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Strong Towns Guelph, Guelph, ON (2026)

03/11/2024

Did you know almost 8 Eiffel Towers can fit on all the land allocated to parking in the University of Guelph campus?

Out of the total land area of the UofG campus, around 14.4% is dedicated exclusively to parking. This amounts to a land area of 186,776 m² with a comfortable parking capacity of 7,471 cars on campus, and around $747 millions in land value currently given over to the storage of vehicles.

Do you think this is a wise use of land within the context of constrained finances (both at the city and university level), as well as within the context of a severe housing crisis and strong need for better environmental stewardship?

If half the land area used for parking was instead developed into student residences with a similar style and density of the Solstice 1 building on Gordon Street (6 storeys), housing could be provided for an additional 9,340 students within campus alleviating the housing crisis and reducing the need for car ownership and vehicle trips among students thus leading to a reduction in the environmental burden.

The benefits don't stop there as an 8% net return on land value as a result of turning some parking lots into student residences could provide the university with an extra $29 million in revenue, which had this been done in the past this could've single-handedly covered the projected deficit of $22.1 million for 2024/25.

How could this be a reality? Two crucial steps would be a change in the zoning bylaw to permit greater densities in and around campus, and a repeal of the current city parking mandates that stifle development by requiring arbitrary amounts of parking to be built even if the demand for parking isn't there and the built environment facilitates other modes of transportation.

What do you think? Should we continue devoting valuable land to parking or should we build housing and mixed use spaces in those places where people want to live and work the most? Leave your thoughts below!

07/11/2023

What should the Guelph Innovation District be like? More of the same sprawl or a dense walkable livable community that creates wealth and attracts talent?

The Guelph Innovation District is an area (Orange perimeter, a total of 4.52 square kilometers!) envisioned by the city to be a compact mixed use community that should function as an economic cluster focused on green economy and innovation sector jobs. The city has partnered with Fusion Homes and Sasaki Design to work on building the "city within the city". The main development area (the blue perimeter) consists of around 1.3 km² of land, enough to fit almost two of our Downtowns!

Do you have an idea of what this area could look like? I do! In the second image is the satellite view of what the main development area could look if we were to build a mixed-use mid density walkable neighborhood, with such a built environment we could house up to 20,000 residents (and potentially generate up to $500 million in yearly tax revenue 👀)! The third image shows what the main arterial route could look like if we decided to build with a complete streets approach, while the fourth image shows what the adjacent streets could look like with a safe traffic calmed design that allows for all users to use the right of way safely.

What do you think? Should we be bold in building a walkable vibrant community? Or should we backtrack and build more of the same boring and bankrupting car dependent sprawl?

06/17/2023

Should we add more parking in our downtown? Or should we add more housing and commercial spaces?

Our Downtown already has close to 20% of the land dedicated to parking with capacity for close to 7 thousand cars, why devote more time and more funds to house cars instead of people?

In the 2nd and 3rd photo there are examples of urban infill that we could build in our Downtown to make Guelph a more affordable and financially sustainable city! The size of the reimagined areas amount to 83,293 m² (slightly over 10% of all Downtown land), if we allowed mixed use upper mid density with no parking mininums we would have the potential to house up to 5,000 new residents downtown in walkable neighborhoods that could potentially add up to $50 million in yearly net tax revenue! Imagine what projects the city could do to make life better in Guelph with that financial capacity! (A revival of the Guelph Streetcar network 🤔)

What if we wanted to go the other way and try to accomodate every driver to a spot downtown? Photo #5 shows how much land it would require to park every car in Guelph (Assuming around 100k cars). The yellow overlay is the amount of land that it would require to build a proper parking lot for all the cars, it would take about 3.26 km² or about 4 times the size of our Downtown. The orange overlay shows what it would look like If we wanted to just park all cars bumper to bumper, it would take about 1.34 km² or around twice the size of our Downtown

What do you think? Should we try to accomodate every driver and every car in our Downtown, or should we build more places for people to live and enable them the opportunity to live car free and estimulate the local economy? I think the choice is clear!

05/28/2023

We have too much parking in the North end of the city...

Did you know that this section of the north side of town has 320,211 m² dedicated to surface parking and loading zones (15.6% of all land in the chosen perimeter)? That is roughly equal to half of all the land in our Downtown, all this endless parking land can hold around 10,600 cars. The value of the land currently allocated to surface parking could be valued at around $300 million (which under our current property tax system we would under tax relative to other land holdings with the same market value as the scheme focuses on taxing developed lots instead of the value of the land itself, maybe it's time we move to a land value tax system instead with transparent market value assessments 🤔), if half the land allocated to cars was used for mid density housing we could house up to 30,000 in this area and put nice downward pressure on housing prices. What do you think? Should Guelph build more housing or should we build more surface parking lots and continue subsidizing suburbia destroying farmland and forests in the process?

But how could we reconvert those lots to build more housing and mixed use spaces for people to work and shop right where they live?

Photo #3 shows what the North end Walmart area could look like if we allocated some of the parking and unused land to places for people to live, work, and hang around!

05/06/2023

Did you know that Guelph used to have a streetcar network??

It was built in 1895 by George Sleeman with the (probable) original purpose of connecting customers with his products and workers to the plant site, eventually it expanded to become a bigger transportation network covering almost all of the city at the time with electrified streetcars (around 19.6 km of track in total with 3.7 km dedicated for freight). Eventually, the network fell in disrepair from lack of investment and became unprofitable as it was unable to compete with subsidized car infrastructure (cars that also caused uncompensated damage to the tracks increasing maintenance costs), by 1937 the municipal government had bought the network and tore it apart, replacing the streetcars with bus coverage and further increasing the dominance of cars into the city landscape

The 1st photo shows what the coverage would've been like today if we had kept all the 1922 tracks and updated the network to modern standards. The 3rd photo shows a modern streetcar network that we could rebuild at a competitive cost taking advantage of existing underutilized rail corridors, the total length would be 13 km and cost around $700 million CAD. A network like this with high frequencies would attract much needed transit oriented mixed use developments, increase land values (bringing in more tax revenue for the city), reduce pollution, improve health by encouraging more people to walk, reduce car traffic, and improve the wellbeing of the most disadvantaged members of our community by making transit a real convenient and reliable way of getting around without needing to own a car (which are very expensive and can lead to throwing away $6000 or more in annual expenses). What do you think? Should Guelph rebuild the streetcar network?

Fun facts:

Did you know that Guelph has a land area comparable to London, Rome, and many other European cities with 10 to 30 times our population? Did you know that Lausanne in Switzerland, a city smaller than Guelph in area and with the same population size, has a successful metro system with a length of 13.7km (roughly the same length as the streetcar system we could rebuild 🤔)?

03/21/2023

How should Guelph expand to meet provincial targets and create more places for people to live in this housing affordability? More of the same single family home suburbs? Or should we build nice financially sustainable walkable places?

The South End has around 547,000 m² of potentially developable brownfields on which the city will probably expand as time goes on. If all of this land was used to build the same cookie-cutter single family home subdivisions we could build enough housing for 1100 residents. However, If we embraced a more financially sustainable and walkable development pattern we could house 17,500 residents in mixed use mid density neighborhoods with buildings no taller than 8 stories.

As a thought experiment, photo #3 is how a walkable neighborhood in the lands of 132 Clair Rd West (with a total land area of 186,524 m²) could look like. A walkable neighborhood like this could house up to 5,960 residents on buildings not taller than 8 stories, and also allow them to enjoy safe and productive streets along with green areas to enjoy within a walkable reach.

For contrast, photo #4 is how the area would look like if we continued building more of the same low density single family homes and segregated commercial strip malls. A subdivision like this could house up to 370 residents.

What do you think? Should we continue building subdivisions like the one in photo #4 or should we start building walkable communities like in photo #3? Which option do you think is better for our environment, health, city finances, and economic development? The choice is yours, advocate for the community you want! Leave your thoughts in the comments!

Legend:

Brown Area - South End Brownfields

Greenish Yellow Area - grass area adjacent to Industrial Zone

2nd Photo - 132 Clair Rd West brownfield area

3rd Photo - 132 Clair Rd Walkable mid density urban version

4th Photo - 132 Clair Rd Clairfields Subdivision Extension version

02/18/2023

Do you want to meet like minded people and have a casual conversation about walkability, Strong Towns, urbanism, the negative aspects of car dependency, transit, safe streets, financial sustainability, and other local issues?

Come to the first Strong Towns Guelph Meet-up tomorrow Saturday 18th from 9 AM to noon at the Tim Hortons located on 158 Clair Rd E in the South End of Guelph!

If you can't make it at 9 AM or you can't stay the whole time don't worry, you can still come by! This will be a casual Meet-up to connect with members of our community, discuss local issues, and to talk about possible avenues of change. We look forward to seeing you there!!

Email [email protected] if you want to join our mailing list and stay in touch!

02/17/2023

Worried about not enough parking in Downtown Guelph?

Hopefully It will put your mind at ease that Downtown has approximately 135,764 m² of land exclusively dedicated to surface parking lots, diagonal on-street parking, and the Downtown parkades.

This amounts to 17.7% of all the land in Downtown allocated exclusively for parking with a potential car storage capacity of 5,720 cars, and an estimated land value opportunity cost of around $800,000,000.

If half of all the land allocated for parking was used to build mid density (6 floor residential buildings) housing, we could add room for 15,000 new residents in our city center and put a heavy downward pressure on housing prices.

Should we build financially sustainable and affordable places for people to live or should we continue to serve the interests of current property owners and the car lobby? The choice is yours

Want to meet like-minded people and discuss how to make our city a safe and thriving place for people? Join us in our first Strong Towns Guelph Meet-up happening this Saturday 18th from 9 AM to noon at the Tim Hortons located on 158 Clair Rd E in the South End of Guelph, we look forward to seeing you there!!!

Strong Towns Guelph

03/11/2024

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