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Nnn produced:
Urban Icons (nimby targets)
Like many such efforts, they
are based on two primal impulsesgreed and fear. To a large extent, we are
seeing the results of these emotions in the built form of our citieslarge
expanses of low density structures of similar uses (houses) on curvilinear
streets that lack charm and activitymono cultured suburbs, if you will.
Local politicians, not
unlike politicians at all levels, do at least one thing superblythey can count noses. I have been to many local
council meetings and watched soundly based plans for urban development defeated
by hostile neighbors. Today, I advise all my clients involved in the world of
planning and development to bring the neighbors on side, in fact, to bring all
stakeholders on side before attempting a change in use. You just cant get your
plans approved unless you present Council with a beautifully pre-packaged, gift
wrapped, be-ribboned project with all the noses in the chamber nodding up and
down rather than side to side.
My oldest daughter at 11
asked me if we could move to Riverdale. Not knowing much about Riverdale, I
asked her: Why?
Well, all the kids in
Riverdale live within walking distance of the Pizza Pit, she replied.
Ive never heard of the
Pizza Pit.
Well, it would be so cool
to be able to, like hang there or like maybe get a job, Rachel added.
Anyone know who lives in
Riverdale?
Well, it includes Archie and
Veronica and Betty and Jughead and their gang.
Riverdale is an imaginary
place, but not to my three daughters it isnt.
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The reason
everyone likes Riverdale is because everything is in walking distance, the
shopping mall, the grocery store, the restaurant(s), the malt shop, the hardware store, yada
yada yada. All my friends can actually have some place to go. Maybe I could even get a job too. Just thought you might need this bit of info, from, Jessica
:) :) :)
(Email message from
Jessica, age 10, to her Dad, Sunday October 7th, 2001.
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It didnt always used to be
that way. Today, people drive 100s of kilometres and take a ferry to park their
cars to wander around a place like Nantuckett. Why?
Well, they like the
walk-about feel of the place. They like to see people sitting on their front
porches. They like that there are sidewalks and that houses are close to the
street and each other. They like the fact that there are trees overhanging the
street providing shade in the summer and some protection from winter winds.

Tree in the Boulevard (not
permitted in Kanata)
Isnt it ironic that people
need to go to Disney World to experience Main Street America?
How did this come to be?
6. Work, Live, Play + Internet Connections (The Web Changes Everything)
Network effects
are happening around us at a fantastic pace.
The value of a network is said to
increase as the square of the number of users.
What is the
value of a network with only one fax machine? Obviously, zero.
Network effects
rely on the development of one universal standard. Fax machines have to
be able to talk to other fax machines.
The web itself
is the best example of network effects; the value of the web today is
proportional to the square of the number of world wide users, now estimated at
320 million. The value is pretty large- it is proportional to 320 squared times
10 to the power of 12 or 102.4 quintillions. My expectation is that the
web will have over two billion users within seven years.
What is amazing
is that in Canada over the last year, the fastest growth rate of web use has
been in lower income groups (30% growth) and amongst girls ages 9 to 14. This
bodes well for our nation- incomes will rise fastest amongst the web-enabled
portion of our population. Giving their children access to the web and the vast
window on a new world that it represents are hugely important to their futures.
It can help to bring future generations out of poverty.
First, the web
was all about the US communications infrastructure surviving a nuclear
holocaust (hence, the webs origin as a DARPA initiative in the 60s). Second,
it was a text based medium for researchers to send data back and forth from
distant shores (70s and 80s). Then it was all about mass communication of data
and graphics and automation (the 90s). Now it is about relationships (check out
www.sissyfight.com, a site I was
introduced to by my three daughters ages 9, 11 and 12 where kids, playing in a
cyber playground, can adopt new identities, call each other names, make
Survivor-type alliances and find friends too), scalability, work reversal.
Pretty soon, its going to be all about broadband communications and,
ultimately, humans will interface with (goggle into) cyberspace and interact
with the environment there in the same way that nature has developed for the human
interface with the natural world (RL) over the last three or four million years
(check out Neal Stephensons Snow Crash for a glimpse of the metaverse
of the near future as 35 of the top 50 tech CEOs have already done).
The flexibility
of the U.S. economy (from the efficient allocation of capital to new,
innovative and highly productive sectors of their economy to the fast recycling
of workers and entrepreneurs from failed or slow growing parts of the economy
to fast moving sectors) is a huge part of their success.
The Americans are early adopters of
technology and none is more earth shattering than their embrace of the
internet. The internet is eating an enormous hole in the worlds economy.
It does not
matter how little someone is paid in the third world, the internet can do it
faster and cheaper.
The internet is all about automation.
That means that
you do not take your existing business model and put it on the net and expect
success. That is why I have my doubts that re-runs of I Love Lucy on the net
is where it is at. Putting Time Warner content on AOL is not, in my view, what
that merger was all about. It is AOL needing access to Time Warners cable
systems and their large pipes into the homes of America that drove that merger.
I have my doubts
about e-commerce too, at least the type of e-commerce represented by the
amazon.com book selling business model.
That means that
downloading music from the net makes sense but placing an e-commerce order for
an amazon.com book on a UPS truck, followed by a UPS plane, then another UPS
truck just to get it to your front door to find that you are not home, that
does not sound like a revolutionary technology to me.
But amazon.com
does offer some truly astounding advantages to the user- their use of a relational
data base means that their web site can prompt you with titles of other books
that other people are buying who bought the one you were initially interested
in. Because they have millions of customers, this is a powerful short cut for
researchers and one of the reasons I use amazon.com. It also obviously helps
amazon.com sell more product.
When IBM or
others finally perfect e-paper then the amazon.com model for book selling will
have truly arrived.
The internet is all about automation.
Let me give you
another example. We have a number of home builders in the audience today and I
am proud to say that I live in a fine home built by one of those companies for
my family and I in Kanata Lakes.
Today, with all
due respect, the home building business is still a craft based endeavour which,
if it were compared to the computer industry, would still produce five function
calculators that look like primitive World War II vintage Turing machines (used
for breaking Japanese and German codes)- big, clunky and expensive.
Ultimately, a
home builders web site will allow consumers to goggle in to the site in
three dimensions, to choose the model that they want, the lot that they want
and then to load up their shopping carts with the features they desire. As they
make changes to their design and add and subtract amenities, the calculator
will tally and show them their costs.
Visa and
Mastercard are moving upstream- their credit cards will be used for everything
including buying a new car or buying a home. There is a small but fast growing
market for power cards that carry credit limits in the hundreds of thousands of
dollars.
But this home
buying e-commerce transaction using a credit card is only the tip of the
iceberg. In all probability, it is the e-business applications that will have
the most dramatic impacts on home building. Pre-authorized suppliers and
sub-trades will log on to the builders web site to estimate the volume of work
required and to bid on it. Scheduling, based on just-in-time delivery, will be
net based. Payments will flow business to business via e-payments. Municipal
inspectors will log on to see when they are required for inspections.
Municipalities will recognize that home builders are their clients. The number
of separate subcontractors and trades will fall from 25 or 30 today to just 6
or 7.
If former
Russian President, Boris Yeltsin in his early days as a construction boss in
Sverdlovsk (1,000 miles east of Moscow) could build five storey, wood frame
apartment buildings in five days (albeit with a huge crew), surely we can learn
to build houses in 30 days or less at higher levels of quality, with fewer
defects, higher margins for the industry and lower prices for consumers.
The home builder
will become a web site operator. Legal closings, land registry documentation,
mortgage financings
all will be web enabled.
So if we are going to build affordable housing in developing countries, we also have to be thinking of how the motor of the economic engine works. What are they best at? What comparative advantage do they bring forward? How can they specialize and skill share? And lastly how do we bring the Internet to them for education and other purposes including their ability to market their skills, services and products globally too-- to reverse the flow of skills and goods and services?
For persons with an annual income of $300 US, how important are a half dozen sales of village products at say $50 each?
7. Village Governance- Mobutus goat and
Bongamas vegetables
Once upon a time, town
government or city-state government was based on the Athenian model of
participatory democracy. Citizens and land owners met with town elders to plan
the development of their communitieswho lives where, what type of activities
would be next to each other, where the town markets would be, places of
worship, fortifications, tanneries, milliners, coopers, blacksmiths, artisans,
guildworkers, merchants, nobles, and so forth.
Problems between neighbors
arose from time to time. Mobutus goat, Fred, is eating my vegetable patch and
it should be staked, says Bongama. He should fence his gardenmy goat, needs
to be free to forage for food, replied Mobutu.

Fred, the Goat
The town elders would meet
with Mobutu and Bongama, hear both sides and then render a decision (Mobutus
goat shall be free to wanderbut she shall pay half the cost of fencing in
Bongamas garden).
Speedy resolution of such
issues stopped them from festering and making enemies amongst neighbors. I tell
people: Once you start arguing with your neighbor, one of you has got to
move. Nothing is worse than coming home from a workday and not being able to
look your neighbor in the eye, wave hello or stop and have a chat.
Its worse than this though.
Municipalities today rely on 1-800 snitch lines to spot bylaw
infractionsneighbors are encouraged to rat on each other. This is not Greek
city-state participatory democracy; it is part of what I call Democratic Abuse.
My backyard in Kanata backs
onto the Kanata Lakes Golf Course. It is surrounded by a four foot retaining
wall topped by a six foot high wooden fence. You need to be 10 and a half feet
tall to see in our rear yard. Yet within three days of erecting a clothesline
there, a bylaw enforcement officer was at our front door with a fine and a
warning. (Of course, clotheslines are not allowed in our neighborhoodthey
detract from property values.)
I never did find out who
ratted us out but I didnt take down the clothesline until our last baby was
out of diapersmy wife preferred the smell of sun dried diapers not to mention
the environmental benefits of not running our dryer six hours a day.
Villages and towns have the
potential to return to old styles of town-hall type governance where fast, fair
and representative decision making can take place. A sharing and caring model
can promote village self reliance and participation through the web in the
global economy. Borrowing circles and a system that recognizes private property
and proprty rights provides a back bone for capital accumulation and micro
enterprise. Get a foot on the ladder and the next rung up is much easier to ascend.
Appendices
Other Writings:
A: Affordable Housing is Not
Just a Third World Problem
B: Highest and Best Use- A Guiding
Philosophy for Neo-Urbanist Designers
C: Lets Keep Our Elders in Our
Communities Longer
D: Lets Build More Shared
HousingReinventing the Duplex/Triplex
E: Co-operative
Housing
F: The Kibbutznik Apple Picker
Appendix A: Affordable
Housing is Not Just a Third world Problem-- Ontario Mayors Overlook Solution to Affordable
Housing Crisis
Mayor Lastman
and other Ontario Mayors implore the Federal government to open up public
coffers to help solve the affordable housing problem in Canada. Mayor Lastman
says his City has spent $11 billion on the problem and still has 56,000
families on its waiting list.
Solutions to
this crisis are not going to be easy or facile; this is a problem that wont
soon go away. However, Ontario Mayors recent cry for more investment from the
public purse should not supersede efforts by Ontario cities to do their part
too.
Ontario Mayors
have it in their power to push a partial solution to the problem, if they have
the political courage to do so. They can increase the supply of affordable
housing without costing the taxpayer a cent.
In fact, the Bob
Rae government almost did the job for them during its stint at Queens Park in
the early 1990s. The Rae government platform and party policy called for (and
went as far as to introduce legislation) to legalize basement apartments
everywhere in Ontario notwithstanding any municipal zoning by-laws to the
contrary.
There are an
estimated 100,000 illegal basement apartments (they could actually be in the
attic, rear yard, basement or above the garage) in Ontario. What the Rae
government had in mind was to legalize these in home apartments and their
second kitchens with a view to bringing them within the purview of existing
legislation and rules and regulations including the landlord/tenant act, rent
control, building and fire codes.
Legalizing in
home apartments would have allowed the construction of new in home apartments
in all neighborhoods in Ontario. This was an important initiative for Ontario;
it would have helped to provide more, cost effective housing. However, it died
in the Legislature.
In home
apartments can be inexpensively added to the existing housing stock. By
addressing the density deficit that affects so many North American cities, they
help cities make better use of public infrastructure (roads, water and sewer
mains, public transit and so forth). They help folks pay their mortgage and
property taxes; allow working men and women to live closer to where they work;
they provide alternative accommodation for the elderly in neighborhoods where
they have perhaps lived for many years.
Ontario Mayors
do not have to rely on Queens Park to make the required changes to permit in
home apartments in all zones in their cities. They can simply wave their magic
(by-law) wands to encourage the creation of additional affordable housing stock
at no public cost.
Why did the Rae
government initiative fail? For the same reason that Ontarios Mayors do not
endorse such action now- strong resistance from their residents who fear that
densification will negatively affect their property values. Prima facie, legal
in home apartments add income to a property resulting in an increase in housing
prices. In the Glebe, homes with apartments (above the garage, in the attic, in
the basement, granny flat at the rear) tend to sell or rent for higher prices
and tend to sell or rent more quickly too. Density, per se, does not decrease
home and property values. It brings more customers for public transit,
neighborhood shops and services and more potential buyers and renters for homes
and apartments. Density increases, in what are now largely low density
neighborhoods and suburbs, should increase property values as long as
neighborhoods continue to be well maintained and civic order is not diminished.
By bringing
illegal in home apartments out of the gray market, Ontario municipalities have
an opportunity to ensure that they meet minimum building and fire code
standards. Ontarios Mayors can encourage formation of more affordable housing
stock wihtout public subsidy- all it takes is some political courage.
By Dr. Bruce M. Firestone,
B.Eng.(Civil), M.Eng.-Sci., PhD., Adjunct Research Professor, School of
Architecture, Carleton University, Chair, Hickling Capital Corporation,
Founder, Ottawa Senators
Copyright.
Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, Ottawa, Canada, 2000.
Post Script: We should be doing more to encourage small home builders like www.mapleleafdesign.ca to build affordable housing.
Appendix B: Highest and Best Use- A Guiding Philosophy
for Neo-Urbanist Designers
Dollars are
Democrats; Highest and Best Use- A Guiding Philosophy for Neo-Urbanist
Designers Or Why Nimby'ites (Not-In-My-Back-Yard'ites) are Wrong to Oppose
Higher Densities and Mixed Use Also Negative Property Taxes- a Response to
Nimby'itis and Some
Urban Design Principles that Could Lead to Community Consensus
Highest and Best Use
Since the
beginning of civilization, there have been many experimental models developed
as organizing principles for villages, towns and cities.
The first
villages were probably founded by a handful of families joining together for
mutual protection. Perhaps serendipitously, they may have discovered that
a new division of labour could increase the well being of their village. Those
who were better skilled at farming, hunting, gathering, flint knife
carving, producing textiles could specialize in those tasks. The result would
have been a marked improvement in the wealth of the village from
intra-village trading. So much so that over time, we can postulate a surplus
developing in one village would lead to trade with other nearby villages with
their own specializations. Regional trading blocks could then emerge prompting
the emergence of and faster growth of city-states. Eventually this
would lead to the formation of nation-states.
As these cities
and towns and villages grew, the problem of how to efficiently organize them
became more pronounced. How to get rid of wastes, where to put
dirty industry, how to bring products and services into and out of the town for
growing numbers of artisans in their many guilds, how to best protect
citizens, how to move people and their domesticated animals safely inside the
city, how to gather people together for religious observances,
markets and entertainment, where to put the courts and jails, where to locate
government officials, judges, kings and queens, emperors, their subjects
and nobles- these are some of the questions town governments have wrestled with
for millennia.
Spatial
organization of the city has been based on: a) religious or other forms of
hierarchical systems, b) defense principles, c) royal edict, d) class or race based
systems, e) guild based separation, f) fiat based systems (master planning and
zoning, for example), g) FOB (Friends of the Boss - Mayor, Fire
Chief, Chief of Police and so forth), or combinations of the above.
Structuring
cities based on the principle that each individual parcel should be put to the
highest and best use is an idea that has come into prominence
over the last century. The highest and best use for a particular piece of land
is that use or combination of uses that produces the highest land
rents. It may be that the actual implementation or interpretation of this rule
is modified by practioners of urban design to include both the costs and
benefits of a project in the form of a calculation to determine which types of
land uses produce the highest rates of return. This presumably also produces
the highest land rents too.
This rule can
also be thought of as the DAD rule- Dollars are Democrats rule. The DAD rule
suggests that those persons or organizations that have the
where-with-all to develop the parcel to its highest and best use will also be
those willing to pay the highest price for the lands or the highest land rent. This means
that: a) land supply will be rationed using a price mechanism, b) anyone can
participate irrespective of race, gender or religion, and c) lands will be
used efficiently at the greatest intensity and density of use.
That land is a
limited resource and should be used efficiently seems self-evident. However, it
is remarkable how often neo-urbanists run into the nimby mentality,
the not-in-my-back-yard syndrome. Special interest groups often decry the
spread of cities into the countryside (as 'urban sprawl') but react
vociferously against the concept of higher ('build up not out') density which
would result in more efficient use of expensive infrastructure (roads, water
mains, sewers, schools, libraries, etc.)
Nimby'ites are
afraid of both urban 'sprawl' and higher densities as well as mixed use
development. Urban sprawl and urban growth are often thought to be
synonomous. They are not. Urban sprawl is what results when zoners and master
planners separate land use combined with the imposition of
undue density limits. They seek to restrict 'organic' growth of cities; they
impose order on an otherwise chaotic process. Mono-cultured,
low density suburbs require a near total dependence on the private automobile
for trips to school, work, theatre, store, gym, market, dance, arena,
dentist, doctor, community centre, library, pub, concert, restaurant, soccer
pitch, social, opera, ... It disenfranchises children and makes everyone
without a car a second class citizen.
Nimbys fear that
urban growth will create congestion and lower their property values. Nimbys
oppose almost all development and such development as is permitted
must conform to existing zoning codes and master plans or official plans.
Nimby'itis is generated by two primal emotions- greed and fear. Their
worst fears will be realized by applying most existing zoning codes to urban
growth.
In contrast,
allowing the highest and best rule to work in a de-regulated environment where
a community consensus has been reached as to what constitutes
sound, sustainable development should produce more variegated, interesting,
pedestrian-friendly, efficient, public transportation-promoting
communities. It will lower the decibel count at town hall public meetings and
lead to a better understanding of what constitutes
excellence in urban design.
Application of
the highest and best use rule must be subject to the constraints of meeting
building, health and safety codes.
Unfortunately,
zoning codes and master plans are not only a straight jacket on urban growth
but are also subject to arbitrary change by FOB. Zoning rules are often
decided in a process distorted by competing interests, many of whom have no
real expertise in the field of urban design. It is a travesty that
politicians and municipal planners, who seem to know only how to interpret
zoning codes, are in near complete control of this process. Architects have
by and large left the field entirely. Many seem willing to accept a site
without any reference to a larger urban context; they seem willing to let
others determine setbacks, height limits, densities, types of uses and
locations for access and egress, parking lots, signage, greenspaces and landscaping.
They will design the 'great' building without understanding the wider urban
context and the needs of the community.
That land use
should not be based on discriminatory principles also seems self-evident as
well. Civilizations that have privileged, gated communities based on income
or other factors within their urban fabric into have and have-not zones are
courting social unrest and longterm instability.
Perhaps it is
suitable to paraphrase Winston Churchill that the 'highest and best' rule for
organizing towns and cities is the 'worst possible system, except for all
the others"!
The 'modern'
alternative seems to be to place all our faith in all-seeing, all-knowing
master planners and zoners to dictate how cities can grow, change and
develop. This is just another form of FOB, Friends of the Boss, because
sophisticated developers and special interest groups can influence these
plans and change them as it suits them through the exercise of power. In the
case of the development industry, their power derives from the
application of money to enlist the best lawyers and consultants. In the case of
community groups, special interest groups and nimby'ites, this power derives
from the application of grass roots lobbying techniques, picketing, protesting,
harassing, heckling, anonymous letter writing, libeling, invocation of
sacred shiboleths, creation of 'new' issues, problems and requests for further
studies and extended process, review and appeal, reference to the
courts, name calling, net-based scare mongering and employment of activist
lawyers, professional protestors and 'instant' experts. All of this is done
in the name of democracy but it really is an abuse of processor 'democratic
abuse', if you will. They are at least as effective as the development
lobby. Both are the wrong method to produce excellence in urban design.
The greatest
world cities are 'walk-about' cities built for pedestrians with abundant mixing
together of uses and reasonably high densities. These cities have grown
'organically' as layers of complexity are added over the decades and centuries
as hundreds and thousands of individual decisions are made based
(sometimes unconsciously, guided by Adam Smith's invisible hand) on the
application of smart urban design principles, the existence of an underlying
consensus as to what constitutes good design and the use of the 'highest and
best use' philosophy.
The highest and
best use principle will produce a city that yields the greatest good for the
greatest number of people. What are our cities but survival machines that
allow people to exchange goods, services and ideas that best utilize the
individual skills of their citizens to greatest effect? It makes best use of sc arce
resources including land and infrastructure and if we put our trust in it subject
only to fire, building and safety codes, we will produce better towns and
cites that are more interesting places to live, provide more options and
varying lifestyles at a higher level of efficiency and defeat the forces that
would base city planning on either arbitrary and stultifying decisions of
'master planners' and zoners or the rule of the mob, whether it is financed or
championed by the development industry or nimby'ites.
Nimbys are Wrong to Oppose Mixed Use and Higher Densities
Nimbys fear growth
and sprawl; they also oppose densification. Highest and best use rules imply an
increase in city density over time as urbanization increases and
population grows. Rent curves, measured cross-sectionally at a point in time,
tend to peak in the city centre and fall towards the urban/rural
boundary, all else being equal. As the city expands outward over time, overall
demand for all types of land uses and demands on the public room
increase. Rent curves tend to secularily increase as demand for land, apartments,
commercial and institutional space increases.
To meet such
demand, land owners will be inclined to increase the density of built form. If
they own a home, for example, they might add a granny flat in the rear
yard or an above-the-garage apartment or an in-home apartment in the basement
or attic. In the aggregate, total rents achieved will be greater. They
might even add an in-home office, convert to a duplex or triplex or rooming
house or add a 'corner store' type operation with apartments
above. Rents for existing housing stock and commercial property will be
secularily increased due to a combination of greater demand and densification.
Creeping commercialization of residential areas, the addition of commercial
uses to homes and more mixing together of various uses will, prima
facie, also contribute to rising rents.
As long as
public order and safety are maintained, home owners should not fear
densification or mixed use coming to their neighborhood. Land rents will go up and
property values will go up not down. If a new office tower is constructed
nearby, more would-be potential homeowners or renters have just moved
into the community. Demand for housing goes up, so do prices.
Densification
and increased mixing together of different land uses make for more interesting
communities; that better support public transportation and can be safer
too. It makes no sense to construct single purpose suburbs of single family
homes where no employment uses are permitted. Every weekday morning,
homeowners depart for work leaving behind deserted, expensive suburban homes
that easily fall prey to break and enter specialists. How
much more sensible to allow people to work from their homes, start businesses
there and provide increased daytime and weekday security. It also
lowers traffic congestion.
Communities that
are wistful that the corner store, neighborhood pub, local hardware store and
such have given way to the megamall, the big box store and the
burger franchise need to arrive at a consensus that pedestrain friendly, live
close-to-work, vibrant neighborhoods require that they support mixed
use and densification. They need to find a way to increase local demand to the
point where these types of uses become feasible again.
Negative Property Taxes- a Possible Response to Nimby'itis
Nimby behaviour
is not limited to exclusive residential areas and gated communities. It is
surprising, perhaps, that nimby behaviour can manifest itself shortly after a
neighborhood begins to ameliorate; people who see their lives improving in
urban areas that are experiencing a renaissance can demonstrate the
same impulses- to seek to limit the flexibility of land use to prevent the
incursion of 'undesirable' types of built form. One of the greatest
impediments to renewal of derelict urban spaces is the degree of difficulty in
effecting zoning changes and the resistance to change- residents whose lives are
improving want to 'gate' themselves off from change and development.
It has been
suggested by planner, Lily Chi, that one way of addressing the impulse to nimby
behaviour is to give the neighbors an ownership stake in the proposed
'undesirable' use; that is, to address the 'greed' part of the nimby motivation
by giving the community a financial stake in the new development. The
question she raised is how to accomplish this effeciently and fairly.
One way to
effect this would be to create a special assessment zone (SAZs) in which a
negative property tax would be levied on the immediate neighbors. Most
municipalities have experience with the creation of SAZs often to levy
additional property taxes on benefiting owners- land owners who, for
example, benefit from a new piece of municipal infrastructure like a sewer line
or new road. It would be a simple matter to create a SAZ to credit property
taxes for lands which abut or are adjacent to or proximate to a new
development. This could be at no cost to the municipality as the decrease in
property taxes for nearby owners would be offset by a higher assessment on the
'non-conforming' use.
In this way,
value is permanently transfered to the neighbors giving them a financial or
'ownership' stake in the outcome of a rezoning. For example, rezoning to
allow a change of use from single family to, say, a rooming house or corner
store would result in an increase in assessed value together with a special
assessment. The latter would be redistributed to abuting lands. This tax credit
would continue as long as the new uses and new zoning remain in
existence. A $5,000 special assessment on, for example, a proposed rooming
house would save, say, five neighboring properties $1,000 annually on
their property tax bill. Capitalized at 10%, this would result in a $10,000 one
time increase in each neighbor's property value. It is compensation for
the 'intrusive' nature of the proposed use. It is a way to bring market
discipline to the nimby problem.
Defining the
watershed for the imposition of the negative property tax should be based on
some simple formula and probably should be extremely localized. The
amount of the special assessment levied against the proposed development should
be determined as a function of the increase in rents caused by the
proposed change in land use but should be set low enough so that the
development does not become infeasible and yet high enough that it is
meaningful compensation for the neighbors and sufficiently interesting to them
to defuse nimby impulses. Let us leave it to some talented econometrician
to derive a precise formula for this.
It may be, as
argued above, that there will be no negative impacts from the proposed uses.
Indeed, as we have already seen, uses that create higher densities can
increase property values, all else being equal. One way to test for this could
be to do a cross sectional regression analysis using MLS(Multiple
Listing Service) data of house prices to see if we could measure the impacts
of, say, introducing a group home into a micro neighborhood. If we could show
no negative impacts, this in itself could serve to difuse nimby opposition
without the necessity of introducing negative property taxes.
Over-Investment in Real Estate
The highest and
best use rule constrained by building, health and fire safety codes should
allow for the development of interesting, safe, 'organically' grown villages,
towns and cities, which achieve a level of density and a mixing together of
uses that are decided by the market rather than by fiat. A sound
application of the highest and best use rule also requires that potential
projects are put through a rigorous financial review.Too many developers and
architects analyse their projects from a cost point of view only; they are
constantly cutting their costs to meet the budget. This is a one sided
approach- project analysis must take into account benefits as well as costs and
a time dimension too. The most effective means to do this is using an
internal rate of return calculation that can reduce the cost/benefit equation
to a single number.
Thus, there is a
feedback loop between design and costs and revenues so that the design program
can be modified as required.
The objective is
not to get as much development as possible on a given site but the right level
of development and the right mix too.
It is
interesting to note that many successful people do not apply this type of approach
to their own homes; there are plenty of examples in nearly every city of
people over-investing in their residences. They may not be able to sell their
homes for anything close to their costs. Examples such as Bob Campeau's
home in Toronto, Michael Dell's home in Austin and Bill Gates' home in Redmond
come to mind. Indeed, both Dell and Gates have publicly argued
that their (property) tax assessments should be lowered for exactly this
reason. Clearly, this is not an application of the highest and best use rule.
Copyright. Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, Ottawa, Canada. 2000.
(U/nimby/HighestandBestUse)
Appendix C: Lets Keep
Our Elders in Our Communities Longer

There can be no doubt that a continuing and developing crisis in providing affordable housing is proving to be an intractable problem in cities in North America. Mono-cultured suburbs with vast rows of expensive single purpose, single family housing is shutting out not only the poor but young people and ordinary workers, even middle class folks. Towns were once thought of as places where people from different economic classes could mix together; a blend of housing types and styles combined with proximity to stores, offices, markets, entertainment and, perhaps, industry produced places that were walk-about types of villages, towns and cities. A lack of affordable and nearby housing stock will be a brake on the economic development of city-states. Silicon Valley is experiencing just such a phenomenon now.
Neo-urbanist design requires a wholesale change in approach to zoning. Perhaps James Howard Kuntsler (Home From Nowhere and Geography of Nowhere) is right: "Burn all the zoning codes" or maybe we should substitute "Performance Zoning", where form is specified instead of function; minimum densities instead of maximum densities or build-to lines instead of front yard, side yard and rear yard setbacks or standard transition lines, to name a few examples. Performance zones (open zoning) would allow single family homes to be just that or converted to duplexes or triplexes or rooming houses or used partly for commercial uses such as law offices, hairdresser salon or corner store. Granny flats could be added to the rear yard and used as an apartment or, in fact, for commercial purposes instead. Apartments could be added above the garage or in the attic, all without a zoning change and pitched battles with the neighbors.
As renowned Dutch architect, Rem Koolhaas put it: "Architectural Specificity/Programmatic Indeterminancy"
We will examine one possible (partial) solution to the affordable housing crisis- a redsign and updating of the 'granny flat'. This challenge is based, in part, on the lecturer's experience in the 1960s when he lived at 1011 and 1/2 Seabright Avenue, Sanata Cruz, California. 1011 and 1/2 was a slab-on-grade granny flat built in the rear yard of the Big House (address 1011 Seabright, of course). The elderly owner of the Big House rented out the granny flat to students to help her with her on-going living costs. On-street parking or parking in the driveway was sufficient in the relatively benign climate of Northern California. Surrounded by gardens with elaborate flowering shrubbery, it was a pleasant, cheap and convenient location, close enough to the University of California at Santa Cruz for a couple of students to share. A return visit to the area, some thirty years later, finds the little home still occupied, this time by a lovely, young couple with a baby. Interestingly, their last name was identical to the lecturer but no relation!
In Northern California and especially in Santa Cruz, granny flats constructed in the rear yard proved a popular and enduring part of the housing stock. Initially, perhaps, built for granny, they survive to this day providing affordable housing for students, teenagers, nurses, teachers, gardeners, labourers, nannies, young marrieds, short order cooks, store clerks, bus drivers, waiters, secretaries, office workers, ...
Building materials, slab-on-grade construction and other factors may make granny flats less expensive in the California climate but there still may be lessons for northern shelf cities like Ottawa. The student is free to experiment with either in this assignment.
One case study is fully documented here. The students, however, are expected to design their own solution and perform an in-depth quantity survey (cost analysis), fully documented and referenced. The student is also expected to do a cost/benefit analysis; this is part of the way in which architects can justify their designs on something other than costs and budget. An over-reliance or over-emphasis on costs means that architects are constantly being asked to cut their projects. Cost/benefit analysis will give architects the tool they need to justify an increase in cost based on the additional value that the design modification provides.
Keeping the elderly in their existing communities longer, making better use of established infrastructure, increasing block security, helping folks to pay their mortgages on the Big House and addressing the density deficit in North American cities, granny flats should be encouraged. Many cities with their tin pot dictators have banned granny flats outright through their use of the municipal by-laws. Others, more devious and using political cover, create onerous rules such as impossible rear yard and side yard setbacks, huge levies in the form of Development Charges that make the construction so expensive as to be prohibitive, rules that the occupants have to be related to the family in the Big House (discrimination) or that they have to over a certain age (reverse ageism) or that the units can only be temporary while granny is alive (wasteful and dumb).
Municipal politicians act in this manner because they are concerned with the reaction of existing homeowners (who vote in disproportionate numbers) who turn into raging nimby'ites, motivated by greed and fear, when confronted by densification and change. As long as social order is maintained, homeowners have nothing to fear from granny flats and densification. Prima facie, because rents have increased through densification, property values should go up not down as folks add basement units, lofts, duplexes and triplexes, granny flats, apartments above the garage and so forth. It is never said, but perhaps another factor in the minds of existing homeowners, is the thought that granny flats and other forms of densification will bring in an immigrant population or change the racial mix or bring in lower economic classes or an underclass of undesirables.
'Warehousing' elders in managed care facilities can often be a dehumanizing experience; moreover, it is a costly one too. In Ontario, such retirement homes cost between $2,000 and $5,000 per month. They may include some level of care and a meal plan for one or two meals per day. The 'suites', which are typically glorified hotel rooms, do not compare to the Villager design shown here in either area or livablity or convenience or joie de vivre.
Appendix D: Lets Build
More Shared HousingReinventing the Duplex/Triplex

Lets tell the story of how Mayor Merle
Nicholds and her husband David got started in a duplex but how the City of
Kanata charges two DCs for each unit thereby nixing this type of development.
November 19, 1998 Confidential and Proprietary
Innovative Housing- A Demonstration Project
The Problem
Given the
marvelous technical and technological advancement we have witnessed in the
Twentieth Century, it is remarkable that at the end of the century and at the
end of the millenium we still have so many millions, indeed billions, of people
who remain homeless or underserved in terms of safe and affordable housing. The
problem plagues both the developed nations (DNs) and the developing countries
(DCs) although their needs are different and the resources available to solve
these problems are different, although perhaps not so different as one might
presume.
Innovative
housing requires new ideas to ensure that we can build enough homes at an
affordable price that offer: a) protection from the elements and from wildlife,
b) safe services for water and waste water, c) use of locally available
materials, d) safety from fire, earthquake, storm, e) use of environmentally
friendly materials, f) conservation of precious energy resources, g) healthy
environment (inside and outside) for occupants.
One suspects
that affordable housing solutions in the developed nations may hold few
lessons for less developed countries. Yet the reverse may not be true. The
exploding homeless problem in many cities in the DNs may be solved, in part, by
applying lessons learned from the third world where scarce available resources
require more innovative thinking.
The Residence
Program
One form of
housing that may be poised to make a comeback in the next generation is the
duplex. This is an older form of housing that creates two or more housing units
by being able to separate the title to a building in the horizontal plane.
Immigrants to the USA and Canada built and lived in many of the existing
duplexes in our urban areas. It was not unusual to see a commercial enterprise
being conducted on the ground floor with an apartment above where the owner and
family lived. Some were constructed with two front doors facing the street or
with one main level access and a second from the rear- often a fire escape type
of ingress/egress.
During the
physical lifetime of the structure, it was not unusual to see the uses change-
commercial on both floors, residential on both floors, commercial on one with
residential on another.
Duplexes fell
out of favor in the post World War II period because rising incomes allowed
people to live in the garden beautiful suburban single family home. Duplex
designs became dated and did not change with changing styles, fashions and
tastes. Banks forgot how to deal with mortgage financing for anything that was
not a stereotypical s.f. home and the legal profession in most states and
provinces still struggles with the idea of strata title.
The School Of
Architecture, Carleton University
The School of
Architecture offers its students a real estate development course, which
focuses on urban development, design and economics. The students have developed
new designs for the duplex and triplex which reflect modern styles; an economic
analysis shows that it would be possible to own one of these structures for an
after tax cost of just $300 to $400 monthly in the City of Ottawa. Each duplex
provides two, eight hundred square foot (74.3 sq. m.), two bedroom apartments
and offers the opportunity for a smaller third, one or two bedroom apartment in
the basement.
The units are
designed with flexibility of use in mind- they can be used as a rooming house
with seven bedrooms, as a bed and breakfast hostelry, as a single family home,
as a home office or retail trade establishment at grade with living space above
and below, as a duplex and as a triplex. With the right lot design, they can
accommodate a granny flat at the rear and with the correct grade plan, they
can offer a third unit with a walk-out at grade.
The streetscape
is developed to give the look of single family homes. Only a single entrance
faces the street. Second entrances for the upstairs units are at the side.
Shared laneways reduce lot sizes and, hence, the demand on infrastructure that
is so sensitive to frontage lengths. Parking surfaces or structures are at the
rear and so the streetscape is not dominated by cars and garages. Frontyard
setbacks are reduced to make this a walk-about place with wind protection.
The Proposal
As part of the
real estate development course (and, in particular, the part of the course that
deals with innovative housing), a number of these buildings could be
constructed on campus using the seven bedroom model as the basic building
block. The first phase would involve the construction of two buildings. Each
building would have an upper apartment with three bedrooms and a lower
apartment with four bedrooms on a site to be chosen with the University. The
site required would be small- 60 feet by 110 feet (18.3m by 33.5m).
The
demonstration project would create room for 14 additional housing spots on
campus suitable for both undergrad students and graduate students, possibly
with families.
The buildings
would be open to the development and planning communities for their study.
Subsequently, they would be used for student housing at rates comparable to
residence costs and off site accommodation.
Research has
shown that the units can be constructed on commercial terms with financial
investors putting up the financing including both equity and debt. The
University would have no cost associated with the Demonstration Project save as
to the land.
The University
would acquire the buildings after the 20 year financing (both debt and equity)
is retired for a nominal cost of $2. The buildings would be built, rented,
maintained and financed by the private sector.
Other
universities have had residences built by the private sector under similar
formulae.
Student housing
on campus that allows students to enjoy a co-operative lifestyle with
commensurate responsibilities will add a new dimension to the University. At
the Australian National University in Canberra, graduate students and
undergrads (depending on availability) are able to live on campus in
townhouse-style accommodation. The ANU is close to downtown Canberra and yet it
maintains some animation of its own by having more student housing and more
types of student housing on campus. The ANU further strengthens its vitality
with other resources on campus even including its own grocery store.
Possible Site
One site that
might possibly accommodate this project is shown on the attached map of the
campus. The site is a triangular piece proximate to parking lot 6 and
Stormont-Dundas House. It is a disused, small plot close to existing
residences. It backs onto a small ravine with some water in it. The tree cover
in the ravine has suffered significant damage from the ice storm of January
1998, which has not yet been cleaned up. The ravine and water could be a
significant natural resource and feature for that end of campus with some care
and attention.
Research
The
demonstration project will prove out the design efficacy and the economics of
the duplex. Research may show that todays western style or American style
housing, which is found everywhere from Des Moines to Shanghai, makes no
economic sense from either the individuals point of view or societys. Housing
investment may be solely a type of forced savings with low financial returns.
Affordable housing may simply be referring to a type of design that brings
financial returns that are commensurate with other alternative investments.
Downstream
research within the Engineering Department could look at the possibility of
using new materials in construction of subsequent structures (whether on campus
or off). The School of Industrial design could also be looked to with a view to
improving modular design of kitchens and bathrooms.
The volumetric
space inside smaller homes and apartments needs to be better utilized; floor
areas can be double loaded for use as, for example, sleeping areas above and
work spaces below.
Legal issues
surrounding title (freehold, co-operative, condominium or strata) need to be
addressed as well. The acceptability of title to both the homebuyer and
mortgagor is an important feature of market place penetration.
Also, the
demonstration project will be an effective tool to press the case for either
the abolition of Regional and Local Development Charges (RDCs) or, at a
minimum, convince Local Government Authorities to abandon a practice of levying
two RDCs for a duplex building (or three RDCs for a triplex and four if a
granny flat is also involved) of exactly the same size as a single family home.
RDCs may be shown to be a tax and not a cost recovery. In that event, the authority
of LGAs to levy these charges may be revoked by the courts as was recently done
in Ontario in the matter of probate.
RDCs and
multiple RDCs together with the unfavorable property tax treatment of
apartments (property tax rates for apartments are nearly four times greater
than property taxes for single family homes) are a significant part of the
affordable housing cost problem. They are also a major source of
intergenerational inequity, transferring wealth in probably a highly regressive
manner from first time home buyers and renters to sitting owners.
The School of
Architecture needs to look further into developing designs for cost effective
housing in response to market demand for more affordable housing and people who
wish to explore co-operative lifestyles whether it is among extended family
members or persons not related one to the other.
Existing s.f.
homes may make no financial sense. New tract homes are often poorly constructed
and can require major maintenance within three years. It is important to
accurately calculate the true rate of return of the homeowner both before and
after tax to know what is really going on. The real benefits of home ownership
may be realised through: a) giving the citizen a stake in their neighborhood,
city, state and nation, b) forced savings, c) happy tax events such as mortgage
interest deductibility in the USA and imputed (tax free) rents earned in Canada
as the home mortgage is paid down. Of course, these benefits would also be
realised equally as well if the basic housing form provided higher internal
rates of return to the homeowner or investor.
The demand for
solutions that are responsive to an increased desire for co-operative living is
also likely to give rise to the elderly living in the ground floor unit while
family or non related persons live in the other unit(s). Alternately, granny
flats constructed at the rear will allow independent living for the elderly
and will also lead to greater intensification of our urban areas.
It is the
incredibly low densities of US and Canadian cities that is leading to great
inefficiencies in the use of our city infrastructure including roads, water
mains, sewers, public transportation and so on. We are building high cost
cities that are anything but great places to live. Walking to a neighborhood
store, stopping to talk to a neighbor have become lost social graces. Our
cities are dysfunctional because we are creating black holes- monocultured
suburbs that are all but deserted during the day and dangerous and dark
commercial centers where no one lives and no sane person dares to go after
dark. If we did an infrared scan, we might find these black holes in the
suburbs during the day and in the commercial core at night. The proposed units
can be used in a multiple of ways including single family residence, duplex,
triplex, rooming house, bed and breakfast, office, shop. The duplex or triplex
with granny flat may produce net densities comparable to some existing HD (high
density) residential designations.
The idea of
living and working in the same structure is not new; it has been forgotten as
we pursue monocultured, segregated uses in the garden beautiful city that we
have been avidly pursuing, perhaps erroneously, since at least 1900. City
building needs to be rethought and new housing forms need to be reinvented from
past forms that are proven to work and new research.
For more
information, please contact:
Dr. Bruce M.
Firestone
Adjunct Research
Professor
School of Architecture
Carleton
University
Email: bmfirestone@hickling.ca
Appendix E: Co-operative
Housing



Discussion and Presentation: School of Architecture, Carleton
University, Ottawa, Canada. Dr. Bruce M. Firestone. November 27th,
2001.
www.mapleleafdesign.ca
Appendix F: The Kibbutznik Apple Picker

Interviewing a past resident of a Kibbutzim (see
Appendices)
"...the
children of the good were to be brought up and cared for, and those of the bad
distributed secretly among the rest of the community; and the rulers were to
keep an eye on the children as they grew up and promote in turn any who
deserved it, and degrade into the places of the promoted any in their own ranks
who seemed unworthy of their position."
(Plato to Socrates, The
Timaeus pg 1)
For the purpose of having a first hand account of life
inside a Kibbutzim community, I have interviewed an individual who was kind enough
to share their personal story with me.
A Kibbutz, by definition or Kibbutzim is literally, a
gathering or a company. The term is
used in Israel to refer to a collective settlement. By adopting this experience and combining the ideas that I have for
a Technopia, I hope to put another piece of the puzzle in place.
Conducted in July 2001, this conversation confirmed some of my
preconceived notions as to what schedules, management and freedom was like
inside of the volunteer community. As
well, this first hand account surprised me with some of the realities taking
place that I had not expected.
The interview did not begin as such, what
began as idle chat between friends evolved as many conversations do, to a
sincere personal sharing of a momentous and obviously sentimental part in one
persons life. With their permission
and compliance with the request for anonymity I am able to tell their story.
Having recently
completed an extensive post secondary education and working tirelessly to
maintain a business, career and family. The young man, who I will call Michael
for the purpose of the story, sadly discovered himself separated from his
spouse.
Hurt and shaken by
the recent transition, Michael decided the best thing for him to do in order to
come to terms with the sudden change in his life was to take a personal
sabbatical to the north of Israel. Finding himself at the front of a Kibbutz,
Michael entered and donned the attire of a farm-hand volunteer.
Day after day Michael
rose in a room shared only by men before 5:00am. Side by side with the other
volunteers he ventured to the grand room where the table and benches line up
paralleled to one another and were adorned with plates and cups that were soon
to be filled with the morning breakfast rations.
Scheduled for that
weeks work as apple harvesters, Michael and his peers rose from the well-worn
benches and ventured to the compound satisfied, while those on kitchen duty
cleaned away the morning refuse.
The courtyard was
lined with trailer pulling tractors, lined up and numbered according to the
fields and to which working volunteers would occupy the sitting space on the
flat beds. Driving the tractors were the field superintendents, sharing the
trailer with the workers were ladders, large empty bushels and smaller ones
nestled inside them like graduated Russian dolls.
Upon arrival to the
field, Michael and his co-workers would move the large bushels close to their
assigned trees and strap the smaller baskets to their wastes. The large ladders would be propped up against
the high branches of the tree and the harvesting began. After filling the small baskets, the workers
would empty the apples into the large hoppers.
As the hoppers filled they were then raised to the trailers. This daily ritual continued until 12:00
noon, which signaled the end of the working day.
As time went by,
Michael wondered if there was a more efficient way to harvest the trees. He noticed that even though the perimeter of
the tree was relieved of most of its fruit, the inside and higher up bounty was
not possible to reach. Also, leaning
the ladders against the canopy was doing harm to the trees foliage and the
fruit hidden inside of the tree would eventually ripen, fall and rot resulting
in lost potential income and an inefficient harvesting system.
To improve on the
efficiency of their harvesting system Michael devised what he thought was to be
a welcome addition to the tools of the volunteers.
Taking some simple
supplies such as a broom handle, a piece of metal strapping, a piece of cloth
and a piece of string, Michael developed a tool intended to maximize harvesting
efficiency.
More on this story includes: a) the rejection of the apple picker,
b) the everyone is equal but some are more equal than others Kibbutz
hierarchy, c) the reposting of Kibbutz assignments, d) the expulsion of
Michael, e) the redemption and adoption of the Apple Picker.
Copyright. Dr. Bruce M. Firestone, Ottawa,
Canada. November 27th, 2001.
www.dramatispersonae.org
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