The Solution - Infill Development

 I hope your summer was awesome! To cap our summer, Shelby ran 21km and I joined her for 13km - without training, on a hot day. Would not advise. I'm sweating again just thinking about it. 

Infill Development - A Solution to the Supply and Demand Constraints In Canada
 

There is increasing demand and supply constraints on housing in Canada, but especially in Ontario around the Golden Horseshoe. This demand and supply imbalance has contributed to an affordable housing crisis. The price for a single family home in the GTA is unattainable for the median income family. With increased need for housing, urban sprawl is not environmentally friendly, is expensive, and typically doesn’t have a diverse mix of housing for a diverse group of people. 

So what do we do? A solution is “infill development”. This means we have to build up and not out, therefore denser housing, ideally within the existing urban boundary (where roads, water-mains, and sewers already exist). 

I feel infill development is important for 4 main drivers: 

Helps to solve affordable housing issues - Optimization of existing unused space to create more units within the same area. 

More cost effective development -  It is more efficient to develop where there are existing roads and sewers that the taxpayers have already paid for and are maintaining. Additional revenues from development charges and property taxes from new developments increase the revenue to the town at limited cost to existing taxpayers.

Environmentally friendly - Farmland and green space are typically not being removed compared to “greenfield” developments on outskirts of towns, less infrastructure needs to be built to support the development resulting in less emissions. 

Healthier neighbourhoods - Typically infill housing will increase the density in neighbourhoods improving conditions for local businesses and contributing to the neighbourhood becoming more walk-able, as well as making the neighbourhood more diverse. By having new types of housing within an existing uniform neighbourhood, socio-economic silos that plague our society can be reduced.

Cheers,

Spencer Brown
 Brown Properties