Changes in store for Cambridge
Plenty of apartments and townhouses predicted for Cambridge — a city built on single-family homes
April 06, 2010 | By Kevin Swayze, Record staff
CAMBRIDGE — Expect many more apartments and townhouses and fewer single-family homes on smaller lots in the city’s future, city planners say.
Both in new subdivisions along Cambridge’s edges and in six “reurbanization areas,” it’s the way to handle a projected population growth from 123,000 today to 173,000 by 2031 without expanding the city’s boundaries.
“It’s a dramatic shift. More apartments and townhouses,” said Melissa Aldunate, senior policy planner at the city.
Ontario’s Places To Grow legislation demands cities ensure 40 per cent of new housing as “infill” — built in existing urban areas — to create “compact, complete communities,” instead of car-oriented suburban subdivisions.
Denser urban areas promote healthy lifestyles, including more walking for errands and to and from work instead of driving. Higher population areas also make taxpayer subsidized transit more efficient and attractive to residents and employers.
The city’s first ever growth management study was accepted by city council Monday, as the cornerstone for the city’s updated official plan. The plan is intended to co-ordinate and regulate where and how proprieties and buildings may be used, along with what shape they might take. It also includes environmental and heritage rules to protect areas deemed important by politicians.
In a separate decision Monday, council approved in principle expanding an incentive program to encourage redevelopment of contaminated industrial areas.
Two years ago, council approved a “tax increment grant” program for the Hespeler, Preston and Galt core areas. It gives money to a developer to clean up a site, based on how much future tax revenue the property would generate after redevelopment. It spurred several projects.
Now, in partnership with Waterloo Region, council wants to expand the incentive city wide.
City staff expect to have a draft of the new official plan ready for public meetings by January 2011, as the new city council begins its four-year term.
Coun. Ben Tucci wondered if the city could remove one of the designated growth areas — like east Galt at Main and Dundas streets — and still meet provincial growth targets for the city as a whole.
City planner Aldunate advised against that, because the growth plan sets out “maximum potential” for all the areas, while at the same time accepting the reality they won’t all meet the goal. Removing one area makes it harder to meet the overall city target.
Tucci also asked how downtown Galt can be the city’s prime urban growth area, when there’s already height restrictions in place to protect the area’s historic streetscapes and riverside character.
The province refused to delete the downtown Galt core from the list of core growth areas. The city must set minimum density targets “and ensure development is compatible” with existing buildings, Aldunate said.
The city is expected to have 14,249 more jobs by 2029, but it will be a challenge to squeeze them all into protected “employment lands,” he said.
Cambridge has land set aside for new major industry north of Toyota, but manufacturing usually has fewer “jobs per hectare” than office-commercial developments. Like the insurance company towers dotting the Waterloo skyline.
“A whole pile of things in this worries me,” said Coun. Rick Cowsill.
Cambridge’s job growth figures seem based on only new manufacturing, not high-tech, knowledge industries economists say are Canada’s future, he said. “I thought we were moving away from that.”
The growth study predicts the city has enough land to handle all the expected population and job growth over the next two decades, but staff say it’s not a blueprint to shape exactly where everything will go. Instead, it looks at development targets and that can adapt as the housing and business market transforms.
Apartments have long been a hard sell in Cambridge, said planning commissioner Janet Babcock.
There are many areas already designated for multi-unit residential development that have sat idle for years. Or developers convinced council to allow lower-density housing on the sites.
Usually, residents of existing neighbourhoods rail against townhouses or apartments on vacant land near their single-family homes. The fear of “turning into Toronto” is a common theme at public meetings.
The local building market, however, is changing, she said.
Developers are proposing more townhouse projects because more people are asking for them, Babcock said. There’s also growing interest in condominium buildings, because they’re taxed at a lower rate than rental apartments and they’re popular with aging homeowners wanting to be free of household maintenance chores.
“From my perspective, developers will not proceed with anything they cannot sell,” she said.
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