> The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl that introduces a ton of its own issues.

You only end up with that if that is what sells, i.e. that is what homebuyers want. If the average Canadian didn't want that, the developers would build something else.

Your real problem here is with the preferences of the people who buy new homes, and you aren't going to change those preferences by regulating housing developers.

People hold those preferences because when you live in the burbs you bear less of the cost of the externalities of urban sprawl. Basically, you get more bang for your buck.

The property tax rate is the same for a whole municipality whether you are downtown in high density housing or in the burbs.

You need more roads/public transportation/water mains/gas mains/buried cables etc to serve fewer people in the suburbs.

Make property taxes proportional to the infrastructure required to support a neighbourhood.

If in Canada they get gas, water, sewer and electricity paid by taxes then why not just charge the users instead? And yes, the payment for utility includes the maintenance cost. Roads wear depends on the amount of traffic so if you really wanted to be fair you might end up with the dense urbanites paying more (also we supposed to pay for this with the fuel and registration taxes in the US).

Public transportation in suburbia? Does it really happen in Canada? In the US suburbia subsidizes public transportation without using it.

This is a terrible argument. The costs associated with building wide, rather than building tall are hidden in future taxes and not disclosed to the homebuyer. Pretending there's some 'all costs' calculator over the useful life of the asset which is presented to homebuyers is incorrect.

Not only that, but tax funds are typically funneled from denser, more sensibly planned areas of cities to the more well-off sprawled suburbs. So people who aren't even involved in the process of participating in the market for sprawl built houses will pay for the resultant externalities created by the need for maintenance.

That’s true, but take a look at the zoning laws as well. Some places have better zoning laws than the US and Canada. I think that Japan is frequently mentioned here, because there are only a dozen types of zones and all of the ones that allow housing allow the property owner to rebuild at a higher density. (There are several types of industrial–only zones that give them a way to prevent homes from being built too near heavy industry.)

That's true, but it's also the case that most Canadians (and Americans) would be very dissatisfied with the quality of Japanese housing. Frankly it's crap -- thin walls, single-pane windows even today, no garages, tiny kitchens with two burners and no ovens...

In Japan people are far more reliant on the conscientiousness of their neighbors to maintain a peaceful and quiet environment than people in Canada and the United States are. They also have a low crime rate and safer, cleaner inner cities.

Obviously an entire population lives this way, and it works well for them, but that kind of housing situation would be a hard sell in North America.

That may be true, and it would be nice if people here were so considerate as well... yeah that's not happening.

However the ZONING codes could be adopted to much benefit. The BUILDING codes, I still maintain we need to spec even higher, so that I can have a refuge of solitude from the sounds, smells, and presence of Wheaton's Law failing humans.

Is Japan really what unusual? From what I hear the building codes are uniform so the spec for high density housing is similar to that of a single family home.

If builders in Canada have to build high density housing to a more costly specification then it’s justified that they won’t find it cost effective even if given the chance to do so.

In effect, the low cost of Japanese housing could be from both the zoning code and the building code. (As for culture, those two affect culture and are affected by culture so it’s hard to distinguish.)

The quality of the buildings that get built is unrelated to the type of buildings that are allowed.

What a current buyer wants in a Nash equilibrium of weird incentives and zoning laws, is the Just the Way Things Are?

Zoning laws don't come out of nowhere. People like living in suburbs, so their governments pass zoning laws that keep the area suburban.

Zoning laws are an expression of preferences by the existing homeowners who want their neighborhoods to retain their current characteristics.

Look at the history of how this happened. The suburbs did not magically appear out of nowhere after WWII against the wishes of the population, and they were not legalized into existence with zoning laws. They were built, people liked them and bought houses in them, and then they passed zoning laws to keep them.

Ban commuter cars from cities and watch the demand for high density urban housing explode.

Basically replicate the pre-car environment that the world's greatest cities were designed and developed during.

Many large city centers in Europe already restrict or outright ban commuter cars.

I was speaking more as a solution for American cities. :)

Yes. So, this is tried and known to work.

In that case it seems like the developers having more or less rules doesn't actually matter, no?

It does matter because most of the city of Toronto is zoned to prevent apartment buildings, low-rises, duplex, etc. Only a single family home is permitted.

The only things being built in Toronto are either single family homes, or giant 50 floors condos. It takes YEARS of consultations to build anything in Toronto so developers only bother going through that process for very very high buildings. It's not worth it for the type of higher density apartment of 3-4 stories.

It's called the missing middle, there's a good podcast/article here: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-missing-middle/

If 10% of people have the means to be willing to pay 20x for a home constructed in a way that 90% of people can't afford, that is what your average homebuyer wants.

> The problem with encouraging builders to go hard with few restrictions is you end up with a low-density urban sprawl

Low-density sprawl is a result of local governments banning medium and high density building, not the free market. 80% of Austin is still single family homes despite a massive influx to the area. This is not because single-family homes are the most profitable to build, but because they are the only thing that you can legally build.

So you are of the belief that, if it weren't for the regulations, the suburbs would be full of high density housing?

...yes? If I can buy four adjacent $1,000,000 homes and put up a mid-rise with 25 units at $400,000/each, I've just made $9,000,000 minus construction expenses.

Then why aren't they taking the time and energy to get those areas rezoned? It's possible, and I'm sure it's less expensive than the potential profit, especially if they choose an area far enough out that there are few neighbors to complain.

>Then why aren't they taking the time and energy to get those areas rezoned?

Because of well-organized opposition from busy body homeowners. City governments aren't captured by business-interests the way state governments and the federal government are.

>especially if they choose an area far enough out that there are few neighbors to complain.

There are always enough people to complain about anything to kill it. A lot of people oppose anything new in their city entirely- not just in their neighborhood.

Why do you think those areas are restrictive with their zoning? Because people wrongfully want it that way. A developper is focused on making people and equipment work, not on being a provider of good zoning laws, and so won't fight against those tides.

In Canada, exclusionary zoning rules prohibited the construction of mid-rise housing in most cities. Developers would build it if the system wasn’t set up to stop them from doing so. They want to sell more units of housing per acre of land.

As I asked another user - so you belief that the suburban sprawl would be high density housing instead? We'd have giant apartment buildings on the edge of the city?

No, they would be in the center of the city where it is currently illegal to do it.

Listen to this recent podcast from 99% invisible (or read the summary), it explains it very well. Most of the territory of Toronto excludes apartment buildings.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-missing-middle/

> We'd have giant apartment buildings on the edge of the city?

Not necessarily high rises, but certainly apartment buildings, yes. This is the development pattern you see in places like Austin, Texas.

Yes, you see that in a lot of places. The city zoning laws mandate single–family homes, but then you get to the city boundary and revert to the county rules and a bunch of apartment complexes suddenly appear as if by magic.

Actually we already see apartments going up at the edges of some cities, because of a combo of these factors making it tough to do otherwise. However, I also found that in Winnipeg, condo owners pay the same property taxes as a detached homeowner in a brand new cul-de-sac. For a $330k cad condo (probably not going to get much higher in price later) you pay $4k in annual property taxes on top of your condo fees and mortgage. That's an entire month of food if you ate out every single day. Meanwhile in Vancouver, the same type of place literally costs $1m in a less desirable area, but you pay only ~2k in property taxes, which contributes to fund 58% of the city's operating budget, and the city is able to improve over time.

Same zoning problems though

Yes, this is a common sight outside many major cities. You end up with mid rise or high rise buildings randomly dotted around the burbs. It’s good that this housing exists, but because it’s not concentrated in the core, it doesn’t lead to the best possible outcomes. It’s hard to make the transit system work when housing and jobs are scattered around. You end up with lower-income workers commuting from an apartment over an hour away.

The vision of nice urban high density housing is a myth aside from very few exceptions that also happen to be quite expensive. Most people would want to escape that if their finances allow it. Pollution, noise, too much proximity to others are factors that makes this just plainly not attractive. Proximity to the work place is nice, but not the only factor that needs to be considered. This is primarily a problem of transport infrastructure.

look at the far outer suburbs of Dallas or most of the large cities in Arizona for some terrible examples of unconstrained urban sprawl.