Urban density: is the plex the solution?
Duplexes and triplexes are a signature of Montreal, even though they were derided for some decades, as explained in Simon Chabot’s piece this weekend in La Presse. But eventually we realized that row plexes are a good solution to livable urban density.
DeWolf 11:20 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
Although there are plexes pretty much everywhere in greater Montreal, there are still too many areas zoned exclusively for detached single-family houses. (La Presse has another story today about St-Bruno’s downzoning – not only have they banned buildings taller than two storeys, they have banned most multi-family housing.) Quebec should take a page from Minneapolis and explicitly prohibit municipalities from preventing multi family construction. There shouldn’t be any reason why somebody who owns a single-family house shouldn’t be able to replace it with a duplex or triplex.
Kate 12:09 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
This story, I think, about St-Bruno.
Michael 13:43 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
@DeWolf, correct. We need to be able to squeeze more livable spaces on these 4-5k square foot lots in the west island. Sometimes just 1 or 2 people occupying 5000 square feet of land.
But these nimbys hate anything that makes their neighbourhood look different than before.
Meanwhile as the population continues to grow, there will be more demand for housing and rent prices keep going up.
We will end up like Paris, where we keep the old architecture and rent prices are unaffordable.
Kate 13:50 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
People are incredibly tuned to the effect of new buildings nearby on their property values. Look how some NDG dwellers fought to exclude new houses from a block of Notre‑Dame‑de‑Grâce where a disused church stands, or the resistance to putting up slightly more dense housing on big lots in Montreal West.
Uatu 14:20 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
I don’t get it. It’s not like multi family dwellings will ruin the neighborhood. St. Lambert, Brossard, Greenfield park have had duplexes etc. for years. Even older towns like La Prairie have what look like prewar built duplexes. Bruno could increase it’s tax base if they wanted. Something tells me tho that if they were paid off enough some rich dude could build a multi story underground mansion like they’re doing in London. Where there’s cash there’s always a way…
Phil M 14:29 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
Living in a duplex or triplex in St. Bruno would only give you the downsides of both. Why else do people live in St. Bruno except to get a big house for less money?
As for Paris, there are no single family homes. Everything is five-to-eight-story apartment blocks with interior courtyards. Paris has very high density in every single neighborhood. And you wouldn’t tear down those beautiful old buildings just to put up a ten-story monstrosity like every new builing in Montreal.
The reason rent is high in Paris is because it’s Paris (not St. Bruno).
DeWolf 16:50 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
Incidentally, I’m in Quebec City right now and I’m always impressed by the four-storey plexes in Montcalm, like these ones:
https://goo.gl/maps/uCctMdbNXg3rY6hH9
There are some of these in Montreal but they’re surprisingly uncommon. I’d love to see more of them.
@Phil M – St-Bruno has a town centre with a lot of potential to become a truly walkable place, but now that won’t happen.
Kate 17:07 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
Those buildings make me think of a few of the side streets in Outremont, but you’re right, DeWolf, they’re not so common here.
Blork 17:09 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
A few notes:
Nobody moves to St-Bruno to save money. In the current real estate boom, St-Bruno is seeing what’s possibly the biggest price hikes of all the south shore suburbs.
Regarding the reluctance to build multi-family housing there, you need to consider some of the history of the town. In recent decades, sections of the preserved (or should be preserved) land around the mountain (most of which is a national park) have been chipped away by developers. In the 90s it was to build pods of McMansions and in more recent times it’s to build multi-plex condos. The same is true of the former quarry, which is now a sort of artificial lake with parkland around it. People have long resisted these developments, but with only limited success.
The takeaway is that there is a mistrust of real estate development among people who like the town the way it is, including its proximity to the mountain and the quarry. You can talk until you’re blue in the face about how duplexes and triplexes on already-developed land are a different thing altogether, but you’re up against mistrust, so logic and reasoning have a large hurdle to get over before they even enter the conversation.
You also need to consider that not everyone wants to live in a dense neighbourhood or a changing neighbourhood. We like to go on about the “character” of Montreal neighbourhoods, and the whole thing about the triplexes and the outdoor stairs and the corner dep and whatnot, and how we don’t want some modern brick or glassy buildings messing with that because they’re out of character. Well, maybe people who live on a street lined with cozy bungalows and nice trees and quiet backyards are pretty happy with the character of their neighbourhoods, and they don’t want “plexes” coming in and messing with that. (Just because YOU don’t see any character in a suburban neighbourhood doesn’t mean the people who live there don’t see character.)
I see this in my own neighbourhood in Longueuil, where there is resistance to developers buying up perfectly good bungalows, tearing them down, and building duplexes or quadplexes that are architecturally out of place in the neighbourhood. It’s not that they’re against “density.” They’re against the waste of tearing down a perfectly good $350,000 house and replacing it with a pair of $700,000 duplexes that look out of place.
While it’s easy to call anyone who resists change a “nimby,” it’s not so unusual that when you’ve invested time and money and a sense of identity into the place you live that you become uneasy about changes being imposed on you by someone else, especially when that someone else is a real estate developer just out to turn a buck. Sure, the odd duplex or triplex doesn’t change a neighbourhood much, but we don’t really know that until it happens (or doesn’t happen).
That said, I think St-Bruno’s two-storey law is completely ridiculous, especially as it pertains to the retail streets.
Chris 18:54 on 2022-05-22 Permalink
Well said Blork.
Robert H 01:31 on 2022-05-23 Permalink
Je suis d’accord avec Blork pour dire que c’est une bonne idée pour un partisan de la ville comme moi de vérifier mon réflexe anti-nimby et de réfléchir avec plus de nuances sur les raisons pour lesquelles les gens réagissent comme ils le font. Comme vous et Kate l’avez noté, cette impulsion anti-changement n’est pas seulement un phénomène de banlieue. Il s’agit également d’une difficulté de perception : le terme de densification est devenu si chargé que dès qu’on l’entend, on envisage des canyons ombragés bordés de tours d’habitation. Mais Le Grand Montréal pourrait accueillir des centaines de milliers de personnes supplémentaires sans détruire les quartiers de maisons unifamiliales. Il y a beaucoup de reproches à faire pour le manque de progrès. Accusez-moi d’avoir de la sympathie pour le diable, mais même les promoteurs ont des griefs légitimes. Surtout lorsqu’ils doivent faire face à des retards et à des incohérences dans le zonage de la ville, comme cela a été mentionné dans les articles précédents sur Saint-Bruno et Saint-Lambert. Par exemple, je crois que Joël Gagne, ainsi que les promoteurs à qui il aurait préféré vendre sa propriété, ont des arguments solides contre les manœuvres de zonage honteuses de Saint-Bruno.
Robert H 01:47 on 2022-05-23 Permalink
@Kate et DeWolfe: En parlant d’Outremont, le tronçon commercial de cette même rue (avenue Cartier) me rappelle l’avenue Laurier Ouest.
DeWolf 09:42 on 2022-05-23 Permalink
Je dirais qu’il ressemble plus au Petit Laurier qu’au tronçon dans Outremont, qui est plus hautain et moins animé que l’avenue Cartier. Ça me fait aussi penser à un mélange entre l’avenue Bernard (autour du théâtre Outremont) et la rue Saint-Viateur.
Michael 09:46 on 2022-05-23 Permalink
Perfectly good longeuil bungalows can only house a certain amount of people.
There is no answer to housing shortage except to build more housing.
While we placate the existing residents who have invested energy into the “identity” of their neighbourhood, the rent prices and values keep going up, making it more unaffordable for everyone else.
PatrickC 12:25 on 2022-05-23 Permalink
@DeWolf, Love the four-storey plexes you show, but I wonder how many older people live at the top of all those stairs. (I’m not sure I’d want to carry an infant that far either.) Has there been any research on the practical limit of stair height for different age groups and how this affects housing patterns? There’s a lot of talk about aging in place these days, but some neighbourhoods are more conducive to that than others. Of course, single-family tracts with no shops within walking distance are also bad from this point of view.
Blork 17:49 on 2022-05-23 Permalink
A brief follow-up to my comment above. I don’t mean to imply that all the neighbourhoods of Longueuil (or any other suburb) necessarily have preservation-worthy character. Far from it in many cases. Most of Longueuil is a mishmash of styles housing types, and you can go blocks and blocks where there’s no coherence at all. But SOME neighbourhoods have the kind of stylistic coherence that I spoke of above.
Also: the main problem with teardowns is that it’s such a waste. While everyone’s moaning about shopping bags and other tiny bits of garbage, here are people (like Michael, above) wiling to fill a landfill with an entire house, just to satisfy a checkbox for density.
Forget that. Build in the density when building new housing or otherwise repurposing industrial sites and whatnot. And that’s what’s happening. Virtually all of the new development I’ve seen around Longueuil in the past decade or so has been multiplexes and condos. In fact, digging is about to begin on a huge project along the lines of the Glen Yards in a large area of Longueuil where Pratt & Whitney once had one of their facilities. I can’t find the project info now, but I think I read that it will be very dense, with a variety of building styles and affordabilities. Basically building a neighbourhood from scratch, although typically that doesn’t go very well. But it checks that magical density box.
You can see the space here: https://goo.gl/maps/QbgRrv9Y1ydkMF716
Blork 17:55 on 2022-05-23 Permalink
Oh, here it is. They’re looking at building 6370 housing units and 120,000 square meters of office space on that lot. Not sure it’s all got the green light yet…
https://investir.longueuil.quebec/en/roland-therrien-hub