Ottawa - Worst Suburban Sprawl in Canada

[Uhuniau]

Yes, Ottawa's sprawl situation sucks, but those stats are for the CMA, which includes Gatineau and other not-Ottawa (and not-Gatineau).

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Full disclosure, I've never been to Calgary or Edmonton, but they do seem more like American Cities, with a tower cluster Downtown and a sudden drop to single family outside the core. But yes, they are far more compact as they don't have Greenbelts and they've grown by annexing areas outside town bit by bit instead of amalgamating with rural counties far and wide, which encouraged further sprawl in Ottawa (and Gatineau).

Calgary and Edmonton's downtown and urban-y areas are a lot smaller than Ottawa's, or even Winnipeg's. That's the advantage of having had more decades of pre-war history and development behind you.

Height isn't everything. (Height actually isn't anything.)

[Acajack]

Is it me or is that page very annoying to use? There is a selection box in the middle of the screen that won't go away.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

The Greenbelt is what kills us when it comes to lack of density, for better or worse. That, and the ridiculous expanse of land, thanks to Mike Harris. Gatineau has some huge gaps as well, with Golf Clubs in the west and nothingness between the airport and Anger, followed by another stretch of nothing to Masson and Buckingham.

That said, the inner Greenbelt to me seems far denser than Calgary or Edmonton. Clusters of towers in quite a few spots. The "urban" downtown neighbourhoods stretch further as well, roughly 13kmx6km, while Calgary, there isn't much outside Downtown and the Beltline (3kmx2km) and Edmonton, a bit more expansive than Calgary (maybe 4kmx3km).

Full disclosure, I've never been to Calgary or Edmonton, but they do seem more like American Cities, with a tower cluster Downtown and a sudden drop to single family outside the core. But yes, they are far more compact as they don't have Greenbelts and they've grown by annexing areas outside town bit by bit instead of amalgamating with rural counties far and wide, which encouraged further sprawl in Ottawa (and Gatineau).

You should visit before making such claims. Calgary has infill occurring at insane levels that are hard to keep track of. There are 3 new inner city neighbourhoods concurrently under construction now on previous institutional or brownfield sites: University District, Currie Barracks, East Village. Inner ring suburbs are all seeing massive intensification. In some ways this multifamily residential boom is bigger than the crazy oil glut days of '08 with so many office towers. In fact Calgary's new home builds are now 60+% multifamily. There is far more to the inner city outside of Beltline and DT. Across the river is not all SFH's any longer. Sure there are some but the density has increased dramatically. Kensington, Mission, Bridgeland, Marda Loop, Inglewood, Ramsay, Sunalta, Hillhurst, Killarney.

As for Edmonton, they're making strides too. The old airport is being made into a massive new inner city community.

Edit: completely forgot about Quarry Park in Calgary (also new community on old industrial land well within city limits.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by Harley613

If you look at Ottawa and Calgary side by side at the same scale, the difference is jarring. Calgary is so dense and contained within or close by it's ring road. Ottawa looks like a random paint accident with very little sense to it's sprawl. The furthest you can walk in one direction and still be within the urban agglomeration is 9 kilometers less in Calgary than in Ottawa, and in Ottawa that extra 9kms is unserviced greenbelt land that we are extending our utilities across.

Everyone keeps mentioning Ottawa's experimental farm and greenbelt limiting the density while ignoring the enormous tracts of parkland in Calgary. Just look at the satellite view and see Fish Creek park in the south (largest urban provincial park in Canada iirc) and Nose Hill in the north.

[Harley613]

Calgary's parkland within it's urban agglomeration is sensible. Yes there is Nose Hill and Fish Creek, but it's not like they are extending services through kilometers of farm and parkland to distant suburbs like Ottawa is.

[DogsWithJobs]

Correct me if I am wrong but the greenbelt and experimental farm are irrelevant as this analysis is showing the delta between two timeframes in which both those things existed. So they are not a contributor to these percentages. Zero development in those areas remained zero development.

The number simply shows that Ottawa is the worst offender when it comes to new development density and expanding urban boundaries. So we are adding too much land and making very poor use of the land we already have so they don't even come close to balancing out. If we were extremely dense and lost 18% that would be one thing, but to be very sparse and still lose 18% of our density is an impressive failure.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Uhuniau

Calgary and Edmonton's downtown and urban-y areas are a lot smaller than Ottawa's, or even Winnipeg's. That's the advantage of having had more decades of pre-war history and development behind you.

Height isn't everything. (Height actually isn't anything.)

Totally agree. Pre-war growth is a huge contributing factor to how urban a city is.

Originally Posted by O-tacular

You should visit before making such claims. Calgary has infill occurring at insane levels that are hard to keep track of. There are 3 new inner city neighbourhoods concurrently under construction now on previous institutional or brownfield sites: University District, Currie Barracks, East Village. Inner ring suburbs are all seeing massive intensification. In some ways this multifamily residential boom is bigger than the crazy oil glut days of '08 with so many office towers. In fact Calgary's new home builds are now 60+% multifamily. There is far more to the inner city outside of Beltline and DT. Across the river is not all SFH's any longer. Sure there are some but the density has increased dramatically. Kensington, Mission, Bridgeland, Marda Loop, Inglewood, Ramsay, Sunalta, Hillhurst, Killarney.

As for Edmonton, they're making strides too. The old airport is being made into a massive new inner city community.

That's great to hear. It does seem that my admittedly not fully informed comment was relatively accurate, but Edmonton and Calgary are arguably doing more than Ottawa today.

[Uhuniau]

Originally Posted by DogsWithJobs

Correct me if I am wrong but the greenbelt and experimental farm are irrelevant as this analysis is showing the delta between two timeframes in which both those things existed. So they are not a contributor to these percentages. Zero development in those areas remained zero development.

The creation of the Greenbelt doesn't change that delta, no, but the very existence of the Greenbelt absolutely continues to contribute to Ottawa's sprawl, and the nature of that sprawl.

[RuralCitizen]

Even if we were allowed to build on the farm and the greenbelt, it wouldn't help the situation if we are to build the same way we are currently building. You'd have the same density as what's beside these spaces. Don't tell me we will be building better. Just look at the fiasco that is the Rideau Canyon, and the infinite sprawl of Orleans.

Then what do you do once those areas are fully built on? Continue the sprawl?

This would only offer temporary band-aid solution to provide vacant land near the urban city. The end result is less green space bigger population, more congestion. People from current suburb would still have to cross the "former greenbuilt" to get to the core, with added congestion/traffic from additional housing. The size of the city wouldn't be reduced. It would also not help in terms of house affordability. Big developers would rush to buy the amount of "new" land. The construction of housing would be limited to the amount of labour available and the supply chain. Can't built more houses than the construction industry can handle, which is the current problem. We can't build fast enough to meet the current demand. So housing remains unaffordable.

I'm tired of these easy quick fix arguments about removing the farm and the greenbelt. Removing them isn't a sustainable long-term solution. Once they are gone, they are gone. The space is protected, has proven health and environmental benefits. Let's just move on.

What we should do is celebrate these spaces even more, work on adding functionality to them so more people can get to use them and benefit more from them. We should build extremely densely around them to provide access to more people to green space. (think towers near central park New York). There shouldn't be height restrictions for the areas beside the Greenbelt as it is far enough from Parliament and there's no view to be blocked. Replace the existing low density housing and build very high mixed-use towers along the north side of Hunt Club. People want to live, work, and be entertained near where they live. No need to have a backyard if you live next to the Greenbelt.

Also, if you want more people to live in towers, you need to offer more condos that meets family needs. Unless you are single or a young couple, living in a 700 sq.ft. shoe box isn't what people want. Stack a bunch of suburban homes into a tower, I'm sure people would buy in. You need more 1700+ sq.ft. units. with 3-4 bedrooms.

With this new high density, you can built a ring LRT that connect Blair along hunt club, south keys, woodroff, and end at Bayshore.

You want more density, bring it to existing areas along main corridors outside the downtown area. Who says that towers need to be downtown and be limited to the table top?

[J.OT13]

I wouldn't support redeveloping the Experimental Farm (Civic aside, for reasons I've listed on the subject's thread) or much of the Greenbelt (maybe some areas along the O-Train would be ok).

We still have countless Federal Campuses that could be redeveloped. Confederation Heights, Tunney's, NRC (at last a strip along Blair). Pineview Golf Course.

[SidetrackedSue]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

I wouldn't support redeveloping the Experimental Farm (Civic aside, for reasons I've listed on the subject's thread) or much of the Greenbelt (maybe some areas along the O-Train would be ok).

We still have countless Federal Campuses that could be redeveloped. Confederation Heights, Tunney's, NRC (at last a strip along Blair). Pineview Golf Course.

I've always thought Pineview Golf course formed part of the Greenbelt.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by SidetrackedSue

I've always thought Pineview Golf course formed part of the Greenbelt.

I believe it is, but a golf course has little to now environmental value (if anything, it hurts the environment by needing constant care), so it's not an essential asset of the Greenbelt. It is definitely one area of the Greenbelt that could be redeveloped with minimal environmental impact.

We could, at the very lest, redevelop 500 meters along Blair and Innes, while preserving a protective corridor along Green's Creek.

[Harley613]

I'd love to see the golf course redeveloped into a medium density mixed use community like Greystone Village. It's right across the highway from the LRT, so it would be a good spot for something like that even though it's not in the core.