To counter urban sprawl, single-family zoning must get out of its straitjacket and stop being the default development model for municipalities, argue more and more experts. Inspired by the Minneapolis model, they advocate a small zoning revolution.
In December 2018, the Minnesota Metropolitan City Council passed a plan to end single-family-only zoning throughout its territory. Therefore, those who wish could also build duplexes and triplexes everywhere. Three aims then motivated the elected officials: the reduction of greenhouse gases, the fall in housing prices and the fight against racial inequalities.
A small revolution that is causing a lot of talk in the United States, but also further north. “When we talk about densifying, what are we talking about? “wrote recently the director of the organization Vivre en ville, Christian Savard, in a post. “My preference would be to automatically authorize three-storey buildings everywhere, to allow densification on a human scale. This is the choice made by the City of Minneapolis…”
In Quebec, no city has gone so far in terms of regulations, but some municipalities are loosening the hinges of single-family zoning. This is particularly the case of Sainte-Catherine.
Entry into the scene of the UHA
In this municipality in the southern suburbs of Montreal, there is no more land available for new construction. The City has therefore adopted a new by-law to authorize the construction of accessory dwelling units (ADUs). This concept makes it possible to add a second home on land already occupied by a single-family home and, at the same time, promote “soft” densification. Unlike intergenerational homes, for which common areas are required, UHAs are independent dwellings that can be rented to relatives or non-relatives.
But the City does not intend to allow just anything anywhere, warns Marie-Josée Halpin, director of the Sainte-Catherine land use planning department. “It’s going to have to match the single-family house it’s built next to. There are rules for landscaping to preserve the privacy of the main dwelling, the UHA and that of the neighbours, she explains. We have worked to ensure that the physical appearance of the neighborhoods changes as little as possible. We don’t want it to look like duplexes. »
Single-family homes already in decline around Montreal
In 2002, half of the new constructions on the territory of the 82 municipalities of the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM) were single-family. This rate fell to 7% in 2021. In the crowns included in the scope of the CMM, this rate reached 75% in 2002.
In 2012, the CMM also adopted its Metropolitan Land Use and Development Plan (PMAD), which determines the perimeter of urbanization in such a way as to avoid the dezoning of agricultural land. Municipalities are thus called upon to densify their territory around transport axes.
As in other cities of the CMM, land on which to build new subdivisions has become scarce in Candiac. Two densification projects are underway. the TOD from the station (Transit-Oriented Development), located near Exo Station, will feature 3,000 townhouses and multi-family dwellings with a density of 67 units per hectare.
The other project is Square Candiac, a PODs (Pedestrian-Oriented Development) of 1700 housing units located opposite the town hall on a former industrial site. “The idea is to create living environments with diversity, public spaces and where people will not have to use their car to go to local services,” said Mayor Normand Dyotte.
But beware, the bursting of single-family zoning is not advised everywhere, warns Catherine Boisclair, coordinator at Vivre en ville.
Mme Boisclair participated this week in a panel on the theme of densification at the annual conference of the Union of Quebec Municipalities (UMQ). “If there is no public transport nearby, we do not densify there”, she decides. Why ? Because there is a particular risk of running out of parking lots and ending up with “fully paved” yards, like what was seen in Longueuil, where densification, which meant the removal of green spaces and the demolition of single-family homes , was strongly denounced.
Unpopular measure and very emotional debate
Longueuil is far from unique. In many places, the word ‘densification’ now has such a negative connotation that its proponents have to talk about ‘soft’, ‘smart’ or ‘green’ intensification to open discussions.
This was particularly the case in Quebec in the years 2014-2015, when the densification policies of the Labeaume administration sparked an outcry in the Sainte-Foy–Sillery sector. There, as elsewhere, residents saw small houses being destroyed and replaced by huge palaces not necessarily housing more tenants… However, cities have tools to prevent such abuses, warns Mme Clear wood.
Paradoxically, densification has already been part of our reality for decades, argues urban planner Charlotte Montfils-Ratelle, who was also invited to the UMQ panel this week. “We act as if we were starting to touch that, but there are cities that are already doing it without even thinking about it. One thinks of the small village where the snack bar closes and is replaced by a denser housing project with offices, or a shop and housing. »
In the field, Charlotte Montfils-Ratelle has often seen how epidermal the debate on these issues is. “We touch on the socio-cultural. It really is a blockage. People will imagine that there will be a loss of character in their neighborhood, that they will lose their intimacy…”
Conversely, people who densify their property are often very personally involved in their project, she observes. “UHAs are emotional, they are life projects. People do that with their family, with their friends. Moreover, despite the strong resistance to the concept of densification, people are more open when it comes to bigenerational projects, she points out.
Housing shortage and impact
One thing is certain, the housing shortage and the housing crisis have bolstered the arguments of the proponents of densification. ” The monster house, who will be able to afford it in the young generation? asks M.me Montfils-Ratelle.
However, the revision of single-family zoning alone will not allow everyone to be accommodated, pleads Catherine Boisclair. “It takes a cocktail of solutions. »
Moreover, in Minneapolis, the changes are modest. Thus, the 2018 reform only led to the construction of 23 additional two- and three-storey buildings between its entry into force in January 2020 and August 2021, according to a daily report local Star Tribune.
It remains to be seen whether these new models will appear in the National Policy on Architecture and Land Use Planning that will shortly be presented by the Minister of Municipal Affairs Andrée Laforest. Unlike her colleague François Bonnardel, the latter suggested this week that densification was not just a fad. “In recent decades, there have been condos, there have been residences, that’s what you’ve built […]. Now, there is a way to build differently. There are plexes, there are townhouses, there are multigenerational homes. So yes, there are ways. »