Urban Icons (nimby targets)

Like many such efforts, they are based on two primal impulses—greed and fear. To a large extent, we are seeing the results of these emotions in the built form of our cities—large expanses of low density structures of similar uses (houses) on curvilinear streets that lack charm and activity—mono cultured suburbs, if you will.

Local politicians, not unlike politicians at all levels, do at least one thing superbly—they 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 can’t 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.

“I’ve 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 isn’t.

It didn’t 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)

Isn’t 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 web’s 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, it’s 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 Stephenson’s 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 world’s 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 Warner’s 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 builder’s 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 builder’s 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- Mobutu’s goat and Bongama’s 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 communities—who 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. “Mobutu’s goat, Fred, is eating my vegetable patch and it should be staked,” says Bongama. “He should fence his garden—my 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 (Mobutu’s goat shall be free to wander—but she shall pay half the cost of fencing in Bongama’s 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.

It’s worse than this though. Municipalities today rely on 1-800 snitch lines to spot bylaw infractions—neighbors 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 neighborhood—they detract from property values.)

I never did find out who ratted us out but I didn’t take down the clothesline until our last baby was out of diapers—my 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: Let’s Keep Our Elders in Our Communities Longer

D: Let’s Build More Shared Housing—Reinventing 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 won’t 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 Queen’s 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 Queen’s 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 Ontario’s 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. Ontario’s 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: Let’s 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: Let’s Build More Shared Housing—Reinventing the Duplex/Triplex

Let’s 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 today’s western style or ‘American style’ housing, which is found everywhere from Des Moines to Shanghai, makes no economic sense from either the individual’s point of view or society’s. 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 27^th, 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 person’s 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 week’s 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 27^th, 2001.

www.dramatispersonae.org