Densification: how do we do it?
Le Devoir’s Jeanne Corriveau looks at ideas for creating urban densification in a way that makes people actually want to live in town. It’s a summary of an online panel held last week, and she does her best, but the ideas are on the feeble side despite coming from respected experts.
Yes, we need to preserve Mount Royal so downtown dwellers have access to green space, OK, but that’s nothing new. McGill’s expert says “We can have multiple urban forms. You can have a big tower surrounded by lots of parking lots. You can have a series of three- or four-storey buildings with small parks, or townhouses or Plateau-type duplexes.” He also suggests adding a floor to all the existing buildings, while another expert proposes “new living environments, which include public transit, green spaces, shops, a social mix.”
None of this addresses adding density in the older part of town. There’s a recent piece on BBC about tiny houses, to which someone on Facebook responded that we should start by reclaiming all the empty houses that are unoccupied. I’ve written about this before as it applies in Montreal, and there it is: densify by passing laws making it financially cumbersome to hold residential space unoccupied, unless there’s a renovation permit (with a time limit) in effect. But it doesn’t sound like those experts are even aware of this problem.
Edited to add: Jacques Nacouzi on Twitter shows some Google aerial shots of extensive parking lots around town that could be built up densificationally.
Em 16:26 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
I’ve always thought it’s a shame that there appears to have been amost no innovation in recent years to create dense living environments that still give people the sense of privacy they crave.
Habitat 67 was a good example: a dense environment that still gave every owner a good amount of private space (each unit has a big balcony/garden, and none are directly attached or facing their neighbour’s). I understand the criticisms of the project (it became very expensive, and some elements are impractical for maintenance/updates), but I’m sure those concerns could have been solved in the last 55 years if anyone had any vision.
I’m also curious that this article seems to suggest building higher towers as an alternative to urban sprawl. We need to densify the suburbs/exurbs far more than downtown. That means finding something in between sprawling single family home developments and big towers. I’m a big fan of townhouses/plexes, which are pretty dense and still offer that private home feeling and a bit of garden. But no developer wants to build them for less than a million dollars each these days.
DeWolf 16:51 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Montreal is already miles ahead of other North American cities in allowing for gentle density. There is a lot of talk of the “missing middle” in urban planning circles, and it’s a big problem in Toronto and Vancouver where giant condo towers are the default mode of development. Montreal is pretty much all missing middle, thanks to its plexes, and for every condo tower going up downtown there are dozens of modern triplexes and small three-storey apartment/condo buildings that have been built or are being built around the city.
Adding floors to existing buildings is an excellent way of adding density without being too disruptive. Over the past several weeks, I’ve noticed several single-storey buildings that have recently had extra storeys built on top: the old bank at Jean-Talon/Clark, a row of shops on St-Hubert near de Castelnau, and the Intermarché on Mont-Royal near Papineau. The city should have programs that support homeowners who want to add an extra storey to their duplex or shoebox house – especially if that extra floor will be used to create a new apartment that can be rented out. Montreal should also legalize laneway houses. Many neighbourhoods like Rosemont and Hochelaga have surprisingly deep lots that could easily accommodate an extra row of houses along the alleyways.
It also makes no sense that there are many metro stations surrounded by detached single-family houses. Sauvé, Jolicoeur and Honoré-Beaugrand spring to mind. I’m not sure what the zoning is like in these areas, but it seems clear that property owners should be encouraged to replace bungalows with triplexes.
Then there’s all the space used up by parking. There are hundreds of strip malls and shopping centres in the inner suburbs that could be easily redeveloped into apartment buildings. It’s already happening (eg the Wilderton Centre redevelopment in CDN) but the trend needs to be sped up with proactive rezoning by the city. The whole stretch of Jean-Talon from Langelier to the Galéries d’Anjou could be home to tens of thousands of people if the parking lots were redeveloped.
Kevin 17:19 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
I have no problem with towers IF they include amenities for the residents. Courtyards. BBQs and park benches. Splash pads. Penthouse atriums.
And, of course, family-sized units.
Essentially, make sure the building can act like a community centre as well as a home.
ant6n 17:27 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
Attempting to fight urban sprawl with skyscrapers strikes me as .. uh, pretty stupid. People want walkable neighborhoods. Some people want apartments, others want something resembling their own uses with back yards — this is what the Plateau gives you, at pretty high density. Adding floors to that mix doesn’t help in any way. Getting more residential floor area is not useful if people don’t want to live there.
…What Montreal really needs more of is polycentricity, not monocentricity. You get a bunch of pockets of relative high density sprinkled throughout the metro area, where there’s more commercial acticity, then a ring of higher density apartment type buildings, then falling off into medium (but still not low) density town houses (which already exist in so many places in the city). Basically retrofit a couple high density areas throughout the city. This can work especially well if it’s built together with high capacity, fast transit system – wherever stations are, density can easily form. When places are connected quickly, policentricity can emerge.
This, btw, is where the REM was a wasted opportunity. The REM’s stations are built on highways, where pockets of density won’t grow. An approach focusing more on turning the city’s underutilized freight railways into transit would’ve probably worked much better – since there are often big former industrial spaces and few cars.
Joey 18:13 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
@DeWolf “The city should have programs that support homeowners who want to add an extra storey to their duplex or shoebox house – especially if that extra floor will be used to create a new apartment that can be rented out.”
Adding an extra storey should be supported *only* if it creates a new dwelling – not to let the wealthy build rooftop mezzanines for themselves.
Kate 21:06 on 2022-01-31 Permalink
I was thinking about those mezzanines, Joey. I’ve seen a few go up on older buildings in town but they always look like extra room for the building’s owner rather than a new distinct dwelling. They seem most likely to appear when someone’s actually removed a dwelling by turning a duplex into a single house.
Apropos the bit about “new living environments, which include public transit, green spaces, shops, a social mix” – do we even know how to do that any more? How does Wellington Street in Griffintown compare to Mont-Royal between the Main and Papineau, or Masson in Vieux-Rosemont, or indeed Wellington itself in Verdun?
DeWolf 10:19 on 2022-02-01 Permalink
Griffintown is a mess but the city is making big strides to improve it. All the streets are being redone, there are several new parks and plazas planned, and it actually has decent diversity in terms of housing stock. There are several co-ops and student residences in addition to all the market rate housing. There is a mix of commercial and residential all throughout the area. In 10 years it will actually be a pretty interesting and diverse neighbourhood.
The Faubourg Québec just east of Old Montreal is more in line with what you’re talking about. It’s horrible. But it also referents another era of urban planning. Most new areas being planned today have a better mix of uses and housing types.
I would point to Prével’s Esplanade Cartier development as an entirely new neighbourhood that has the potential to be very diverse and eclectic. Its 21e Arrondissement development just west of Old Montreal is pretty nice, with a public plaza ringed by shops and cafés, and Cartier is even larger in scale with more of a social component (eg a new home for the YWCA).
Joey 11:48 on 2022-02-01 Permalink
@DeWolf the Esplanade Cartier project looks interesting – clearly the promoter is interested in neighbourhood-level development. Unfortunately it seems all the units are tiny – can’t imagine you’d have anything other than single people and transient couples living there (unless I’m missing some aspect of the project).