This is the 4th (and final? Edit: not quite final) post in a series about where additional development should go.
The first post – an overview of building in the right places – is here. The second one, addressing specifically transit-oriented development (TOD), is here. The third on building near protected bike-and-roll routes is here. This one is about building in walkable communities.
As noted in Y. Freemark, Reducing Transportation Emissions through Land-Use Policy and Investments (August 6, 2024), focussing development in dense, walkable areas allows for less vehicle traffic and emissions:
“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2022 report projected that, compared with “business-as-usual” scenarios, concentrating growth near transit in dense, mixed-use developments could reduce emissions by up to 26 percent. Another recent study found that changes encouraging denser construction in central neighborhoods could result in an 8 to 13 percent reduction in VMT [vehicles miles travelled] and emissions…”
… even when controlling for self-selection, residents in high-density neighborhoods have lower VMT. This finding is generally backed by a long history of research on neighborhood self-selection, such as one paper collecting several studies showing that residents of lower-density suburban areas drive more.”
In fact allowing building in dense, walkable areas is the most potent tool municipalities have for reducing greenhouse gas emissions
“building more housing where people most need it — can deliver similar climate impact as the country’s most aspirational transportation decarbonization policy.”
– Korn et al, “Why State Land Use Reform Should Be a Priority Climate Lever for America“
I mentioned earlier in this series that City staff came up with some very helpful slides as part of the Official Community Plan Update engagement. In this post are four of them that show building in walkable areas, i.e. near various destinations.
Existing and proposed Town Centres, Community Villages and Local Villages – with grocers, cafes and more:
The Downtown Neighbourhood – with a lot of workplaces, as well as cafes, restaurants, retail and more:
Community amenity assets like seniors centres, schools, arts and cultural facilities and more:
Parks, open spaces, and the waterfront:
Staff also enabled combinations of the various layers. Here is one example combining shops and services with transit priority corridors:
What you see when you combine all the layers is a map (below) showing that every part of the City is within a short distance of some or several amenities and/or sustainable transportation options. The reason everything is shaded below is because we are living in the core of what is effectively a metropolitan agglomeration; Victoria is the “downtown of the region” with lots of great amenities and the best transit and active transportation routes in the region.
So within Victoria, should we aim to focus additional development near one type of amenity or transportation option? Or near a combination – and if so which combination? Or is everywhere in Victoria appropriate for additional development?
If we attempt to draw lines where more or less additional development is allowed, what would that look like? How would we determine the precise locations of the lines? No doubt some property owners would want to be inside the lines, and some outside.
A bigger question is whether this would be attempting to micro-manage something that may be better without micro-management. The early 20th century saw the evolution of interesting mixes of housing densities and businesses. Charming older row-houses, apartment buildings and corner stores from that era still exist in James Bay, Fairfield, Fernwood, and other neighbourhoods. Later in the 20th century, the city was blanket-downzoned: setbacks were imposed, uses were separated, etc. Those charming buildings from the early 20th Century became illegal to build. Was that an improvement?
I look forward to the ongoing discussions around the OCP and zoning review, and where – in the Victoria context – additional new development should go.