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Originally Posted by fusili
Exactly. I am not anti-suburb at all. I am just anti-ridiculous arguments against density. Inner city growth does not require more infrastructure, on the whole, as suburban development. That isn't to say that suburban development is bad, just that it isn't true that it's cheaper from a infrastructure perspective than inner city growth. Sadly, the sentiment that suburbia expresses is shared by many: politicians, lay people, even some in industry (less now as more and more developers and builders are diversifying and building in both greenfield and inner city markets and understand the implications of slagging inner city growth on their own business). Many think building towers in the Beltline or in Brentwood, or mid rise in the inner city, is a huge strain on infrastructure. It isn't. On the whole, it requires less to service that type of development than the alternative.
There is a very real possibility that such arguments will have a strong influence on policy. We could see an inner city development levy implemented that bears a disproportionate share of infrastructure costs. Asking for development to share costs to upgrade infrastructure only in it's immediate vicinity isn't just about asking greenfield to pay for downstream effects, it is also recognizing that 50 unit condo in Crescent Heights shouldn't have to pay full cost of upgrading a sewer line if that line is also serving other upstream growth. The west memorial sanitary trunk line is a perfect example of this. Imagine if we asked only new developments in Bowness (where the line is being upgraded) to pay for this. It would effectively freeze development in that community.
I have no doubt in my mind that certain councillors will bring up similar arguments during the negotiations on off-site levies and hopefully administration, industry and more reasonable members of council will coherently make the case that inner city growth is desirable and we shouldn't unfairly punish it. I am not super optimistic about this though.
All I think we need is a system that fairly accounts for the burden on infrastructure to be accounted for in the levy calculations. I think some sort of "catchment" system is the best way to do this. As those in the development industry know, there are massive variances to acreage assessments for storm water (Elbow catchment vs Shepard- crazy!). I just think we should have similar ones for transportation (i.e. are some areas less expensive to serve than others) and sewer and water (as much as is reasonable).
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Agreed. The big debate right now with the off-site levy bylaw is whether to move toward a catchment based system versus a city wide levy approach (especially transportation) as it is now. Another element is whether linear connections for Water Resources (storm, sanitary and water) can simply be taken out of the levy and become simply a developer cost like on-site infrastructure in the greenfield area. Front ended and recouped from lagging developers to the leading developers with an endeavour to assist from the City.
Catchments for transportation (and say fire) as well as moving some infrastructure categories out of the levy is the way to go in my opinion. You can send price signals based in the real cost of infrastructure area to area and you can do more innovative and felixible financing. It can also help transfer some of the risk from the City to industry.
Things like treatment plants and truly city wide infrastructure and downstream transportation can stay within a city-wide levy structure.