Highway 7 - Kitchener to Guelph

[danbrotherston]

Anywhere there is an interchange or nearby access to one for this highway, you will see development of suburbs in little time. Breslau will likely see a decent puff of expansion.

Only if the zoning allows it -- which really means that it also needs to fit into the (relevant) regional master plan for development.

It's not 1816 any more so settlements can't just "pop up" anywhere without appropriate planning permission, interchange or not.

While it is true there are some zoning regulations, you'll note the area between Guelph and KW, doesn't see much in the way of protection, either locally or provincially. And even areas which are "protected", well, I have limited confidence in the ability of politicians to resist political pressure from developers who want to develop cheap tracts of unsustainable greenfield housing, when a brand new highway has just been built.

[SammyOES2]

Dan, the Region of Waterloo side (Woolwich Township) has a lot of protections in place and has its growth plans in place for the next 15 years. It doesn't envision cheap tracts of unsustainable greenfield housing along a new highway 7. I'm less familiar with the Guelph side.

Of course, all of this is silly anyway because its not like the new highway is this massive draw in an area where nobody would want to live otherwise. The development pressures of the area in question are based on huge demographic pressures that exist even without a new highway. In the medium-long term there will obviously be more development - because the area is going to keep growing.

[tomh009]

Dan, the Region of Waterloo side (Woolwich Township) has a lot of protections in place and has its growth plans in place for the next 15 years.  It doesn't envision cheap tracts of unsustainable greenfield housing along a new highway 7.  I'm less familiar with the Guelph side. 

That's right.  Breslau and Maryhill are in Woolwich, which is very much resistant to rezoning farmland (or forest) into residential or commercial.  I doubt Wellington County will be all that much different, either.

[danbrotherston]

Dan, the Region of Waterloo side (Woolwich Township) has a lot of protections in place and has its growth plans in place for the next 15 years.  It doesn't envision cheap tracts of unsustainable greenfield housing along a new highway 7.  I'm less familiar with the Guelph side.  

Of course, all of this is silly anyway because its not like the new highway is this massive draw in an area where nobody would want to live otherwise.  The development pressures of the area in question are based on huge demographic pressures that exist even without a new highway.  In the medium-long term there will obviously be more development - because the area is going to keep growing.

Ignoring the relationship between a transportation system and development *is* the mistake that we've been making for decades. But it seems I'm not going to convince you of that here.

[danbrotherston]

Dan, the Region of Waterloo side (Woolwich Township) has a lot of protections in place and has its growth plans in place for the next 15 years.  It doesn't envision cheap tracts of unsustainable greenfield housing along a new highway 7.  I'm less familiar with the Guelph side. 

That's right.  Breslay and Maryhill are in Woolwich, which is very much resistant to rezoning farmland (or forest) into residential or commercial.  I doubt Wellington County will be all that much different, either.

Resistant to rezoning?  You mean the public is?  I think that's true pretty much everywhere, it doesn't seem to be effective against sprawl at all.  There are some protections in Waterloo Region, but I'm guessing that the growth that is allowed will be eastward.   Wellington County has even less protections.  And provincially there are no real protections, not greenbelt, no watershed, nothing at the moment for this area.  The highway is going to pave the way for development here.  IMO.

[tomh009]

That's right.  Breslau and Maryhill are in Woolwich, which is very much resistant to rezoning farmland (or forest) into residential or commercial.  I doubt Wellington County will be all that much different, either.

Resistant to rezoning?  You mean the public is?  I think that's true pretty much everywhere, it doesn't seem to be effective against sprawl at all.  There are some protections in Waterloo Region, but I'm guessing that the growth that is allowed will be eastward.   Wellington County has even less protections.  And provincially there are no real protections, not greenbelt, no watershed, nothing at the moment for this area.  The highway is going to pave the way for development here.  IMO.

Both the public and the township councils are resistant to allowing additional urban/suburban development on farmland: as a rule, it is simply not allowed.  The region's stance is the same. Take a look at the Woolwich official plan, for example:
http://www.woolwich.ca/en/townshipServic...ficial.asp
Having lived in Woolwich before, I can tell you that in the past decade development has been limited to essentially Elmira, plus specific areas of Breslau and St Jacobs.

Where in the (Waterloo Region) townships are you seeing uncontrolled sprawl, in the last 10 years or so?

[danbrotherston]

Resistant to rezoning?  You mean the public is?  I think that's true pretty much everywhere, it doesn't seem to be effective against sprawl at all.  There are some protections in Waterloo Region, but I'm guessing that the growth that is allowed will be eastward.   Wellington County has even less protections.  And provincially there are no real protections, not greenbelt, no watershed, nothing at the moment for this area.  The highway is going to pave the way for development here.  IMO.

Both the public and the township councils are resistant to allowing additional urban/suburban development on farmland: as a rule, it is simply not allowed.  The region's stance is the same. Take a look at the Woolwich official plan, for example:
http://www.woolwich.ca/en/townshipServic...ficial.asp
Having lived in Woolwich before, I can tell you that in the past decade development has been limited to essentially Elmira, plus specific areas of Breslau and St Jacobs.

Where in the (Waterloo Region) townships are you seeing uncontrolled sprawl, in the last 10 years or so?

You mean, besides, Breslau, New Hamburg, Elmira, and huge areas in South Kitchener, and north west Waterloo?

Look, I don't mean to say that Waterloo Region is not one of the better areas for limiting sprawl. Heck, I grew up in London Ontario, a 10 minute walk from the edge of town, and now, it's probably almost 2 hours to walk to the edge of town. I know KW isn't that bad. But I don't think townships and public individual disagreement with rezoning is an effective protection, especially because it usually comes to NIMBYism. We need real legal protections, and we need to stop prioritizing sprawl through our transportation decisions.

We're definitely making progress on both, but we're not yet done.

[SammyOES2]

Dan, is it your opinion that we should have no new development at all?  That all future development should be based on increasing density?

Edit: To be clear, I think that's a reasonable opinion to have.  Although, I don't personally agree with it.

[Viewfromthe42]

A better opinion to have would be that when you plan new suburbs, you can never again create them with courts, crescents, and meandering streets, features that make transit in addition to neighbourhood walkability and bikeability impossible or at least infeasible. Density-wise, you should never again see anything resembling the tracts of homes on the opposite side of Westmount from UW's lands, and all suburban areas should have multiple housing types, so as not to create the "This is only for single detached homes" mentality that is pervasive when you have a suburb like many developed today. Nobody is arguing that every development in the region be a 20+ storey one, which is one extreme, but we seemingly think nothing of rubber-stamping the far more dangerous other extreme.

[SammyOES2]

I think a hard and fast rule like that is silly (not to mention there are other real downsides to now including some of those things). But I think its a fair point - that walkability / transit / bike-friendliness are all important.

I think multiple housing types are pretty standard in subdivision requirements these days. I don't think a subdivision of only single detached homes would be approved.

[tomh009]

Both the public and the township councils are resistant to allowing additional urban/suburban development on farmland: as a rule, it is simply not allowed.  The region's stance is the same. Take a look at the Woolwich official plan, for example:
http://www.woolwich.ca/en/townshipServic...ficial.asp
Having lived in Woolwich before, I can tell you that in the past decade development has been limited to essentially Elmira, plus specific areas of Breslau and St Jacobs.

Where in the (Waterloo Region) townships are you seeing uncontrolled sprawl, in the last 10 years or so?

You mean, besides, Breslau, New Hamburg, Elmira, and huge areas in South Kitchener, and north west Waterloo?

Breslau and Elmira developments are within the current zoning and part of the official plan.  New Hamburg is in Wilmot -- and Wilmot, too, limits development of (sub)urban areas.  Take a look at the land use map on their official plan:
http://www.wilmot.ca/en/doing-business/O...-Plan.aspx#

South Kitchener and NW Waterloo ... well, they are part of those two cities, not the townships.    But while I have no particular love for those subdivisions, I don't think they qualify as "uncontrolled sprawl", they are simply the remaining residential areas in the two cities that can accommodate suburban growth.

[danbrotherston]

Dan, is it your opinion that we should have no new development at all?  That all future development should be based on increasing density?

Edit: To be clear, I think that's a reasonable opinion to have.  Although, I don't personally agree with it.

This is definitely not my position, and I hope I haven't lead anyone to believe I am arguing for this. Densification, while, there is plenty of room for it, right now, will only get us so far, and not everyone wants to live in a large city like we have here.

What @AViewFromThe42 said is exactly on point. I support the type of mixed and dense developments I've seen in Europe. And don't for a moment think they don't have new cities in Europe. I mean, even ignoring places in the Netherlands, which are built on land which didn't even exist until the 60's, there are new towns and cities developed on greenfield areas, as we have been doing here.

These towns include a dense core around a transit centre of some type (sometimes a train station, in the Netherlands, I even saw around a ferry terminal), that dense area includes mixed use buildings, generally, restaurants, shops, stores, meeting all your needs, with apartments and perhaps offices above. Beyond that, are lower density 2-3 story buildings, townhouses, and beyond that duplexes and single homes. Even staying in a detached home, we could walk to the transit centre and take a train or boat to a major city, or get food or do shopping, errands, all within about 15 minutes, or bike within 5. It seems like the entire area was planned that way. I'm sure, not every town looks like this, but those that do, provide a great mix of housing, choice of transportation (most were also surrounded by some type of highway, and bike lanes), and I believe sustainable transit.

But these places do not look like what we have been building. I do agree that there are some more density requirements for new housing developments, but these only go so far. There are few requirements to make transit a priority, nothing for biking, and little for walking beyond recreational purposes--the court and crescent development model is alive and well. There are some hints at mixed use developments but rarely is there enough density to support support all the services someone would need, instead simply including a strip mall type development, and everyone has to drive to the boardwalk anyway.

I think Waterloo Region has started to try to turn towards better development, but just take a drive through the areas north of Toronto and you'll see gigantic tracts of housing going in where there is no transit, no biking, nothing, you must own a car to live there.

Retrofitting this type of development in, is no doubt a challenge, but when we're talking about a huge area between KW and Guelph, we could start anew here, and plan something like this, but I just don't see it happening. Building a highway, with no transit, basically locks us into that type of development for this area. Then sometime later, we'll come in and try to retrofit some transit in, probably by building a GO Station outside of the developments and a giant park and ride lot.

[SammyOES2]

I think the general points you're making are great. I just don't think they really apply to this specific discussion.

I don't think I'd call the area between Guelph and KW huge. Certainly not on the scale of creating a whole new town/city like you're talking about.

As for the growth planned for this area - it is planned to be much more non-car friendly. A GO station is already planned with a proposed site. And yes, it will probably have a large parking lot, but that just makes sense. Again we should strive to promote transit while still acknowledging the car has an important role to play for quite awhile.

And it's planned to be a mix of low to medium density housing. Including a few apartment buildings. It's planned to have walkable trails and reasonable local commercial areas.

Lots of these things won't happen right away, or hell, even in the next 25 years. But it is part of the plan.

[danbrotherston]

I think the general points you're making are great. I just don't think they really apply to this specific discussion.

I don't think I'd call the area between Guelph and KW huge. Certainly not on the scale of creating a whole new town/city like you're talking about.  

As for the growth planned for this area - it is planned to be much more non-car friendly. A GO station is already planned with a proposed site.  And yes, it will probably have a large parking lot, but that just makes sense.  Again we should strive to promote transit while still acknowledging the car has an important role to play for quite awhile.

And it's planned to be a mix of low to medium density housing. Including a few apartment buildings.  It's planned to have walkable trails and reasonable local commercial areas.

Lots of these things won't happen right away, or hell, even in the next 25 years. But it is part of the plan.

We're still talking about Breslau, and the next 15 years.  What I worry about, is that development isn't going to end at Breslau after 15 or 20 years, it'll keep going, 15-30 years beyond that, the 15 km from the edge of Breslau to the edge of Guelph, will get filled with homes, with similar development patterns.  If there is a GO station in Breslau, that certainly won't change development patterns 8 KMs away.  Maybe there will be more GO stations built, I don't know, but without planning, all there will be is the freeway.

For me, I just think it is important to keep in mind these types of decisions lead very long term changes in policies, not 25 years, think 40 years.  If you think about how we got to where we are now, the decisions leading here were made 40 years ago, with the expressway.  Within the city, in the next 20-30 (because we've been making decisions for almost a decade now), the city will look very different because of the decision to build the LRT, than if we had completed the ring road as a freeway, or extended Homer-Watson to Belmont, for example.

I do agree, I see the seeds of change, but I also see incredible pressures to keep the status quo.

As for sizes, one of the towns I stayed in the Netherlands, had 32,000 people in a space only 5 km wide, you could fit three of those between Guelph and KW.  It is a pretty big area between Guelph and KW, I've biked it a few times.

[tomh009]

We're still talking about Breslau, and the next 15 years.  What I worry about, is that development isn't going to end at Breslau after 15 or 20 years, it'll keep going, 15-30 years beyond that, the 15 km from the edge of Breslau to the edge of Guelph, will get filled with homes, with similar development patterns.  If there is a GO station in Breslau, that certainly won't change development patterns 8 KMs away.  Maybe there will be more GO stations built, I don't know, but without planning, all there will be is the freeway.

Dan, you're worrying about what will happen without planning.  But it's a fact that we do have planning: the region, the cities and the townships all have official plans.  All of these are fundamentally aligned in protecting farmland, containing urban sprawl, focusing development only in specific areas and promoting intensification (within the cities). 

It could certainly happen that thousands and thousands of single-family homes will be built in new subdivisions between Kitchener and Guelph.  But in order for that to happen, both the townships and the region will need to change direction, revise their development policies and update their official plans.  At this time no one -- not the cities, not the townships, not the region -- has indicated any desire or intent to do that, so I am not expecting it to happen.

Policies and plans can indeed be changed later.  But so can any legislation, or even the constitution.  At this point in time I have trust in our region, our cities and our townships that they indeed have the right direction, and they intend to stay with it.  Of course, if you cannot trust them to do that, then it's a whole different situation.