-year relationship ends, land-use bylaw amendments would broaden where certain housing types are allowed, said planner and Strong Towns project coordinator Shawn Champange.
“We need to allow sensitive intensification, because currently there are two (lower density) residential land-use districts and there’s a pretty sharp increase in density between the two,” he told members of the development and infrastructure committee.
“The idea is that no neighbourhood should experience radical change, but no neighbourhood can be exempt from change,” said Champagne
“It’s allows bout incremental change and lowers the bar into the development game.”
Such a move was outlined during Mayor Linnsie Clark’s State of the City address in January, and in Strong Town’s presentations last year outlined the move, arguing that building along existing roads and utility lines, where soft infrastructure like transit service, keeps taxes lower.
Currently there are three main residential land zoning classifications: low-, medium-, and high-density residential, though residential units are also allowed in mixed-use developments that co-mingle commercial space.
Within each are “permitted” and “discretionary” uses, and currently the lowest density classification allows single family homes as well as duplexes without any extra hurdles, and triplexes as a discretionary use.
Townhouses and four-plexes, however, are not allowed, and would require a application to rezone land, adding thousand of dollars, several months to a project and opening up the process to a public hearing and potential opposition.
A new zoning designation of “low-medium” would allow them as a permitted use in newly rezoned areas, leaving low-density as is, and with backyard or accessory uses as a discretionary use in both.
The goal is to add housing units to improve affordability, and spur infill development in mature neighbourhoods to boost total tax assessment without adding costs of adding city infrastructure to new subdivisions.
“We’re conducting financial analysis on development applications as we go,” said Champagne. “This won’t result in increasing our long-term (infrastructure) debt and it will render us more (financially) resilient than we would be otherwise.”
Division managing director Pat Bohan said the city had planned to use potential money from a grant application made the federal Housing Accelerator Fund, to cover costs. That was declined, but some projects are money savers and will proceed and the department will seek out other sources of funding.
He also outlined that the Strong Towns evaluation led utility engineers to reroute and decommission 1.3 kilometres of sewer line in Crescent Heights. At an estimated annual maintenance cost of $15 per metre, the reduction leads to a $20,000 savings per year.
Planners also repurposed fire hydrant supply lines downtown to supply businesses rather than replacing a potable water line at a cost of $8,500 per metre. That eliminated about $1 million in capital project, said Bohan.
