Tag: City Planning

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Live-work-play Rapidways Urban Planning

Why “TOD” is great news for all of us

A rendering of transit-oriented development in Markham
A rendering of transit-oriented development at the future Markham Centre

Recently, I wrote about transit and the role it has in shaping communities, in particular, the development that tends to spring up along transit routes and around stations. This time, I want to talk more about what we mean by “transit-oriented-development” ( TOD for short), and why this kind of development will be good news for people in York Region—whether or not they are transit users themselves.

Most people get around York Region by car – possibly because they want to – but also because some people find it challenging to do all the things they need to do in a day by transit. That’s not surprising in a region like this one; in communities where development has been shaped by a long-standing car culture, destinations are more likely to be spread out, with greater distances between live-work-play destinations. Even the design of buildings may be shaped by car usage, with large parking lots separating buildings from roads.

The idea behind TOD is that people using transit are also likely to be pedestrians at some point during their journey – either at the beginning, or the end (or both). Studies have shown that people are willing to walk about 5 minutes to or from transit, which is somewhere between 400 and 600 metres. So TOD uses the approach of creating a complete community within walking distance of transit – including workplaces, homes, shopping, recreation and services. The thinking is that if new developments are designed to be conveniently compact and appealing to pedestrians, people are more likely to leave their car at home for at least one of their trips. Obviously, the good news is that more people taking transit means fewer cars on the road, less pollution, and less gridlock.

So York Region planners have linked the plans for the vivaNext rapidways to land use policies that will result in more TOD along Viva routes and near vivastations. These policies will likely mean that much of the new development built around vivastations will be compact and mixed-use, providing housing, employment, retail, dining, services and recreation, all within a walkable distance of transit. Developments will also include more welcoming public spaces, attractive landscaping, and other amenities so that people enjoy being out and about.

How will this affect you? In a pre-TOD scenario, a typical day could start with a drive to work, then a drive to a restaurant for dinner, ending with a drive to a movie or concert before driving back home. With more TOD, you would have the choice of taking transit to work, then walking around the corner from the office to dinner, then strolling across the street for a show before grabbing a coffee and getting home again by transit. Same day, two different ways of getting around.

The point is that transit and TOD don’t have to change the way people live in York Region, but it will give us all more choices – in what we do, where we do it, and how we get there. We think that’s good news for everyone.

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Live-work-play Rapidways Urban Planning

Public transit = more housing choices

housingcollage_10_07_12-copy

Here’s some new math you may not have seen before: vivaNext = more housing choices. How can that be? Let’s start by talking about housing options, and why they matter.

The expression, “one-size-fits-all,” applies to many things, but when it comes to housing preferences, we all have our own ideas about how we want to live. A traditional suburban house might be the perfect dream home for one person, but might be too big or too – well, suburban – for another. A stylish condo with a sleek balcony within walking-distance of entertainment and shopping is just what some people are looking for, but wouldn’t suit everyone.

No matter what our personal preferences might be, one of the values that most of us share is that we’d like to be able to choose where we live. Unfortunately, if a range of housing options is not available, it can be difficult for people to find suitable homes in a particular neighbourhood or community. And that’s a shame, because being able to stay in a neighbourhood you like, near friends and family, close to familiar services and supports – near your roots – means a lot to many people.

By bringing rapid transit to York Region, vivaNext will support the development of a wider range of housing options, so that every member of a family, whether they’re parents with young children, young adults moving out for the first time, or older people wanting to downsize, can live near the neighbourhood of their choice.

As a key component of the transit-oriented development being planned along the rapidways, new housing will be built, especially near the new centres that will be created in Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill and Vaughan. Almost all of the housing in these centres will be multi-unit, higher density apartments and condominiums. Elsewhere, other established neighbourhoods will be kept predominantly single family housing.

With so much of the new growth and housing planned in centres and along the rapidways, there will be less pressure on other areas to become more densely built up, allowing them to stay much the same. The ultimate goal is to preserve the balance around the region, offering more choice and more flexibility for people – no matter what stage of life they may be at, or their housing preferences.

Having more housing options means every member of your family can choose to stay in the community they love, even as their needs change over time. We’re pretty excited to think that vivaNext will help achieve such an important goal.

Categories
Live-work-play Urban Planning

Seeing into the future with York Region’s Official Plan

futurebuilds

What’s the best way to see what the future will look like for York Region? A crystal ball? Cards? Tea-leaves?

In all seriousness, when it comes to reading the future for our community, I suggest you look at York Region’s Official Plan. This document, which is a critical planning tool, has a number of functions: it’s a public document used to describe and promote our vision for the future, but it is also a legal document used to support and defend key decisions related to public infrastructure, development and growth.

Based on a 25 year planning timeframe but updated every five years, York Region’s Official Plan sets out several key themes which will guide planning decisions, and will help make growth work for us.

One of the main themes throughout the plan is the desire to concentrate growth and development in key areas through the region. This will be done through the further development of a series of centres and corridors, meaning new downtowns in Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill and Vaughan. The idea is that by building more intensively in these areas, there will be less pressure for growth in the existing communities.

These new multi-use centres will be connected by transportation “corridors” that will make it easier for people to get around the region. And obviously, the best way to travel will be on the vivaNext rapidways, which will run along the corridors and connect the centres.

As they develop, the centres will become focal points for exciting new destinations, offering more choices in entertainment, dining, shopping, and other kinds of attractions. They will also provide higher density housing in condominiums and apartments, for people who like the idea of living at the centre of the action. These new downtowns will be designed with people in mind: they will include attractive, public open spaces where people feel welcomed, and be designed in ways that encourage walking, cycling and transit use.

The Official Plan recognizes that while many people may like the idea of heading to one of the newly urbanized centres to dine out, to shop, or to go to work, they may also want to have a home in a quiet residential neighbourhood. So the Official Plan directs that those kinds of communities will be protected from the kind of intensification that will be used in the centres, so people can continue to enjoy the lifestyles they already have.

And because people in York Region value the greenspaces that make up such an important part of this area, a full 69% of the Region’s landmass will be protected as either Greenbelt or Oak Ridges Moraine.

The Official Plan goes into a lot of detail on these main themes, as well as a range of others, and is well worth reading to give you a sense of how your Region is going to manage growth into the future, and how it is going to evolve.

I like to think that with this well-thought-out plan, people in York Region will truly be able to have it all: our familiar communities will be protected, but we’ll get the benefits of city-building; and we’ll have a great rapid transit system to move us easily between all sorts of exciting new destinations. We’d love to hear your thoughts on this future vision, and what it will mean for you and your family!

Categories
Live-work-play Urban Planning

Shaping the vision for the future

official-plan_2010_06_071

When you think of York Region, what comes to mind for you? The comfortable, tree-lined family-friendly neighbourhoods of Aurora or Vaughan? Or maybe the increasingly urban appearance of Markham’s new development areas, with many large head offices employing thousands of professionals? Or maybe the quaint, walking-scale downtowns of Newmarket, Unionville or old Richmond Hill? Not to mention the lovely green countryside that wraps all around our towns, offering recreation, productive farmland, and rural lifestyles. Maybe you think of how some downtown sidewalk areas could be more inviting, how much longer it’s taking you to get to work these days, or how it’s hard to get from A to B in York Region if you don’t have a car.

It’s probably safe to say that everyone in York Region has a view of what their home community means to them, and what they’d like it to be in the future. If asked, most of us could list the things we love, and the things we’d love more of (or in the case of some things, like traffic gridlock, less of!)

So when it came time to update York Region’s Official Plan, residents were asked to describe their vision for the York Region of the future. The input for the Official Plan makes a great snapshot of what people want out of their home in York Region, and what matters to them, which include:

  • Let’s be green;
  • Let’s try to live and work in the same community;
  • Let’s make it more beautiful;
  • Let’s make it lively, with lots of interesting things to do;
  • Let’s live in neighbourhoods that are designed to let us get to know our neighbours;
  • Let’s have more choices in housing availability, to accommodate every member of our community – families, single people, young and old;
  • And to tie it all together – let’s make it easier to get around, with or without a car.

That’s what people said, and then planners had to figure out how to make that vision come to life, looking twenty and even thirty or more years into the future. That vision is captured in a hefty document that is York Region’s Official Plan.

So what’s all this got to do with vivaNext? I’m going to tell you more over the next couple of blog posts, but here’s a hint: one of the key things that’s going to help achieve that vision of a greener, livelier, more compact York Region, is a rapid transit network. More than just transit, the vivaNext plan will help to shape our community into the future, and help bring those things people want – more choice, more opportunity, more green, more fun– to life. So whether or not you take transit, having vivaNext is very good news, and will be great for our community.

Categories
Live-work-play Urban Planning

Sand castles and city building

sandcastles-and-city-buildng_2010_04_29lRemember when you were a kid in a sandbox, and you could have endless fun with sticks and pebbles, building imaginary cities and towns, with houses, stores, roads and schools. You would make sure your city had everything people would want (including great rapid transit to zip people from the drawbridge to the castle), everything would be perfectly organized, and nothing would be too far away.

Believe it or not, there’s a grown-up version of that same activity, with the not-so-catchy title of Land Use Planning. Although you may never have heard this term, land use planning affects every aspect of life in your community today, and how you will be living your life in the future. And one of the most direct ways land use planning affects you, is through your municipality’s official plan.

Every municipality in Ontario must – by law – have an official plan, which has to correspond to plans already established by more senior levels of government. For example, York Region’s Official Plan has to fit within the overall Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, and York Region’s municipalities’ plans need to fit within the overall Regional plan.

Official plans are updated every few years, based on much discussion and public consultation. Just like the sand-box version, official plans identify which parts of town will be where people will work, which ones will be for housing, and which might accommodate both. Working with provincial rules, such as those set out in the Greenbelt Act and Places to Grow, official plans identify which parts of town will grow and which ones will be protected from growth. They identify the main roads, how much traffic those roads can carry before gridlock brings them to a stop, and where transit services will be needed to move people around.

(Hint – York Region’s current Official Plan, which I want to talk about more in my next blog, calls for a heavy expansion of rapid transit across the Region to help us cope with growth – which is why implementing our vivaNext plan is such a high priority for York Region).

Official plans also reflect the values and priorities shared by the community, such as a concern for the environment, or the need for a range of housing choices. An official plan reflects and shapes its community, and provides a road-map for how the community is going to grow – and respond to growth – into the future.

Of course, planning a real-life community is a huge responsibility that can affect the day-to-day lives of thousands or even millions of people. So getting it right is important, and takes a long time and a great deal of care; after all, unlike the sand version, redoing an official plan takes more than a sweep of a shovel. Hearing from the public is a critical part of developing an official plan – York Region’s current plan has a whopping 1,500 page appendix of submissions from the public!

So next time, let’s look at York Region’s December 2009 Official Plan, which highlights the importance of increased rapid transit for the York Region of the future. In the meantime, I’d love to hear from you: if you could go back to the sandbox, what would be in your perfect sand-city?

Links –
Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing Citizens’ Guides to Land-use Planning
Ontario Professional Planners Institute

Categories
Live-work-play Urban Planning

Making room for everyone

making-room_2010_04_19

There might have been a time when, as it grew, a community could just continue to expand its boundaries farther out into the surrounding countryside, adding new neighbourhoods as more people moved in. But in our increasingly crowded part of the province, we’re long past the time when municipalities can just spread out endlessly – our boundaries are pretty much fixed. So finding room for new people has to happen within our existing space.

With provincial legislation setting out formal growth targets for all Ontario communities, York Region has had to do some careful planning to map out where all those new people are going to live. And we’re not talking small increases – our planners have projected that by 2031, York Region will need to find room for an additional 577,000 residents and 234,000 households. And those new people need places to work, so planners also need to factor in room for an additional 180 million square feet of employment floor space, to accommodate the 318,000 new jobs that will be needed.

York Region is pretty big, so maybe those people can all spread out? No, it’s not that easy. In the first place, although some people prefer to live in more rural settings, the majority of people in York Region want to live close to amenities – near schools, near stores, near entertainment – near all the great things that make city life interesting and convenient. And those things tend to be clustered at the heart of our existing larger communities, like Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill and Vaughan.

Secondly, although York Region is quite large geographically, a lot of our lands are actually very fragile environments, and are protected against significant development. In fact, nearly 70% of our total land is protected under either the Green Belt Act, or the Oak Ridges Moraine Act.

To make this a win-win for everyone, the Region has adopted a planning strategy that directs almost half of the expected new growth to existing built-up areas, with the other half going to new development areas. This approach will result in more opportunities for people to live, work and play in the neighbourhoods that they already know and love, while reducing some of the growth pressure on the surrounding countryside.

The Region’s Centres and Corridors – which include the cores of Markham, Newmarket, Richmond Hill and Vaughan – will play an important role in this growth strategy. Most of the growth that will occur within the Region’s existing urban area will take place in the Centres and Corridors. With this concentration of growth, people will find it easier to get around using existing and planned rapid transit services, and to enjoy the exciting mix of living, employment, shopping and entertainment options that are already there, and that will continue to evolve.

Those of us working on vivaNext are excited about this plan, because it will put transit at the centre of the action as York Region grows into the future. I’d love to hear what you think of this vision, and what it will mean for how you live your life in York Region?

Categories
Live-work-play Urban Planning

York Region: the need for a fine balance on growth

We have been talking about smart growth, and what is needed to ensure growth doesn’t change our communities in a negative way. One of the most critical needs is to have great transit in place, before the growth really happens.

At a recent community event, someone asked me: instead of worrying about smart growth, why don’t we just say “no”, and cap the size of our towns and cities the way they are, so they won’t change? Wouldn’t that solve our problems?

Unfortunately, there’s no such easy answer. To explain, here’s a mini-lesson on Ontario and York Region planning – for those of you who would like to read more, I’ll attach some interesting links at the bottom.

Planning for growth is a fairly complicated study of demographics, economic and employment patterns, development, and other trends and data. When it’s all put together, based on past patterns, planners are able to predict future populations and where people are likely going to be living and working. In this way, Ontario and York Region planners have forecast that in 2031 over 1.5 million people will be living in York Region and its communities; that’s up from just over 930,000 in 2006.

With those predictions and similar ones from other regions, the Province – in its Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe – instructed regions and municipalities to be ready to have much bigger populations. That means those municipalities need to plan for enough housing, schools, hospitals, roads, and transit – and everything else people expect from their community. And because the Growth Plan stems from a piece of legislation, it’s not as if municipalities can just ignore it – it’s the law.

The challenge for the Region and its municipalities is to find ways of accommodating all these new residents, in ways that don’t change the existing character of our communities; to leave intact the things that made us want to move here in the first place.

Obviously, finding a solution to this is complex, with many variables to consider, and the final picture will take multiple decades to come to life. But York Region’s planners believe they have found a balance, with rapid transit seen as one of the keys to make it happen.

Some interesting links –

Categories
Announcements Live-work-play Urban Planning

Places to Grow: setting the stage for growth

For those of us living in York Region and in the Greater Toronto Area, growth is one of those things that we cannot escape. In fact, the entire Province of Ontario is set to expand its population by nearly 30% over the next 30 years. Obviously, no one community is an island; growth in one area affects all of us.

To make sure all this growth has a positive impact on our communities, in 2005 the provincial government passed the Places to Grow Act. This Act set out specific growth targets and densities for the province. It also produced individual growth plans for key regions, including the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe Region. This plan is the basic rule book that is guiding planning for all the regions and municipalities in the region, including York Region and all its towns and cities. It calls for municipalities to look for ways to:

  • Revitalize downtowns to become vibrant and convenient centres;
  • Create complete communities that offer more options for living, working, learning, shopping and playing;
  • Provide housing options to meet the needs of people at any age;
  • Curb sprawl and protect farmland and green spaces; and
  • Reduce traffic gridlock by improving access to a greater range of transportation options.

This plan was welcomed as great news by people who understand the need for sustainable, smart management of growth. In fact, although the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe may sound like a bit of a mouthful, it has many admirers. It has won numerous awards – including from the Ontario Professional Planners Institute, the Canadian Institute of Planners, and the American Planning Association (APA) as the first recipient from outside the United States of the APA’s Daniel Burnham Award. Watch a video that showcases why they received the award. This is the most prestigious planning award in the United States, given to a comprehensive plan that, among other things, best represents the APA’s slogan of “Making Great Communities Happen”.

So we’re pretty fortunate in York Region to have this strong policy framework, and we’ve continued to build on it to shape the York Region of the future. It’s a long-term plan, and as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day. But bit by bit, this future vision is taking shape, and vivaNext is a key component.

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Announcements Stations Subways

Come see three Spadina Subway station designs at once!

A map of the Spadina subway extension.

Extending from Downsview Station in Toronto to the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre at Highway 7 in Vaughan, the Spadina subway extension will cover a total of 8.6 kilometres and include six new stations.

To date, three separate public open houses have been held to share the preliminary station design concepts with the community: Sheppard West Station on November 17, 2009, York University Station on December 3, 2009, and the Steeles West Station on February 3, 2010.

If you happened to miss the February public open house, you now have another opportunity to check out the preliminary design concept for the Steeles West Station, and be among the first to review the preliminary design concepts for the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre and the Highway 407 Stations. All three will be on display together at a public open house on Wednesday, March 10, 2010.

The preliminary design concept for the remaining new station – Finch West Station – will be presented to the public later this spring. Also, more open houses will be held later this year to share more detailed architectural concepts for all six stations so stay tuned.

Public Open House for Vaughan Metropolitan Centre, Highway 407 and Steeles West Subway Stations

Date: Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Time: 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Location: The Hilton Garden Inn, Toscana Centre
3201 Highway 7, Vaughan, ON
Categories
General Live-work-play

Growth: making the most of our community

Growth

We all know that York Region is growing. In some parts of the Region, this growth is happening so quickly that some people might worry their neighbourhoods could change in ways they won’t like. Truth is, growth throughout the Greater Toronto Area is going to continue and bring about change – it’s inevitable.

That’s why York Region has been so enthusiastic about bringing the vivaNext rapid transit expansion. But what does rapid transit have to do with managing growth, and why should you care? Let’s talk about this.

With growth, many more people will come to York Region, all wanting homes, jobs, and pleasant places to shop and relax. That means more new business and residential development, and more people needing to move around. Saying no to growth isn’t an option, but there are choices in what new development gets built, and where it happens. This is where growth can be good – or result in change that isn’t so good.

In the past, there was lots of room for new development, and it could spread out. Because it was spread out, people often drove everywhere – to go shopping, to get to work, to do the things that mattered. That was fine when our roads weren’t so crowded, and you could get around easily.

Over the years, two things have happened that changed the way we plan for new developments. One thing is an understanding that available land is limited. Limits have been placed on developments in the fragile greenbelt around the GTA that also surrounds York Region, protecting those lands for future generations. The second thing is that getting around the spread-out developments of the past is taking much longer, now that there are so many more cars on the road.

Part of the answer lies in careful planning for new growth. York Region’s Official Plan sets out clear rules for where new growth will go, and what will be allowed. Our existing neighbourhoods will stay much the way they are, but new developments will be more compact and pedestrian-friendly – especially along the main corridors. The other part of the answer lies in making sure that all new development can be easily reached by rapid transit, so people won’t need to rely on cars to get where they want to go.

With this plan, you’ll get to enjoy all the things you love about living here, plus you’ll have even more places to go and things to do…all connected by a leading-edge rapid transit system that will make getting around easier than ever before.

That’s the plan, and vivaNext is a key part of it.  So – tell us – what are the things YOU want to keep the same – and what new things do you wish were here?