Well they are currently building a house on my block with one living space upstairs, 2 living spaces downstairs (those are accessed by rear doors) and a laneway house. So that one 122×33 property has 4 dwellings on it.

I know there are 13 properties on my block and it is about an acre. So assuming that all 13 properties are built the same way. I get 52 dwellings. I also realize that not every lot will be built the same way. And so that number would be lower.

Having said that I do agree that parking would be a nightmare. Although it might force people to not own a car for the simple fact that they have no where to even park a car.

“Worth noting you’d still be subsidizing them as a automobile user anyway.”

Well if they are on transit. They can’t be in the car at the same time. Although I do realize that everyone at some point will use a car for what ever reason. But nobody can be on both at the same time.

Worth noting you’d still be subsidizing them as a automobile user anyway.

Paul, if you are looking at a 33′ x 122′ lot with a house on it, unit density tops out at about 18 units to the acre. It is not so much a function of the 2,400 – 3,000 s.f. that number represents, but of problems with front doors, opening windows for habitable rooms, and that other thing… parking.

So, what Simpson and I were looking at in one of our FormShift schemes was to split the lot in two along the long dimension, then build with concrete and wood, and put the equivalent of 5 units per newly subdivided lot. That got us up to 60 units/gross acre in a very tight package that was still fee simple.

This building type in Toronto is called a “stacked town house”, and the most likely use of it would be by two families, living one over the other. One family occupying the main unit, and renting the second as a mortgage helper.

However, for the purposes of comparison, we still count that as 5 units with 2 persons per unit. In the case of stacked towns, you might actually have two households, with 10 people between them. Four adults and six children, or any other combination of that. A single flat might go on the top level, or over the garage adding a further resident and a second income source.

We suggested a reduction in the parking arguing that trams on the arterials would reduce parking demand. One car per family would suffice, and a guest could can park on the street.

U-Pass is here to stay.

First off there is a good chance that those students who did use transit while going to school. Might be more willing to use transit when they join the work force. I’m not saying all will.

Secondly while I as a taxpayer or a transit rider might have to subsidize a student using U-Pass. The fact remains every time you see a student on a bus whether it be with a U-Pass or a concession fare. That is one less student driving around polluting the air. That to me is worth subsidizing.

Of course I don’t expect you to see this. For your agenda is to get Vancouver to go cheap on Transit. Just so you can have you way quicker SoF.

The problem with transit is simple: we spend far too much money on very little transit.

Transit shapes growth, but not to the extent of building massive apartment complexes. But friends we for get one very important thing, transit is to move people. People are customers and of the customers don’t like the product they will not use it, except for Vancouver where deep discounted fares (U-Pass) have greatly skewed ridership.

Car ownership is increasing in the region and head offices are leaving Vancouver.

We may find in 20 years or so, having a hugely expensive metro system that doesn’t serve anywhere in particular, which taxes need to pay for it have driven businesses to relocate to cheaper areas.

Take away the U-Passes, concession fares and forced transfers and it would be very soon that we would see that the SkyTrain emperor had no clothes!

In fact I’d be willing to bet that that dwelling count is already higher than 13/acre in most of the single family homes area of Vancouver. The only place it might not be like that is on the west side of Vancouver in certain areas.

The downside of course is people are no longer living in a 2,100 sq ft home. But a portion of that.

Of course that wouldn’t equate to a higher collected property taxes. Only an increase in land and house value would do that. Besides a property tax rate increase.