In-fill housing

Originally posted 12/04/06 on PersonPlaceorThing.blogspot.com

I am attending a meeting tomorrow regarding the Saint John In-fill Housing Guidelines that were given to the city by a consultant in 1994.

I thought I'd type up a few thoughts on them before the meeting and see if they change after tomorrow evening.

First, the consultants talked about a rush of infill housing in the uptown, lower west side and north ends of Saint John that needed to be controlled by proper guidelines. I'm not sure if the guidelines were the major player, but it seemed for the majority of the following decade the tide of new construction was definitely controlled (if not kept completely at bay).

Second, the document talks about how the city's zoning rules at the time were too constraining for the in-fill areas because of set-backs and other siting issues. While this was likely the case I find it odd that the rules were made to help take limits away from developing infill site and then proceeded to suggest a number of limitations for these properties including front yard allowances (you have to be similar to neighbours), privacy requirements, sunlight blocking requirements along with numerous facade and design considerations.

I respect the fact that the people that live in these areas want to protect the value and life style afforded to them by their homes, but the rules seem to strict and the process by which developers have to go through for infill and historic areas seems to slow to allow for new growth in these areas.

From what I understand, there are some architects going to be at this meeting, perhaps they will better explain to me why the aesthetics are so important, because from a market analyst's perspective, I am not in favour of some of the rules in these guidelines.

I’ll be back tomorrow to let you know if I have learned anything new on this.

If this post meanders and rambles a bit I apologize, it was not proofread that thoroughly.