Quote:
Originally Posted by Docere
It's for the city of Vancouver, that's the figure in the report.
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Thanks. Toronto is obviously a megacity, since the 1998 amalgamation, and Montreal since 2002, while the City of Vancouver is only a very small part of Metro, and each municipality has zoning quirks.
The 82% number is a somewhat misleading indicator of what realistically could be developed in the past. The 'detached' description suggest single-family homes, and doesn't capture the reality that for many years almost every residential lot has allowed 3 units as-of-right, with both a basement suite and a laneway home.
I think the analysis in whatever report you were looking at was probably based on land parcels, and probably about 10 years ago. Around 2015, 82% of city lots were zoned RS or RT for primarily detached housing (as noted above, up to 3 units per lot). But as those lots were generally smaller than in commercial or industrial zones, they actually only represented 66% of the land area, and if you exclude the parks and golf courses, the Arbutus rail corridor, most of Highway 1, the Grandview cut SkyTrain route, and some waterfront railtracks (all zoned residential), it was less than 60% of the city's land area.
But that a historical analysis, as zoning laws have been fundamentally overhauled. Through the city's multiplex zoning framework and provincial legislation, multiplexes up to 4-6 units are now widely permitted on almost all residential lots to increase density. And in much more of the city than a few years ago, rowhouses and multi-family apartments are much more widely allowed too.
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