New Models for Housing

Living space on the roof. Houses stacked in the sky. Read on to hear my not-so crazy ideas about new models for housing in Ottawa.

What do two housing crises in a row in Ottawa tell us about the state of the market?

As a recap, in 2018, Ottawa’s rental inventory hit an all-time low, driving prices higher and making it difficult for many to find housing.

On the other hand, the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 caused a massive drop in the inventory of houses for sale, again pushing prices up and forcing prospective buyers into bidding wars.

What sort of flaws led to both of these problems? Are they being corrected? Can they be?

First of all, the state of affairs.

There are currently thousands of rental units in the pipe, meaning developers are finally coming around to deal with the rental crisis. Conveniently, the pandemic and rising demand for far-flung housing has taken some heat off the rental market.

The City is moving ahead with opening up another 1200 hectares of land on the suburban fringe for development. As above, this is going to come way too late to help with the current problem.

The entire city's laggard response to these housing crises points only to one problem - there is no resiliency here. Our market is not built to withstand shocks of any magnitude.

Obviously, this is not solely a problem in our city. Most cities don't have an endless supply of housing lying around. Further, it's hard to predict the flow of people far into the future, let alone unexpected problems like a pandemic.

All that said, I do think it's time the city took proactive, rather than reactive measures in the housing market. By city, I don't just mean our municipal government, but everyone, from renter, to home-owner, to developer. Together, we can build a city that works for everyone.

I will add that a comprehensive housing strategy needs, needs, to address these critical points - housing affordability, and sustainability. Everything else, specifically profit which too often is front-and-centre in our housing industry, should come second.

Let's examine some models of housing around the world that manage to touch on the affordability criteria.

Existing Models

Helsinki

"Just do it yourself"

A quote from this article in The Guardian really stands out.

“And there, the Finnish capital is fortunate. Helsinki owns 60,000 social housing units; one in seven residents live in city-owned housing. It also owns 70% of the land within the city limits, runs its own construction company, and has a current target of building 7,000 more new homes – of all categories – a year.”

This model nails the affordability criteria, although it is not entirely replicable in our case.

Houston

"Just let them do it"

Much has been made of the fourth-largest city in the States’ housing policy – essentially just keep opening up land. Even with the devastation wrought by Hurricane Harvey, Houston remains a sprawling metropolis that seems to just keep expanding.

In this model, housing is kept affordable since so much gets built. If exurbs keep getting built, chances are most people will be able to afford a house, at the cost of running unsustainable growth in the long-term.

Montreal

"Just rent it"

Somehow, despite sky-high rental costs in Toronto and Vancouver (believe me, I know - I rented essentially a cave of a bedroom in a Toronto basement for $900/month), Canada's second largest city remains surprisingly affordable - often on par with Ottawa, a city with less than half the population.

In Montreal, rent remains cheap as the stock is generally older, shorter, and with less amenities. Not only that, but there is a cushion in the vacancy rate as Montreal's growth is lower than Canada's hottest markets in Ontario and BC.

Barcelona

"Car free zones"

Zones called Superblocks in Barcelona do not allow non-local car traffic, restrict car speed to around 10km/h, and put pedestrians first. This model has allowed the addition of many street-trees, providing more shade and helping to reduce the urban heat-island effect.

This design helps an extremely dense city add more living space for residents in the core as well as improving the safety of pedestrians.

This is not an exhaustive list of housing models, but some food for thought as we continue.

Sustainability

The next section I'd like you to consider is sustainability. This is a combination of building more energy-efficient buildings, having a more efficient system of city-wide mobility, and just generally reducing the amount of stuff produced.

How can our housing model meet this criteria?

Building Sizes

This article will tell you about the actual impact skyscraper's have on the environment. TL;DR, it's a lot. As it turns out, building taller buildings, while effective for fitting a lot of people into smaller spaces, is not actually all that energy efficient. Think of the materials, the transport, climate control inside (especially in those full glass buildings)...

As it turns out, building shorter buildings is actually better for the environment. And let's face it, Ottawa isn't Hong Kong, Manhattan, or Vancouver. There are no natural constraints to expansion that force us into ever-taller buildings. There's no real need for skyscrapers.

Building Materials

Another consideration for sustainable development is the material used in construction. As it turns out, the sand that is used to make concrete is dredged from rivers, and we are running out of it. The need to turn to different sources of construction material may even help remove some sustainability concerns, obviously depending on what material is chosen.

City Efficiency

When I talk about an efficient city, I mean one that allows for excellent mobility in an energy-efficient manner. This would include modes of transport like transit, cycling or walking, and generally exclude modes like driving (sorry EV owners). Jury's still out on self-driving cars, but if a car-sharing model was extended across a whole city, I might just include that here.

Basically, a sustainable city is also one that promotes collective transport and allows residents in any area access to the same set of amenities i.e. doctor, grocery, dining, hardware, etc.

A further point to consider here is roads. Roads are made of concrete and oil, two materials that we really want to cut down on. In Ottawa, roads are also severely punished by heavy salting in the winter, frost-heaves underground, and then the traffic that bears down on top of them, not to mention the plows. This ends up with infrastructure that needs constant repair and maintenance and a backlog millions of dollars long. An efficient city would be one that cuts down on the amount of road space, in favour of new alternatives.

Again, I'm not putting down an exhaustive list, but rather giving you something to consider.

Lastly, let's consider human psychology. As we witnessed with the two housing crises, the market can change at a moment's notice, but at the end of the day it's still driven by demand.

Let's ignore for a moment any other possible factors and just look at what people have been doing.

With Covid forcing many of Ottawa's typical rental clientele away (namely students and new immigrants), that crisis has been reduced. The supply of new buildings coming should help with the issue once normalcy resumes. On the other hand, the current crisis of low housing supply and increased demand, points to a desire for more space.

That space comes in the form of larger housing further out from the core of the city, houses with yards and more square-footage, presumably for adding office space, extra rooms for kids, etc.

Houses of this magnitude doesn't come cheap in the core, and now these high prices are expanding further out as supply utterly fails to keep to keep up with demand.

It's a problem that growing cities will all face. Many businesses and services were located in the core - people want to live closer - space is limited, so comes at a premium - prices drive up. The expectation is that those unwilling to sacrifice space for convenience will look for reasonably priced living further away from the core.

It seems, at least in the case of Ottawa, that housing most can afford is in dichotomy - you can get space further out, or you can get a tiny box further in. This kind of development has repercussions - instead of an even spread of types of people across the city, you end up with specific groups in specific areas (i.e. families concentrated in the suburbs, students renting in the core).

If we want to build an environmentally sustainable and affordable city, it's going to take a lot of work, and experimentation with new housing models. I think it will be important to consider the factors that push people into certain types of housing as well.

First, a non-scientific list of reasons people might choose housing.

Apartments/Condos

Those who live in apartments or condos obviously have many reasons for doing so. For some, they do not need a long-term housing solution, and so renting makes sense. For others, the cost of renting or buying a unit may make more financial sense. Still for others, the location may be the top consideration. Some buildings also offer a set of amenities that someone might like, i.e. access to a gym or pool.

There are many reasons people would avoid this type of lifestyle. Perhaps living so close to so many people is not palatable to you. Perhaps you have a family and need more space. Perhaps you hate elevators. Perhaps privacy is very important to you.

Houses

Houses here can include everything from row-houses, to town-houses, to single-family-homes. These types of residence typically offer increased space compared to an apartment or condo. Especially as single-family-homes, more privacy is offered, as you do not share walls/floors/ceilings with other dwellings.

Houses that most people can afford are generally (not always) located further away from the core. With remote-work, this is not really an issue anymore. And Ottawa is a fairly decentralized city on the whole, so perhaps this was never a major issue for many.

Idea Time

With all of these considerations in mind, let's examine some ways our city could promote sustainable and affordable housing, while continuing to meet the housing needs of its citizens. These ideas prioritize building new housing stock, which will increase the supply of housing thus helping with affordability, while also promoting more sustainable development.

Combine House and Yard

There's been talk of how green roofs can have a positive impact, helping to negate urban heat islands and offering better climate control to the buildings beneath. When we consider the size of typical lots that include house and yard, we definitely see a lot of wasted space. What if we combined house and yard, thus allowing for continue living in single-family-homes, while massively reducing the space required.

Here's the idea - each house is build with a flat roof with some kind of fencing around it. On that roof, the yard is placed. Patio furniture, grass, shrubs, trees, whatever the homeowner desires. Plop it all on top.

Here on the left is a pretty typical looking suburban locale with 6 houses with big driveways, front, and back yards. I took the house at the bottom left, put the yard on top, and pasted it all over that area. Look at how many houses could fit! Double! Yard space is maintained at the top, and there is still room there for parking.

Of course, if you want a pool or something this probably won't work, but for many this could be a solution to give them the house they want, and maintain the density we need. Plus, they'll probably save money on heating and cooling in the long run.

Stacked Townhouses

While according to my considerations skyscrapers are out, that doesn't mean taller buildings are out entirely. Today, these buildings are often filled with a mix of studio, 1, and 2-bedroom units, offering limited space and tightly packed living. This helps investors get a better return on their investment.

If we want to improve the mix of residents in denser settings though, it's time to shake that model up. Think of a town-home you've visited. Maybe it's two-four floors tall, somewhat narrow, but still spacious. The door opens out to the driveway, and maybe there's a yard in the back too.

While some parts like yards are not entirely replicable in a taller building, there's no reason the design can't be accommodated. That's where the idea of stacked townhouses comes in.

Units within buildings would be multi-floor, and offer much more room, for example enough bedrooms to support a family. Combine this with improved park space around to replace the lack of a yard, and you've just expanded the mix of people in that neighbourhood!

Cover up roads with houses

As I mentioned above, roads are a pretty bad investment. For now, they are still necessary, but we may be approaching a future where the need for roads is at least reduced. In that case, we should take up some of the wide road space already built to put more housing down. Further, we can even consider buildings houses without direct access to the road.

See my green roof idea above for an example of what that could look like. An existing road might dead-end in two places, and between them a bunch of houses would be built. If residents do need vehicles, they could park at the dead-end. For emergency vehicle access, wide paths would connect the houses to the road, but not allow driving under normal circumstances.

Developer-free developments

The city has demonstrated its willingness to open up new lands to development. Each time, these tracts of land are either already owned by a large corporation, or can quickly be purchased by one. With profit as the number one motive, developers build cookie-cutter neighbourhoods that seem to prioritize cheap housing over sustainable design.

The city could help residents looking for housing by changing the way they open up land. It doesn't have to be for all land, there's still plenty to go around.

What would happen is the city, or a non-profit organization connected, buys up a tract of land, and then sells lots at cost to prospective residents. There will be some plan for services, streets, and parks, but generally these residents will be able to build what they want - on a single lot.

Cooperative Condo Construction

Co-op housing has a small footprint in Ottawa. Generally, it's a group of shareholders within a set of houses, who do not own their own houses, but do collectively own the group of houses.

One of the setbacks to cooperative housing is the cost of construction - a set of houses is cheaper to build than a taller building.

However, if a group of people could agree to do the same thing, but for an apartment or condo structure, this group of shareholders could potentially unlock funding from a bank, and construct this type of dwelling.

Unlike traditional apartment models, the group is less interested in creating a money-earning building, than they are in an actual livable space. This could be a new model in terms of building more diverse unit-types in taller buildings, while reducing the costs around housing.

There are plenty of ways a city can improve housing for its residents, and build resiliency for the future. We don't have to lurch from crisis to crisis, always behind the curve. It won't be easy to push against the entrenched inertia of a lumbering industry, but there's no time like the present to get started.