Monthly Archives: December 2011

No Santa Claus, Please

 

A few years there was a semi-popular (provided you were paying close attention to municipal issues) campaign called “one cent”. It advocated redirecting 1 cent of the GST to “the cities”.

My problem with the old “1 cent” campaign, and probably its main attraction to municipal politicians, was that the money was raised by one level of govt (the feds) and spent by another (the city). What a delight: free money.

And a convoluted responsibility trail that meant the mayors would be unaccountable. If you don’t like the tax, or feel taxes are too high (or conversely, that you do like the tax, and maybe want it higher) who do you mark your ballot for? Vote for Harper because you want more municipal spending? Or vote out your mayor because of a Federal tax?

The best taxes are those raised visibly, where the taxpayer can see who is dinging him for how much, and relate it to the value — or lack of value — being received.This promotes citizen oversight and control over spending. 

I did notice one “strange” element in the old 1 cent campaign. During it, the feds lowered the GST. Damn, said certain mayors, they should have given it to us. But, I did not notice any of them saying “Hey Province, move into that space, raise the PST a percent and give that to us; the taxpayers will still be getting off lightly…” No, there seemed to be a subcurrent in the whole campaign that it was designed to score political points and if it raised money, that was a lucky bonus.

In the last few months I have seen fresh mutterings of “sustainable funding” (read: new tax) for the cities. This time it’s advocating an additional 1% on the HST.

If new proposal consisted of an additional % on the HST, only to be levied on a metropolitan area upon request, this might fly. (Lots of US cities have municipal or county sales taxes, sometimes dedicated to a single fund, for eg for transit). The HST might be x% in Ontario but x+1 in the GTA or Ottawa.

 It may look innocuous, a 1 cent or 1 per cent tax. But a single percent increase on the HST is an 8%  increase in the tax. This will make it a much harder sell. And Canadians are presently inundated with stories about bank and investment fees, how a simple 2% management fee can wreck your investment, given enough time. The proposed tax will be given a lot of scrutiny by a less credulous populace.

IMO, a main problem for cities is that they have a huge disconnect be what they spend and what they charge for it. How many new roads would we build if we had full life cycle costing? How many more low density areas would we have if we knew their long term cost/revenue ratio instead of the short-term Ponzi scheme we may have now? How many fewer dilapidated bridges would we have if users paid for each use, for their maintenance, repair, and paid down their mortgage?

Municipalities are in trouble because they give away too much stuff. It’s easy being a fairy godparent; much less fun balancing the books.

I am reminded here of condo associations, which are like little municipalities. For the first thirty years of condos in Ontario things went along quite blissfully. It took a number of condos in financial trouble, faced with big bills and inadequate reserve funds, to bring the problem to the fore. The eventual result were rules requiring condos to have reserve funds that were based on proper estimates of future repair costs.

Now new condos should never get deeply under water. But older condos are still periodically faced with unexpected bills for parking garage repairs, or rebricking the exterior. Like municipalities, they fix their cash problem by raising taxes, ie imposing a sudden, one-time levy on unit owners, payable now, please and thanks. What, you don’t have $30,000 kickin’ around?

Of course, during the time the condo wasn’t stuffing money into its reserve fund for major repairs or elevator replacement, the then-owners of the units were enjoying irresponsibly low condo fees. Rather like city councillors who blithely spend spend spend on nice things today without considering the repair and replacement costs*. Those will belong to some other mayor and council, long down the line, when the current ones are remembered only as names on bronze plaques affixed to glorious monuments.

I wonder what the city budget and tax structure would look like if there had to be a fully detailed reserve fund to sock away money to pay for each road repaving, that overpass rebuilding, that building refurbishment? Would municipalities spend differently today?

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In retrospect this Star article is rather hilarious: http://www.thestar.com/article/274687

* do you sense another post coming soon? could this really be foreshadowing??

Recirculating books

I use the Ottawa Public Library a lot.

First, because I am frugal. It’s so cheap to use the Library … it’s free.

Second, because I got over my need to hold onto books, to have walls of books that “prove ” that I am literate or educated. Four (or was it six) years of University English Lit books moved out the second time I moved house.

And because it is risky to buy a book, what if you don’t like it, or it has no “keeping” value. Money Lost. At the Library, it’s  risk free.

I seldom go into the stacks anymore. I reserve books online, as I come across titles or reviews or guest speakers or see a mention in the newspaper. The National Post is so full of book excerpts I can get a good idea if I like the subject, then shift on-line and reserve it. Easy peasy.

And then the ever so thoughtful public library emails me to tell me my book is ready, saved for me on a special shelf, with my name on it, ready to pick up. So quick. Then even email me to remind me if I should return it.

They keep the current best sellers on a special shelf near the front door, so I don’t have to search. They keep a shelf of new buys too. AND they keep a shelf of topical books too. Want a Christmas book? They’re all on a shelf, right at the front door, collected together for you to choose from. No need to master the Dewey decimal system or alphabetical order. And most recently, they stick out a trolley of “recently returned” books so you can see what other people are reading.

The Library promotes patience, though, if you reserve a book and find you are 937th for one copy. I notice though that when the list grows long, more copies of the book appear. For really popular books, they might have 50 copies. This made me wonder what happens next year when that popular author comes out with a new book. Fifty new copies? And no one to read last years? So my suggestion to the OPL is to create another bookshelf near the front door, call it Best Sellers of Last Year and put out those surplus copies. If they were worth reading last year, they should be this year too. And jazz it up from time to time, by putting out the best sellers of 1959, or 1989.

Now I must confess to getting fussier in my old age. I always reserve the large print edition, if it is available. Not only are the wait times usually much shorter than for the regular print, but they are wonderfully easy on the ageing eyes.

A family member is coming home this Christmas with a Kindle, so I look forward to playing with that. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll be making fewer trips to the Library and getting my books sent to me over the internet.

You can teach old dogs new tricks.

Building a better underpass

I snapped this pic while in Toronto a few months ago.

It illustrates several bits of better transportation engineering than we are likely to find in Ottawa.

First, notice the dark line down the centre of the lane. It is a painted-out white line that used to divide the road into four lanes, two in each direction. These would have been narrow lanes, especially narrow-feeling at the underpass structure itself. There was no accomodation for cyclists.

The road has been dieted, and changed to one wider lane in each direction. Sailing through the underpass in a car was easy and comfy.

On each curbside there appears to be a cycling lane. Safe and convenient, especially when peddling uphill.

Ottawa engineers traditionally over-estimate the height of pedestrians, giving them 16′ clearance overhead. Of course this means they have walk further downhill and then uphill than strictly necessary to go under the structure, but hey, there won’t be many pedestrians with Ottawa designs anyway.

But in the Toronto design, the pedestrian sidewalk has a minimal dip as it approaches the structure. The pedestrian remains several feet higher than the cars, free of spray, slush, and slipstream-borne debris. No doubt it also feels more comfortable to walk on this sidewalk.

As for the artwork on the sides, it’s better than graffiti. It may even make some people happy.

So what’s to complain about? Well, it’s in Toronto, not Ottawa.

Sigh.

Maybe we can do better when we build those  structures required for the OLRT.

Westboro tizzy (iv) – of benefits, incentives, and selling out

I was at Development Committee some time back when they voted on the Our Lady of the Condos development on Richmond Road. Then-councillor Leadman could count heads as well as anyone, and no doubt knew the vote was going against her. The audience was chock full of angry neighbours/voters.

At the last minute, she changed tactics from opposing the project to one of “if you’re going to approve it, at least get some community benefits”. The charge in the air was electric. The audience was aghast. Betrayal! Selling out! 

No matter the logic of the move, the optics were terrible, my sinking stomach knew Leadman had just blown her re-election chances.

I see similar emotions at work in Westboro today surrounding the Roosevelt Avenue intensification by Uniform Developments. Hobbs can see as well as anyone that Committee would most likely (guaranteed??) to approve the change from 200 mid-rise to 200 high-rise condos. And if they didn’t, the appeal to OMB would succeed, simply because intensification is in accord with provincial and city policies and plans. And because planning practice today favours “tall and thin” over “short and squat”  ( I know, I know, such pejorative terms, is there a better alternative for short and squat?).

So Hobbs opted to get some offsetting benefits while she could, at the pre-approval stage (you can’t negotiate them afterwards in the current environment, but down below I will suggest how one could…). She got $200,000 from the developer for streetscaping and traffic calming. She got the cash-in-lieu of parkland money committed within a block of the building. (see previous post) And she got a sizeable chunk of the condo private property opened up to public use as parkspace, including one or two ponds. The developer pic, of course, make this landscaping look very attractive.

The opposition to these benefits is predictable. “She didn’t ask ME”; those are the “wrong things to spend money on”; the benefits ”will make things worse” for cyclists, or pedestrians, or residents, or children, or all of the above. “They’re just benefits for the developer”; “the developer isn’t paying enough”. And so on. Stronger still are the insinuations that the councillor betrayed the residents, she sold out, she catered to her financial supporters (she had a lot of campaign contributions from the real estate industry).

Would residents have preferred she voted straight against the project, lost the vote, and then had no parkette, no benefits? (Rhetorical question, no reply required).

And the situation is going to get worse, much more acrimonious, when Sec 37 is implemented in Ottawa. That procedure formalizes the harvesting of “benefits” from upzoning.

I have written here before why I think this course of action is bad. Each benefit must be negotiated, there cannot be a formula applied to similar projects, as that would make the benefits a “tax”, so it adds uncertainty to every development proposal. And uncertainty means higher costs. The Sec 37 benefits are a levy imposed solely on new condo buyers.

Picture the lucky couple starting out, struggling to get on the housing ladder, who now have to pay thousands of extra dollars (if they can still qualify for the higher mortgage) so established residents sitting on windfall-profits on existing houses worth three to five times the condo values, can enjoy some freebies. Talk about the 1%…

Residents who suspect nefarious actions by a Councilor over a $200,000 benefit … what are they do think when they realize the city is salivating over a $1,000,000+ payout from a developer? This is big money, and local politicians are always eager for OPM (Other People’s Money) to spread in their ward. So did the City approve that rezoning on its objective planning merits or did it just want the big bucks? Was my councillor really respecting my interests or did (s)he just want the moola?

The picture ain’t much brighter for the developer, who faces demands for ever more overhead spending. I suspect they will find it akin to extortion. Currently we expect Danegeld from big developers, but soon it will be expected from single infill builders. And I fully expect residents will soon want money to grease approvals that fit within the existing zoning too.

The current process, whereby an alert councilor might “cajole” some money out of a developer (which is really a tax on new buyers) is capricious and subject to bad optics.

It’s proposed replacement, Sec 37, is equally subject to charges of the City being in a conflict of interest as it financially benefits from changing its own zoning laws. At least election contributions were voluntary …

I think there is a better alternative. . A project of any size, whether a single, a duplex, a small townhouse group, or a high rise condo, should all be subject to the same rules. The City collects development charges to cover the costs to the city of new development. If they aren’t enough, raise them.

For the local neighbourhood benefit, consider  the long term tax revenue stream of a new infill project. A 100 unit condo will generate at least $3000 of taxes per unit, or $300,000 for the whole building. Larger buildings will generate more tax revenue, smaller projects less. The city could simply adopt a policy that it will keep 98 years of the next century’s tax stream for itself. It would commit to spending the first two years of the tax revenue (or its equivalent, if it is not permissible to earmark tax revenue) on local improvements.

So, that 100 unit condo would prompt the city to provide $300,000 (per year, times two years) in local funds for playground improvements, streetscaping, bulb outs, benches, underground wiring, or whatever. Payable as soon as the building generates tax revenue. A single infill house would prompt local spending of $5000 x 2 years = $10,000. In today’s political model, that spending would be negotiated among the developer, the councillor, the community associations, and city staff.

Local residents “suffer” from the city’s intensification policy; in this scheme there would be some local offsetting benefits that residents could see and enjoy, regardless of their councillors negotiating ability or interest, and free of another tax on new home buyers.  Free of charges of corruption, selling out, and other moral hazards. Spending public tax dollars on public works.

A small policy change like this could go a long way towards restoring faith in the planning process. It still retains a bias towards development over no development, but it is at least predictable and transparent.

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For those whose eyes are tired of reading here, I will be yakking on and on, on CBC Morning on Monday after the 7.30am local news. Topic: short and squat vs tall and thin; Does height matter?

Westboro tizzy (iii)

As part of the Uniform Developments condo proposal for Roosevelt Avenue, the City/Councillor negotiated some “community benefits”. This consists of $200,000 worth of traffic calming and streetscaping to be paid for by Uniform.

Here is an overview of the changes to Roosevelt (top street in pic) and Winston (lower street in pic) (transitway trench is running up the right side of the pic):

Double click on the picture to enlarge it.

The south end of Roosevelt Avenue, to the left in the above pic, where it meets Richmond Road, gets redesigned to be more pedestrian friendly. Midway along the block are some traffic calming chicanes, or bulbouts that are slightly offset, forcing vehicles to wiggle a bit as they travel the street. These slow traffic speeds and enhance the pedestrian experience.

The north end of the street, to the right in the above pic, is more of a mixed blessing. Now, it just sorts of peters out, turning from paved street onto potholed dirt service lane — as shown in the google image below – between the Fendor plant and the transitway cut. I presume this is part of the public right of way that has, over time, been appropriated for Fendor’s exclusive use, and is not part of the condo property. The Fendor plant is the large trapezoid shaped building in the centre of the Google image, with minor industrial buildings extending to the right beyond the parking lot that would otherwise be the north end of Winston Street. Note that the same linear park alignment east and west is landscaped with trees and a grassy swale, only the Fendor space remains of the former industrial lands that used to abut the CPR tracks that is now the transitway:

The proposed revisions to Roosevelt avenue at its north end are to add a turning circle to the dead end. The main entrance to the new condo tower is shown at the very corner of their property, meeting the street right at the edge of the landscaped linear corridor along the transitway cut. In the drawing below, this ped entrance to the building is the thin rectangle boardwalk extending right from the turning circle and coloured gray.

It is definitely an improvement to have the current Fendor parking and service lane landscaped along the cut, but I do question the intrusion of a traffic turning circle into the linear corridor. It’s sole function is to facilitate car drop offs to the front door of the new condo. (Residents coming via car use the ramp that runs off to the right just before the circle).

I suspect that this turning circle could be resdesigned to be something much less intrusive into the linear parkland. A T-shaped end to facilitate 3-point turns might take up much less space. Is it only me that sees several attempts at traffic calming being contradicted by the provision of traffic circle on what would otherwise be green parkland?

And why, for that matter, is the public park corridor being turned into what is essentially a private drop off zone for the condo — shouldn’t the developer, Uniform, be providing that necessary front entrance drop off zone on his own lands, you know, a front driveway? (he does this for the other tower, as shown in drawings below) It seems from a casual amateur inspection of the drawing above that a private circular driveway could have started right at the south edge of the property (rearranging the down ramp a little bit to improve the angle), cut in towards the building, and then back out to the dead end of Roosevelt, with only the tiniest bit of intrusion onto the parkland.

The other N-S street accessing the property is Winston. It current dead-ends just short of the Fendor plant. To the south, it dead ends at Richmond, as shown here:

It’s one of those curious street arrangements from prior traffic calming. At one time, Winston met Richmond at a T-intersection. The Richmond sidewalk has been extended across the now dead-ended street. Note only one sidewalk, on the west (right) side of Winston. From what I can make out from the handout drawing (at the top of this post) the space between these buildings will be landscaped.

The north end of Winston, where it dead ends at Fendor, but which will someday extend into the condo site, is another matter:

Once again, the street (public? or private?) extends into the parkland greenspace to facilitate the front entrance to the second condo tower. The far stub end of the Winston extension seems to be for parking cars. This time the turning circle is on the condo property, and the street itself is quite narrow. There appear to be decorative bands of brick crossing the street, which will enhance the pedestrian experience, and the new neighborhood link to the bike path along the corridor.

I don’t know if the $200,000 being collected from Uniform for streetscaping includes this northward extension of Winston  Street, which appears to be on private land now and which may stay private land. The streetscaping at the north end of Winston is of great benefit to the condo builder and should be built as part of his normal marketing efforts.

The street running off to the right in the pic is Wilmot Avenue, which will get traffic going to and from the condo to Churchill Avenue off to the east (right). It apparently does not get any streetscaping improvements. Have they been naughty?

Overall, the negotiated streetscaping with the developer does deliver some community benefits directly to the affected neighbours. It also seems to have significantly benefited the developer with the extension of car traffic onto what should be public parkland.

Westboro tizzy (ii)

Well, that Westboro post of a few days ago certainly got the juices going of a number of readers who took time to construct clever and insightful responses. The “comments”  that follow that post are a goldmine of intelligent views. Do read them if you haven’t yet.

One wise reader send me the following link http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/inpr/su/sucopl/upload/The-Carlings-at-Arbutus-Walk-Vancouver-B-C.pdf which features a “case study” of a low-rise high-density infill, with the suggestion that the developer at Roosevelt should have tried harder to build within the zoning and height limit.

I read the CMHC review of Arbutus Walk, and will add it to my bucket list of urban neighborhoods to visit someday. I also went and google street-viewed the built-out site. I am somewhat cautious of PR-type photos that illustrate such reviews. I recall the glam-shots of the first LeBreton Flats in the 80′s; and I suspect there will be some droolable planner’s porn shots of the current Claridge build-out on LeBreton which will be very impressive (at least to readers not here in Ottawa).

And those frequent mentions in the CMHC document about “lengthy” consultation process, confidence building, legal challenges, etc translates into more expensive product unaffordable to more of the population. Nice comes with a price.

As I may have mentioned in the first post, it is highly unlikely anyone would build a large-ish infill project and be able to meet all the Ottawa rules regarding height, setbacks, guidelines in the infill documents, etc. You don’t have to be a planner to assemble a group of these documents and realize they are full of mushy and conflicting requirements. To meet one rule or guideline you have to violate another. It’s the flip side of the argument that says the “planning rationale” documents that accompany each project application are so flexible you can rationalize any breaking of the rules. You can’t meet them all, either.

For example, most zoning rules require side yard setbacks, even on main streets. These were popular in the zoning rules and neighborhood plans written years ago. Yet in practice, the City planners don’t want side yards anymore, they are usually seen as dead, wasted space. So they will tell the developer to build to the lot line. It is the then the developer that has to ask for a “minor adjustment”, which gets the neighbours riled up. Virtually every community association or opponent to a Committee of Adjustment application I have seen cites the number of adjustments as evidence of evil incarnate. When a real problem lies in the conflict between what was written (then) and what is wanted (now).

There are so many rules, such a huge volume of zoning crap, that it simply cannot be keep updated, especially if for every change the neighbours want input. I have suggested previously that we need to radically downsize the zoning rules from volumes of binders to a simple pocketbook size. This would also dramatically increase the number and size of permitted buildings.  Don’t hold your breath.

And, to put a fine point on it, I don’t want a city where there are a set of iron-clad immutable rules that are almost impossible to change. Because every set of rules brings forth unintended consequences. Every action to promote one feature gestates another that blights. Remember how zero tolerance for drugs in school resulted in kids being expelled for having an Aspirin or Midol?

We have elected Councillors who make the final decisions based on professional advice from staff. I do believe they largely know what they are doing. They want densification, intensification, and staff is delivering that, manoeuvering somehow through sets of rules that are often the opposite of the larger goal, or designed to frustrate that, because they were laid out to appease NIMBY and BANANA sentiments at the neighborhood level.

Yes, we have institutionalized a Janus planning policy with a “no change” face for the neighbourhood and a “densification” face for the planning dept and developers.

And the actions and sentiments at the public participation and community advocacy level aren’t all pure either. I see too much “party politics” and (mis-)use of local planing exercises to gain leverage in the approvals process rather than any belief in the correctness of the outcomes. Can I count how many times I hear activists say something along the lines of “I don’t expect you to follow the height/volume/setback rules we just want to encourage good development/leverage (extort?) community benefits.” There probably are some boy-scouts in the neighborhood studies process who believe in the expressed outcome; for the rest, it’s just another step in an ongoing dance. The ultimate goal is to be spend other people’s money getting what we want.

So if Uniform or whomever wanted to design a zoning-conforming build-out of the site on Roosevelt, I wonder if it could actually be done? A great exercise, I would think, for a professional planner or planning student to do on Sketchup. If anyone out there produces one, I’ll post it, anonymously if required. I’d love to see what could be done on that site to fit the zoning and achieve the same amount of sellable space.

I’m also willing to bet it wouldn’t satisfy the neighbours one iota.

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I did find myself wondering if I could find out how much development (eg in square feet) was put on the Beaver Barracks site in downtown Ottawa, and how that might compare to the Roosevelt site. Alas, this would require a lot of number crunching as the lot sizes are different, and someone quite conversant with the building rules (volume of build-out permitted, height, parking, etc). Even if they were comparable densities, would the neighbours have been any happier? To answer that, re-read the last line in the post above.