Hard Green Belts Have Failed 

I love the idea of seeding the greenbelts with TOD so that the inner-ring suburbs get densification pressure from both sides.

Your channel is becoming the 'whats what' of urban development and housing and I love it

“Some real simcity shit” is my ideal urban planning theme

Quebec has had agricultural zoning since the 1970s. The problem is that the government created the zones by including entire lots, even if only part of the lot is cultivatable. So much land that has never been and never will be cultivable is reserved as agricultural land. What's even worse, is that you cannot even touch a "wetland". That sounds great, until you look into how wetlands are defined. Any forested land that is humid in the spring and contains trees that are tolerant of wet soils, such as red maples, are considered to be a "wetland". I'm not talking about swamps and marshes. I mean ordinary forested land that is dry by June, and most of the "forests" around Montreal is in fact scrubby forests that grew up on farmland that was abandoned 50, 60, 70 years ago because no farmer could compete with food grown outside of Quebec without heavy subsidies. So what this means, is that although Greater Montreal makes up 50% of the population of Quebec but the built-up area only occupies 1% of the area of the province, and we are surrounded by plenty of land which is neither prime farmland nor mature forest nor real wetlands (such as swamps and marshes), we have a completely artificial shortage of land to build on. Furthermore, overly strict zoning prevents even the most modest densification, such as making an apartment in your basement or building a 2-story townhouse instead of a bungalow. I'm not talking about building high rises in suburban neighbourhoods. Just building a few basement apartments in existing houses or replacing a few bungalows with townhouses can increase the population of a town by 10%. If we would only protect genuinely prime farmland, true mature forests, real mashes and swamps, and a band along the shores of rivers and lakes, there would still be plenty of land available around Montreal for development. And I agree, it should be transit first.

I would say that for Ottawa's Greenbelt specifically, I'd like to see environmentally sensitive areas (Stoney Swamp, Mer Bleue, Pinhey Forest, etc) protected and transit corridors like the SW and West Transitways, and the future Line 1 East and Line 2 South densified around stations.

I like how the Dutch flipped the green belt concept with the Groene Hart. A green heart vs a green belt.

That's actually a very compelling alternative plan. Like the "Laval REM" / "South Shore REM" / "REM to Chambly" type of idea that the Québec government keeps floating, except with infill stations and TOD. In Toronto it'd mean adding infill stations to all-day two-way GO and TODing those, something I've always thought we should do along the Kitchener Line

the transitions and editing in this were really good continuing the trend of making me have thoughts like "everything would be better if they just put me unilaterally in charge of public policy" which can't be good

10:06 "But facing the world as it is, and adjusting your plans based on what's actually working is probably the part of growing up that we actually need to do now." Love the idea 👌

I immigrated from Esfahan Iran to Toronto. One day I was looking at Google maps and saw the sheer size of Toronto + GTA. Its fucking huge. My hometown of Esfahan which houses more people btw is like 5 times smaller than Toronto +GTA area. Its fucking mental.

"I hope you get grease on your disc brakes" is exactly the kind of quality insult humour I come to this channel for - well done everyone. Also though I think I understood it, I'm not sure your solution was explicit or repeated enough in this video. For example, a lot of TMR is suburban ranch style housing, but you were talking about how nice it all was while standing in front of a small multires. Maybe another video on the solution and what configurations could look like in Mtl and other cities with the 'greenbelt opportunity. '

I swear your videos are gold. It's good to see an articulated version of what I always felt to be wrong with north american urban planning.

When Griffintown was first proposed there was significant opposition from some community groups saying low income people would be negatively impacted and that there would be less cheap rental space for artists or something. But I guess they weren't strong enough to stop such a juggernaut of a development

Man even in Prague you can see the sprawl in the towns outside the city and some of it is as bad as the north american one just roads and street and nothing else and the higher density is lagging behind

Perfect analogy: "growing like weeds through the political policy cracks."

Wow this really changed my mind

Its kinda crazy to me how much power nimbys have in canada that building on farmland and stuff like that is more politically feasible than densifying, here in central europe we definitely do build on new land but densifying is definitely still happening, in my quasi single family detached housing/detached multi family neighborhood there are like at least 3-4 single family homes being torn down and turned into apartments and I dont see anyone complaining

Pretty Compelling Idea here, it would benefit in many ways. Pushing the idea further this would also change the election results and spread city bound ideas beyond present city centers. In Quebec city we struggle to make the Tramway happens because of the harsh backlash from the suburbs that feel left out even though, they claim being uninterested to use transit anyway. What they forget is that this cycle back reducing investment in public transit, making it worse and less appealing. I know you don't like tramways haha :P and I wish myself this project was better funded to maximize the impact, but it's a start and if that can attract people to the city center because they now have decent service, I think it's a big first step in the right path way. Thanks for the content again best wishes!

I completely agree. Zoning code reform should have been done in conjunction with the introduction of the ALR in BC in the 1970s, instead of expecting municipalities to handle it themselves.

time and time again I question why cbc hasn't picked up this kind of well thought up content

I should stop watching your videos, they are making me angry and I feel like stepping outside to yell at clouds. Faut qu'j'arrête d'argarder tes vidéos, ça me mets en beau joualvert pis j'ai d'aller dehors pour crier à tue-tête. Honestly, Merci mon brave pour your content!

"Green Belt Muffin Top" 😂😂 Smashes Subscribe button!

Love that topic... interesting point of vue that I didn't understand or didn't know... thanks buddy!

I don't think anything significant is going to change in our society unless we change a few fundamental building blocks. (PR instead of FPTP, axing parking requirements, changing our zoning codes....) We need major action and I feel like the people in charge are dragging their feet. Instead of improvements happening with a piecemeal approach, improving the very core of the system, at every level of government, will be crucial for major changes to take place. (Or, if your a boomer with a nice big house next to a field, you can be happy with the status quo, because that status quo made you a millionaire for almost zero effort!)

Am I dreaming or did you have a piece run on CBC recently? If so congrats!

Hey, Paige! Nice to see you reference TMR, where I grew up. I will have to be a bit persnickety in how it came to be. The Mount Royal Tunnel was not built as part of a transit-first/oriented initiative. The tunnel was bored through the mountain to allow the Canadian Northern Railway a means of accessing Montreal's Gare Centrale; the logical routes along the southern side of Montreal Island were already taken up by the CPR and the Grand Trunk, the CNoR's business rivals. The Town of Mount Royal project was sort of a side hustle where creating a garden suburb with access to the heart of downtown would offset the construction costs and help with the CNoR`s western expansion.

I understood this many years ago, I used to explain it to people but I would call it a donut. This design is actually causing a lower quality of life overall for everyone that lives in the city.

Big Oof… Being from Calgary, I’ve never known much about greenbelts. Thanks for the education! Too bad that didn’t work…

That "grow up hippies" sign off tho 😆

Love the channel and your content!

In Saint-Jérôme, there seems to be a trend of; making public transport more affordable and accessible (ie: free bus and taxi during covid for residents, the train takes you all the way into montreal, more and more protected bike paths and pedestrian paths are being implemented.) top it off with some low-medium density housing (loads of single family housing organized as neighborhoods with appartments/condo complex on the outskirts of said neighborhoods) And from that I think we can see a way to salvage the situation a bit. More and more people use their bikes to get around inside Sait-jerome, and as most people work in or just outside Montréal, the train is always packed. The car park at the train station is loaded, but in a way, better those cars be there than on the highway. (We can’t ask too much at once or it’ll fail). But in the same way (take me for instance) The wife and I bought the house just before the covid craziness of housing prices (very fricking lucky) and we do have 2 cars (both bought and paid for before buying the house) and we very rarely use both in the same day. We travel everywhere together, and even more so now that we got a kid. We can’t exactly get rid of our car since travelling anywhere other than Montréal is a nightmare using public transport. But everything done inside the city of Saint-Jérôme, we try to go by foot or bike. And the fact that the city is helping us doing so really goes to show that the global mentality of cities is slowly changing back to being « people oriented » rather than business. Having our son really put us in perspectives as to what we want the future to be like for him. So we do our part as best we can with what we’re dealt. (Please forgive the poor grammar)

5:00 nails it!

The UK does a bit further with Green belts, my town is surrounded by green belts (Tbf most my county is 1 greenbelt) but it doesn't seem to change anything about what can be built there. My small town is just a bunch of car centric cul-de-sacks bolted on to a fairly well made town; they don't add shops or even bring better funding for buses. There is plenty potentiation like a mainline rail pass through the town but we no longer have a station, we are 15 mins car from both near-by cities so an express bus might work. It really just lack of vision and funding that my community isn't better connected than an unreliable bus every 30 mins that takes 45 mins to get to the big city. I love living close to nature but green belts ain't more diverse than anywhere else (The UK has a huge issue with ecological diversity), the transit is bad, and the new homes aren't affordable or good for the village.

As a Vermonter, I find it interesting how you say that the green belt has failed somewhat in Montreal. Whenever I go up there, there is always a point at which I can pinpoint the edge of the urban area (the 10/30 interchange), though much of the south shore is still fairly low density. I compare this to driving to Boston, where it feels like the city just fades in with suburbs extending far outside of the city, with extremely low density for miles upon miles from the city.

Montrealer who moved to Houston here. I wish I could like this 10000x. Québec is a lost cause sadly. And development is only getting more expensive

This reminds me of the neighbourhood being built around the Du Quartier REM station, on the edge of the green belt: 20+ storey buildings filled with young people stuck between low-density suburbs and fields! A short extension of the REM further into the Chambly fields could create a high-rise neighbourhood with tens of thousands of new units and great amenities. Another such spot is in Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, on the Laval side of Montreal-Nord. If the Rem de l'Est gets built to Marie-Victorin, a Du-Quartier-like development should be able to happen on those fields aswell.

Love your videos, please make more and increase the awareness as to why the housing crisis is the way it is

Nice video Paige and I like the music backing. Great one

We live in a small flat attached to our shop... just like shop owners used to do. We rarely need a car and pay one mortgage. Why did this ever go out of fashion?

I think there should be more projects like solar uniquartier in Brossard

What you wrongly assume in this is that outside the green belt has to be car oriented. Suburbs can be built with good transit

Nice vid as always! A really good idea, might wanna pitch it to the province :) If anyone is in BC write to your MLA and tell them to continue with removing some planning permissions from local councils (E.g. For low income housing). It's another way to increase the amount of housing. I know Japan has all planning at the state level, I don't think it's a coincidence that they have high density, though it's also just the huge population.

I see this video as a big argument for replacing low density suburban lands with medium and high density developments. That certainly doesn't negate the need to preserve and protects agricultural lands, forests and wetlands near cities. In Toronto terms, Oshawa, Hamilton and Mississauga should all be high-density centres with high-rises and viable downtowns. They should be linked by easy public transit. BUT they should still be separated by green trees and farmlands. One of the biggest argument for greenbelts is that you only have one chance. You can't go back. Once you cover farmland with warehouses, suburban roads and (yes) industrial-scale greenhouses, it will never ever revert to being 'green'.

Great video as always! Here's my comment for the algorithm lol.

"I hope your bike gets stolen.. Again." 💀

Commuted by bus into Kanata over the last summer. Whatever we build, lets spare the next generation that horror.

Man, that stretch that you showed between Nepean and Kanata (Ottawa)... Ottawa's O-Train doesn't even make it accross the belt and what they're building now (scheduled to be finished in 2026) stops in the middle of it... 😑

this is a algorithm boosting comment

I definitely think you’re right, but more solutions are necessary too. Building satellite towns around region rail also needs to be part of the solution. Enable people to live in Granby and let such towns grow too. The reality is, huge numbers of people like single family housing and choose that lifestyle.

I'm sure there is a good why that would cause more problems than it solves, or be politically impossible, but here it is: how about we protect everything that has significant ecological value, or has the potential to, say by linking other ecologically significant zones; protect with zoning much more areas with agricultural potential, and also designate areas for potential industrial or manufacturing development, and then there truly only no other way but up, which could be incentivized further by different measures like governments trying to buy any property on the market at market value, demolishing, and reselling the lot while mandating high density. Just thinking out loud...

To be fair some of the growth in east ottawa pre-dates the green belt. (Orleans)

most of what you're saying is true but you need to look carefully at how much "green belt" you have and what can be developed there. you might be talking about 20k - 40k units and you're just not going to get that building duplex. TOD and high rise is like PB and J

rezoning the green belts sounds just as politically challenging as implementing a land tax or other policies to densify existing neighbourhoods. how about we start with the shacks by jolicoeur metro station? or war time housing in ville saint-laurent? there is a smattering of grey field and low density developments in our city that exist and will continue to exist whether or not neolibs with good intentions start chiseling away at green belts. for a page so opposed nimbys, sprawling even further whether high density or transit oriented is defeatist. like, hey nimbys, you win. we’ll just build a new neighbourhood around yours. then you’ll have to densify! if this were true, hampstead and TMR would have been transformed by now. also keep in mind montreal, vancouver and ottawa are bound by bodies of water. edmonton and calgary are not. that is a factor limiting growth historically. it isn’t just the green belts.

9:37 DO YOU SEE IT!

Or just make strict green belts very close to the city, demolish the suburbs and only allow dense villages and towns outside it

Unfortunately the Greenbelt itself is just disappearing around Toronto. Loopholes allow developers to continue paving over greenspace for single family homes. Doug Ford has decided to pave a highway over it too 🤦‍♂. He claims that it will help the environment by stopping suburban commuters from idling their cars. It will go over marshes and forests and farms. There are already two highways parallel to it. No Ontarians actually want the highway, just his developer buddies that own land along it

I doubt building high density development on established green belts will be any more politically feasible than building it in existing suburbs.

Come to Europe, where mixed land-use is king…

Is that a Kiwi American accent? I'm sorry for your loss.

North Americans have a speculative mindset and that's great for many things like starting a business of your own but applied to housing and real estate, it's a disaster

or you know... increase gas tax or put tolls on the highways to discourage the sprawl...

Planners: "We need to densify all the neighborhoods immediately." People: "Erm well, but we actually don't want to live in dense neighborhoods." Planners: "Wha...but...but...whyever not??" People: "Well, because of the noise, the lack of private space, the crime, the social and racial tensions, politicians who don't care and don't listen to the residents, the poor education, the..." Planners: "WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE SO STUPID DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND etc."

thank you