planning practice » Ren Thomas

Maastricht’s strategic vision

Members of our transport planning group at the Liège railway station: Roel ter Brugge, Jake Wiersma, Florian Langstraat, Andrew Switzer, Ori Rubin, Lucas Harms, Luca Bertolini, Xue Hou, and Guowen Dai.

Last week, our transport planning research group at the University of Amsterdam visited the Municipality of Maastricht (population 122,000), capital of the southernmost Dutch province, Limburgh. The city is built on both sides of the Maas river, has a rich history as a Roman settlement and early industrial city, and is strategically positioned near the Belgian and German borders. One of our PhD students, Jake Wiersma, has been working on the strategic vision for Maastricht in his position as a planner at the Municipality, and invited us to participate in a workshop.

As Maastricht’s traditional industries of mining, ceramics and pottery have declined, the city has regenerated several brownfield sites, including the Céramique potteries site near the town centre where several new housing blocks, a new Aldo Rossi-designed museum and new library have been built. The Entre Deux and Mosae Forum shopping centres, the area around the main railway station, and the walkway along the river are other recent developments.

Housing blocks on the former Céramique potteries site takes on a very different form from traditional Dutch housing

As Maastricht tries to curb its persistent traffic problems, it has converted roads to pedestrian-only routes and squares. This one used to bring cars right to the central Market Square.

However, the region is one of two in the Netherlands whose population will shrink in the coming decades (the other being the eastern part of the province of Groningen). It is also one of the more car-dominant cities in the Netherlands, partly because its elevation is not nearly as flat as cities like Amsterdam in the north. Persistent congestion problems on the A2 motorway have led to a two-level tunnel through the city, currently under construction. Maastricht is still trying to discourage parking in its inner city and improving other options, such as walking and park and ride options. Besides trying to decrease driving in the city centre, one of the planning problems is how to maintain accessibility for residents of the rural towns and villages.

Another issue is regional planning–Maastricht is perhaps the most international city in the Netherlands, with students and workers commuting daily from nearby German and Belgian cities. German is widely spoken, and French names and words persist in the Limburgh dialect (and, as you can see, in the names of sites and neighbourhoods). Companies such as BASF, Vodaphone and Mercedez-Benz have extensive bases in the city. However, until recently there has been no attempt to try and plan for the region as a whole. Like many regions in the Netherlands, there is a long-standing debate on the question of which scale is the most appropriate for planning things like transportation infrastructure or employment growth. How far does the “region” actually extend–as far as Aachen (31km east) across the German border, or across the Belgian border to Liège (25km south) and Hasselt (25km west)? Should the region’s boundaries remain within the Netherlands, perhaps including Eindhoven (70km north)? The city is currently trying to determine which of these neighbouring municipalities to include as planning partners in its strategic vision process: in our workshop, we broke into three groups trying to tackle the international, regional and local scales.

Liège-Guillemins, a mere half hour by train from Maastricht, is one of three Belgian cities on the high-speed rail route, and is linked to Brussels, Paris, Aachen, Cologne, and Frankfurt. Here you can see the contrast of the Santiago Calatrava-designed station, which opened in 2009, with the old city behind it.

Maastricht planners at the municipal and provincial levels must now put their shoulders to the wheel: it will likely be years before a regional vision coalesces, if Amsterdam-Utrecht and Rotterdam-Den Haag are any indication. Amsterdam and Utrecht, two cities that share commuters and population growth but are in two different provinces, have struggled to plan anything at the regional level. Rotterdam and Den Haag have making slow but steady progress in this direction with the RandstadRail and Stedenbaan projects. Maastricht must make extensive use of the polder model to engage all its possible stakeholders in this strategic vision process.

Public approval of density

My generation, which represents one-quarter of Ontario’s population and 70% of inner Toronto’s population growth since 2006, is finally making headlines. “Echo boomers” (those of us born between 1972 and 1992) are much more likely to live in central, high-density neighbourhoods with access to good-quality transit. This trend is remarkable considering that one of the most persistent problems faced by planners today is the public’s lack of acceptance of planning concepts such as higher densities to support transit provision. In an article for the Globe and Mail, Doug Sanders explored Vancouverism, a Canadian-born model of livable density (“The world wants Vancouverism. Shouldn’t Canada?” February 23, 2013) While planners from Melbourne to Dubai are adopting the principles Vancouver has espoused for 30 years, Canadian cities still lag behind supporting higher-density living. How can planners influence public perceptions of density?

Perhaps there are lessons to be learned from echo boomers, whose trends and patterns have been ignored for far too long in favour of their richer, suburbanite parents. Access to transit and proximity to work are the main reasons people in our demographic choose to live downtown, which is practical considering we’re much more likely to change careers than the previous generation, requiring more commuting flexibility. A recent report from TD Economics (Toronto: A Return to the Core) showed that key neighbourhoods in inner Toronto, such as Trinity-Spadina, grew by 16% from 2006-2011, supporting key real estate trends like a boom in condo development. Employment growth in Toronto’s inner city outpaced suburban job growth during the same time period.

Planners around the world have also been developing better ways to dialogue with community members about density. One strategy that worked in Perth, Australia, is conducting a comprehensive series of discussions with a range of people. ‘Dialogue with the City‘, an innovative and extensive deliberative forum with citizens, communities, industry and practitioners, was launched in 2003 to discuss and deliberate how to make Perth ‘the world’s most livable city by 2030′. The year of dialogue and discussion, funded in partnership with the Government of Western Australia, Western Australia Planning Commission, and private partners, seems to have contributed to a shift in perception among planners, politicians and the public over time. The Network City strategy is being used to implement the outcomes of Dialogue with the City and 42% of the participants said they changed their views as a result of the dialogue. Vancouver’s Greenest City dialogues have taken a similar approach.

Residents’ perceptions can change during the trajectory of specific projects. Planners at TransLink, Vancouver’s regional transportation authority, found that when they conducted public meetings on the proposed Broadway-UBC LRT line in 2011, local residents were quite upset about the idea of increased density along Broadway during the first round of meetings. It didn’t help that many of the businesses along Cambie Street had experienced financial setbacks during construction of the Canada Line LRT just a couple of years earlier. But by the time the second round of meetings happened, residents had become more supportive of the idea. In Vancouver and other cities with persistent housing affordability problems, another key to acceptance of density has to be the development and use of tools to protect affordability, such as community bargaining agreements and condominium conversion regulations.

Planners can learn from key demographic groups (echo boomers, recent immigrants, students, single-person households and seniors) who tend to choose more centrally-located, transit-accessible neighbourhoods. The old logic that these groups choose transit because “they can’t afford to drive” doesn’t necessarily hold true in the era of urban sustainability and hipster neighbourhoods. And planners can continue to develop processes that engage communities in discussions about what density really means–but this means providing information on building types and density levels that will support public transit, services, and employment, not just collecting opinions. Today’s online tools allow a broader range of community members to participate and have their voices heard than traditional public meetings, and don’t suffer from the same time/place constraints. They have the potential to allow early and ongoing discussion on polarizing topics such as density, long before plans and policies are formulated.

Calling all planners

I’m pleased to announce the call for papers for my upcoming edited book on Canadian planning. It’s been accepted by Oxford University Press with the working title Planning Canada: A Case Study Approach and will feature case studies from across Canada on issues as diverse as infrastructure planning, food policy, affordable housing, and natural resource planning. We’re hoping to give undergraduate students an understanding of the diverse plans, policies and processes that are happening right now across the country.

I’m looking forward to receiving proposals from interested authors from academic, public, private practice, and non-profit planning settings in a number of theme areas: for more details about these, check out the dedicated page on my site, www.renthomas.ca/publications/books

Proposals are due February 1, 2013 and selected authors will have until December 1, 2013 to finalize their case studies.

The future is now: Metro Vancouver’s Moving Forward plan

In an article in today’s Vancouver Sun (“Seven mayors weigh in–The case for funding public transit”, October 4, 2011), seven regional mayors weighed in on the importance of public transit infrastructure to the Metro Vancouver region: Dianne Watts (Surrey), Peter Fassbender (Langley), Richard Walton (District of North Vancouver), Gregor Robertson (Vancouver), Pamela Goldsmith-Jones (West Vancouver), Greg Moore (Port Coquitlam), and Richard Stewart (Coquitlam). This Friday, the Mayors’ Council on Regional Transportation, made up of 22 elected officials from around the region, votes on TransLink’s Moving Forward Supplemental Plan. The proposal includes a 2 cent-per-litre gas tax that will require provincial approval, a new joint long-term funding proposal approved by the Mayor’s Council and the province, and a temporary property tax increase that will cost about $23 per household for 2013-2014. Transit improvements include the Evergreen Line construction, improvements to existing SkyTrain stations, and service improvements in Langley and Surrey. If the plan passes, Minister of Transportation Blair Lekstrom has said that he will introduce legislation this fall enabling the gas tax by April 2012.

The mayors cite increased traffic levels and the 19.6 percent jump in transit ridership from June 2010 to July 2011 (due to transportation mode shifts during the Olympics) as proof that the region is overdue for transit improvements. 2011-2012 is shaping up to be another record year. They also reflect on the vision of previous leaders, who in 1980 struggled with the concept of rapid transit lines but eventually decided in favour of them. Clearly, they see themselves in sync with the region’s early strides towards sustainability.

“We have had the debate. Now we must move from words to deeds. The decision we make on Friday will forge the path Greater Vancouver so badly needs. Passing the 2012 Supplemental Plan is the right decision for Metro Vancouver’s transportation system, economy, and future livability.” –Dianne Watts, Peter Fassbender, Richard Walton, Gregor Robertson, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, Greg Moore, and Richard Stewart

However, the municipalities of Burnaby, Richmond, the City of North Vancouver, Delta, and Langley Township have said they will probably vote against the plan. This is surprising considering TransLink’s extensive public consultation during the creation of Moving Forward showed that 80% of those consulted agreed with the proposed improvements and 75% said the Evergreen Line was important in reaching the goals outlined in Transport 2040, the regional transportation strategy. It’s also surprising considering Burnaby and Richmond have both been big winners in terms of transit infrastructure: the three existing LRT lines have paid off for them. With municipal elections a mere five weeks away (November 16th), the stakes are high; yet the stakes for the region have never been higher.

Update: The Mayors’ Council voted to support the Moving Forward Plan with 70% support from its 22 members.

To boldly go

The City of Vancouver Housing and Homelessness Strategy, approved Thursday July 28th, is a bold move in the context of Canada’s increasingly unaffordable housing markets. The comprehensive, ten-year plan calls for the creation of 38,900 affordable homes in the city: 7,900 supportive and social housing units, 11,000 rental units, and 20,000 condos and “ownership” units. To help finance construction, the city intends to offer $42 million in land and capital grants to developers. 3650 of the supportive and social housing units will be built in the next three years. 1,700 of these were previously announced, but 1,950 are new developments which the city will build and run with BC Housing and non-profit associations, a model that has worked for decades in Vancouver. BC Housing will contribute 276 of the units, developers will build 205 (mostly due to density bonusing) and the city will seek funding for the remaining 319.

Until now, the city has remained in limbo in terms of building affordable housing, despite millions of dollars in contributions to its Affordable Housing Fund through density bonusing and a 20% social housing requirement for major rezonings of lands to multiunit residential use. Leaving construction of affordable homes to private developers hasn’t worked, so the city will partner with developers by providing grants and land in exchange for social and supportive units. The city will also lever its land resources and capital projects against funding from provincial and federal governments. The plan also calls for the city to approve more laneway housing and secondary suites. New affordable rental units have been achieved recently through the City’s Short Term Incentives for Rental Housing (STIR) initiative.

Like many municipalities tired of playing chicken with upper levels of government, Vancouver now has its foot firmly on the accelerator. The housing affordability crisis in Canada has reached ridiculous proportions, but we’re still working on the national affordable housing strategy (Bill-C-400), which replaced Bill C-304 from the previous session. Industry warnings of a housing market collapse have been circulated. And yet, the price of renting has increased much slower than the price of ownership over the past twenty years, as Canadian Business illustrated recently (“Rental Complex”, July 14, 2011). This article, the latest in a series of pieces in the popular press exploring the follies of ownership in today’s market, exposes the increasingly doomed love affair Canadians seem to have with homeownership:

“With widespread warnings that we’re approaching the peak of the housing boom, with Canadians more indebted than ever…why aren’t more of us re-examining the math? The reasons are cultural and emotional, backed by ill-conceived public policy. This Canadian Dream is an expensive delusion. There’s never been a better time to rent.” Joanna Pachner, Canadian Business

Along with increased acceptance of renting, the fallout from the US mortgage crisis includes recognition that the suburban, single-family home is no longer in huge demand: households without kids will increase by 90% from 2010 to 2020, according to Arthur Nelson, professor of planning at the University of Utah. This means far fewer buyers than sellers for single-family housing and an increased demand for multi-family and rental housing. As demographics and attitudes towards housing shift, the City of Vancouver is once again on the leading edge of policy innovation, though the plan is not without its critics. Hopefully elements of the plan will be evaluated throughout implementation, and discussed in other municipalities, which could help accelerate Bill C-400–the absence of a national affordable housing strategy has been holding up programs and funding between all three levels of government.

Filipinos: a growing presence in Canadian cities

Filipino immigrants are a rapidly growing group in many Canadian cities: there are almost half a million Filipinos in the country. In many ways, they are distinct: recent studies have highlighted their increasing dependence upon the Live-in Caregiver Program, their difficulties finding work in their occupations, and the implications of long periods of separation upon their families in Canada and the Philippines. Last year, the Vancouver Sun ran a four-part series on Filipinos in Canada, which they dubbed “The Filipino Factor”. This weekend the Globe and Mail featured a two-page spread, now that the Philippines outpaces China and India as the main source of immigrants to Canada. In my view, the distinctive patterns of Filipino immigrants make them an ideal case study that can teach us about immigrants’ integration, labour market participation and survival strategies.

As many of you know, my dissertation focuses on Filipinos’ housing and transportation choices in the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA), where over 170,000 Filipinos live. I’m rapidly nearing the end of my four years in the PhD programme at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning, which means I’m finishing my study and getting ready to publish my results. I have found that Filipino immigrants display a remarkable resilience in their housing and transportation choices. It’s the same resilience that is portrayed in the media: Filipinos come from a country with far less economic and political stability than Canada, and they are willing to work hard to succeed here. They do experience significant barriers to their integration, if we’re talking about the labour market. But socially, they must be one of the most integrated groups in Canada: they are very spatially dispersed and do not form ethnic enclaves. They are also experts in community-building: Filipinos have established hundreds of non-profit, community, and advocacy groups in Canadian cities. These groups help new arrivals find jobs, train for new careers, and adjust to life in Canada; they are often staffed by both paid and volunteer Filipinos. Prominent Filipino researchers Dr. Nora Angeles and Dr. Aprodicio Laquian have done research in this area; Nora is currently an Associate Professor at SCARP and Prod is a Professor Emeritus at our school.

In my own research, I have seen that Filipinos’ lower homeownership rate and higher transit commuting rate can partially be explained by their flexibility: they make practical choices depending on access to transit and the location of their workplaces, their children’s schools, shops and services. They move back and forth between owning and renting, driving and transit use, depending on changes in their families and careers. These choices mirror their experiences in the Philippines, where many lived in dense, mixed-use communities with access to transit. Of course, their choices are also shaped by structural changes in housing policy, immigration policy, and the labour market over the years.

We can’t ignore the issues faced by growing number of Filipinos who work far below their education and skill levels, or the policy shifts that have made things more difficult for recent arrivals (Dr. Phil Kelly at York University has written extensively on this subject). In the 1990s and 2000s, immigration from the Philippines increased markedly, and many of these new immigrants entered under the LCP rather than Skilled Worker or Family Class immigration categories. It will take these more recent immigrants longer to find jobs in their professions than earlier immigrants, and during this time they work long hours and have difficulty studying for recertification; many have college diplomas or university degrees from the Philippines that Canadian employers and professional associations do not recognize. However, in the face of these changes in immigration policy and the labour market, Filipinos’ resiliency strategy serves them well. Because they remain flexible and mobile in their housing and transportation decisions, they are able to adapt to changing situations, like divorce, training for a new job, or offering a room to recently-arrived family members when they arrive in Canada.

Why all the fuss about Filipinos? After all, we’re a multicultural society…why focus on one particular group? Because Filipinos have higher than average rates of education and are fluent in English, but are not able to work in their professions, which means they often have lower than average incomes. For example, over the years, Filipinos’ jobs in finance, insurance and real estate have changed to jobs in manufacturing and the service sector. Filipinos seem to be more affected by changes in immigration policy, such as the LCP. Their resiliency strategy towards housing and transportation choice may be unique. For these reasons, a case study of Filipinos may be instructive to researchers studying immigrants’ housing, settlement, and labour market patterns.

This week, I’ll be presenting my work at the National Metropolis Conference here in Vancouver. I’m looking forward to seeing other researchers in urban planning, geography and sociology who are studying how immigrants settle into Canadian cities. Metropolis Canada is part of an international network of researchers on immigration and migration, and there is also an annual conference in Europe each year. The best part is the diversity of academic researchers, community researchers, non-profit housing providers, immigrant service providers, and of course students who come to the conference to share their research and best practices on immigrant integration. I’ll never forget my first Metropolis conference last year in Montréal…let’s hope Vancouver can be as much fun!

New food policy developments in Vancouver

Cypress Community Garden

Municipalities have become increasingly concerned about food security in the past few years. I’ve written before about Vancouver’s Food Policy Council and some of the work they’ve been doing, including encouraging a by-law to allow backyard chickens. Since then some notable developments have happened in the city.

A few weeks ago, Vancouver city council approved five community projects, agreeing to spend $100,000 on the small-scale projects. One aims to help people on social assistance or small fixed incomes can buy coupons at the beginning of each month for a small fee and redeem them later in the month for fresh fruits and vegetables at a mini-farmers market in the neighbourhood. Another funds the development of farmers markets; several Vancouver neighbourhoods worked with city council to streamline fees and fix restrictive zoning bylaws. Council has now approved the development of interim guidelines and zoning changes to develop new farmers markets and expand existing ones, including the very successful Kitsilano, West End, and Trout Lake markets. I visited the West End farmers market this weekend and found the vendors selling seasonal greens, peppers, berries, cheese, fresh lamb and eggs. The prices, as usual for Vancouver, started around the same as supermarket produce and went up from there, but there’s no denying the freshness of the food. I’m still not sure why farmers markets out here are so pricey, when a dollar or two at a market in Ottawa, London, or Toronto will get you a head of broccoli bigger than your own.

There are lots of other ways to get fresh produce in the city. Vancouver has some amazing community gardens, where residents pay a small fee for a garden plot and grow all sorts of fruits, vegetables and flowers. A friend of mine has a plot at the Cypress Community Garden, which cost her $30 for the summer. She goes to garden work parties with the many other gardeners in the area; Kitsilano is full of apartment dwellers who otherwise wouldn’t have the space to grow their own food.

You can also raise chickens and have access to your own fresh eggs daily, since the bylaw was passed to allow backyard chickens. You can check out all these developments on Vancouver’s Food Policy Council website.

SCARP Affordable Housing Symposium

No matter what your profession, you’ve probably been to your share of conferences. From professional to academic, trade shows to think tanks, conferences are still the most popular way to share your research and ideas with a larger audience. In academia, paper presentations and face-to-face networking with other academics are still the norm even in our increasingly wired society. Similarly, practicing planners share their policies, plans and tools with each other at the Canadian Institute of Planners/American Planning Association conferences, and their provincial and state equivalents.

I confess that while I gain a lot from these events, and often meet other interesting researchers in the field, I find the whole thing a bit draining. Several days of listening to presentations and networking is tiring. The other thing is that there seems to be a divide in the types of people these conferences attract: practicing planners go to one conference and academics to another. It’s rare that you have that blend of practicing planners, academic researchers, and those working in municipal, regional and federal policy development.

Last March, students at SCARP organized such an event on sustainability, and I wrote in an earlier post about the success of this one-day symposium and our PhD panel on research dissemination. SCARP repeated the success of this event with another one-day symposium on affordable housing funded by the BC provincial government and several key sponsors like VanCity and the Planning Institute of BC. Papers were presented by both Masters and PhD planning students, municipal planners, housing developers, architects, and more. It was a rare confluence of research, policy development and practical planning tools that have impacted the construction of affordable housing in Canada. Some of the sessions I attended included Haley Mousseau (BC Non-Profit Housing Association) on the long-term survival of non-profit housing units in the province; Andy Yan (Bing Thom Architects) on the impact of empty condos on Vancouver, and Vanessa Kay (internship for the City of Vancouver) research on the long-term costs associated with amenity spaces in Vancouver condos.

The breadth of experience in the room was palpable, and it was easy to strike up conversations over breakfast, lunch, and the cocktail hour with (in my case) the director of a shelter, a housing provider in a suburban municipality, a planning consultant working extensively on housing development, an academic researcher looking at sustainable neighbourhoods, a PhD candidate in geography at UBC, and a Masters student who had travelled from northeastern US to attend the symposium. Best of all, the one-day format kept things moving and packed a lot of information into a short amount of time. The only problem I overheard participants discussing was that there were concurrent sessions, so it was impossible to hear all the presentations.

It’s easy for us to become entrenched and isolated in our little silos, whether it’s a municipal department of planning or an academic faculty. Events like this provide a rare opportunity to share our work with a wider audience and to learn from a variety of different viewpoints. The short length of the symposium effectively limited participation to those within a short distance of the host city, forcing people to develop better ties in their own locality. While there is a place for big conferences, and connecting with people over continents who share our interests, it’s a sad fact that few of us have the time to create or maintain local research/practice networks outside the context of our immediate projects.

Next week I’ll be attending another rather unconventional conference, or rather “un-conference” called TransportCamp, which uses multimedia techniques to foster dialogue between participants. A similar event was held in Toronto in April 2008. I’m skeptical, but I’ll let you know how it turns out.

Transportation planning in Metro Vancouver

TransLink, the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority, is responsible for roads, bridges, public transit, and cycling in the Vancouver region. TransLink’s revenues come from transit fares and advertising, property taxes and fuel taxes. The regional transportation authority regularly consults with the public on transportation planning issues including financing, rapid transit, bus, and cycling options. Their online Transit Advisory Board, launched a few years ago, allows Metro residents to have a say in all sorts of decision making. Their current survey deals with their 10-Year Transportation and Financial Plan, a step towards Transport 2040, their 30-year plan. The survey presents three scenarios: spending $460 million more annually to expand transit, road, and cycling capacity, spending $260 annually to maintain the current situation, or cutting back service drastically.

As they have been in existence for just a decade, TransLink also published a list of accomplishments from 1999-2008. Among these are a 37% increase in transit hours, 38% increase in bus fleet size, 99% increase in annual funding for transit operations, and a whopping 283% increase in capital investments. While those who use TransLink on a daily basis complain about it regularly, and Metro Vancouver doesn’t have nearly the transit service it needs to service almost 2 million people, these are some impressive results over a ten-year period.

TransLink is an excellent example of how complicated it is for municipalities and regions to fund, plan, and provide transit services. Power struggles between all three levels of government are played out every time budgetary consultations are due. While TransLink is unique in providing services and capital improvements for roads, bridges, transit, and cycling, this balanced approach frequently puts the provincially-created body at odds with its creator. The transit strike in 2001, the struggle over funding for the Canada Line, and increased pressure on the UBC line are all potent examples of biting the hand that feeds transit in Metro Vancouver. An effort in 2001 to add a vehicle levy to funding sources was rejected by the Province, which put a stop to service expansion, fuelled service decreases and led to a four-month-long transit strike. One of the other funding challenges is that the income from fuel taxes (about 30% of TransLink’s funding) fluctuates with gas prices.

These struggles occur because often the upper levels of government are at odds with the municipalities; it is one area that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has fought to reconcile. Municipalities know what works best at the local level: in this case, more funding for public transit, cycling, and walking. Funds can be raised through taxes on less sustainable transportation modes. But the Province of BC has long fought this approach, like other Provincial governments, sticking to the postwar status quo: fund road and highway infrastructure to cut down on traffic and make goods movement easier and cheaper. An excellent example is the Gateway proposal, a $4.5 billion dollar road and highway expansion project bitterly fought by Vancouver and Burnaby councils and decried by environmentalists, will now be funded entirely by the Province. BC Minister of Transportation Kevin Falcon’s spearheading of the Gateway proposal, against the recommendations of cost benefit and environmental analyses, made lifelong enemies of many GVRD transportation advocates. Falcon was replaced as Minister of Transportation by Shirley Bond when Gordon Campbell was recently re-elected as Premier on May 12, 2009. It isn’t known yet how much Bond will support public transit, cycling, and walking in the Province; it may not matter, considering Campbell’s support of the proposal. A glance at the Provincial Ministry of Transportation website indicates its primary interests in goods movement and airport management; public transit is clearly low on its list of priorities. The Province of BC released a Transit Plan in 2008 that contradicts TransLink’s long-term plan. Clearly, these power struggles indicate that transportation, at the level of public transit and commuter services, is an area that should be wholly given over to Canadian municipalities. There is considerable dissention in the ranks, because without funding from the upper levels of government, municipalities would face the same challenges in transportation that they do in housing: responsibilty with out much-needed cash.

But despite these struggles, TransLink has accomplished a lot in a city that is rapidly growing and needs transportation alternatives. As I write this, the new 19-km Canada Line is being tested for its Labour Day opening, a new SeaBus glides across Burrard Inlet, and the 24-km Central Valley Greenway has just opened. These victories, in addition to the gains in capital investment, and sheer numbers of passengers using the system, are worthy of celebration.

Housing and transportation: together again

Housing and transportation infrastructure have made major impacts on the social and spatial geography of our towns and cities. While there are many examples of the two being planned together, researchers tend to work in separate silos. The recent trend towards planning for more sustainable cities has produced a number of policy initiatives to join the two areas. In the US, the Departments of Transportation (DOT) and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are establishing a Sustainable Communities Initiative that will offer grants to metropolitan areas to coordinate land use and transportation planning, promote livability and transit-oriented development. In Canada, the Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) and Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) just launched EQuilibrium, will provide financial, technical and promotional assistance to neighbourhood development projects across the country chosen through a national competition. Community projects will be evaluated on energy; land use and housing; water, waste water and stormwater; transportation; natural environment; and financial viability. A brief look at planning documents at the City of Toronto, City of Brampton, Peel Region, and the Province of Ontario, highlights housing and transportation policies and the attempt to integrate these areas.

Housing

Housing has long been a major issue for the City of Toronto. The City’s Perspectives on Housing Tenure (2006) notes the need for more rental housing, particularly considering its role as the major immigrant reception area in Canada: 45% of Toronto’s immigrants live in rental housing, and 74% of recent immigrants who arrived less than two years ago. Younger households also place a strong demand on rental housing. Yet rent has become increasingly unaffordable since few new rental buildings have been built since the passing of the Condominium Act in 1976: from 1996-2006, only 5% of new housing built was rental. Rental conversion to condos is also a major issue: like other municipalities in Canada, the City of Toronto has placed strong controls on rental conversion.

In 2003, the City of Brampton endorsed a Municipal Housing Capital Facilities By-law, one of the prerequisites for the Region of Peel to receive its share of $680 million in federal affordable housing grants. The by-law would allow the Region of Peel to access both federal and provincial funds and enter into other incentive agreements with housing providers to develop affordable housing. Brampton’s Official Plan (2008) asserts the goal to provide for a range of housing opportunities (types, densities, tenure, and cost) to meet the diverse needs of people from various social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. They prescribe residential density (ranging from 30 units/acre to 200 units/acre) and mix (upscale executive and single detached to apartments and maisonettes) (Policy 4.1.1.2). They may require developers to provide affordable housing and prioritize applications for affordable housing (4.1.6.1).

Transportation

Transportation has also been a major issue in the City of Toronto, with its plethora of subway, streetcar, and bus routes. Toronto’s Transit City Plan (2006), with plans to build seven new LRT lines, is approved and funded by the Province of Ontario and linked to the Big Move, a larger plan being developed by Metrolinx, the regional transit authority. Under this plan, the region plans to construct to more than 1200 km of rapid transit lines, enabling 80% of people living in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Region (GTHA) to be within 2km of rapid transit.

The City of Brampton’s Strategic Plan outlines its commitment to new roads, trails, better transit service and seamless connections to popular destinations in the Greater Toronto Area. Peel Region has an Official Plan objective to achieve a sustainable land use and transportation system, and Brampton’s Official Plan designates Bus Rapid Transit, Primary and Secondary Transit Corridors (4.4.4.2).

Housing + Transportation

The City of Toronto has a strong tradition of integrating housing with transportation, including aggressive marketing of air rights and available excess land parcels by the TTC, density bonus around subway stations, and city zoning classification changes around transit stations to permit higher density development. Recent efforts to plan more sustainable cities have continued to link housing and transportation infrastructure. The City’s Official Plan (2006) identifies “the Avenues”, underused lands along Toronto’s arterial roads in commercial and mixed-use areas, for future growth. These “offer the opportunity to increase the number of people living along major transit routes and to make use of underutilized infrastructure.”

The City of Brampton’s Official Plan includes an objective to “promote the development of an efficient transportation system and land use patterns that foster strong live-work relationships and encourage an enhanced public transit modal share.” It encourages “higher density mixed use of development along major streets to make transit a more practical choice for commuters” and “an integrated land use and transportation plan that provides a balanced transportation system giving priority to public transit and pedestrians and creating complete communities (compact, transit-oriented, and pedestrian-friendly with a mix of uses and a variety of housing choices, employment, and supporting services and facilities)”. They have a policy supporting transit-supportive nodes (3.2.2, 4.4.4.20), mixed-use, higher-density areas with good road and transit facilities), transit-oriented infill (3.2.5) along corridors, and higher density development at GO Transit stations (4.4.4.28).

The Province of Ontario introduced the Places to Grow Act in 2005; the act identifies 25 downtown areas as urban growth centres, setting minimum density targets to encourage revitalization. However, without planning for rental and affordable housing, this initiative will only encourage high-priced condo development in these areas.

While there is undoubtedly still work to be done, as policy does not always translate into practice, this short examination of planning documents shows that there is some effort to link housing and transportation in planning more sustainable cities.

Ren Thomas

M.A., Ph.D. (Planning)