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Residential Lot Sizes - Single Family Detached
What Does This Mean?
Why Is This Important?
How Are We Doing?
Taking Responsibility
- What You Can Do
We Must All Be
Accountable – Improving Trees, Parks & Natural
Areas - Find Out More
What Does This Mean?
Tracking single
family detached residential lot sizes provides
an indicator of exactly how new developments are
building out and how “smart” we are growing as a
City. New developments on large residential
subdivision lots often means large houses and
two-car garages – all of which contribute to
environmental degradation. As housing density
decreases, more land is consumed and
infrastructure (sewer, water, roads etc.) per
unit is more expensive. Providing public transit
services becomes extremely expensive and
therefore less frequent. And because the density
is low and other types of land use (stores and
offices) are not close by, people become more
dependent on their cars.
Why Is This Important?
The market demand
for single detached dwellings has increased over
the past 20 years and will likely continue to do
so. Tracking lot sizes of this type of dwelling
over time provides an indicator of how “smart”
these new developments are actually building out
and how well we are utilizing our residential
land.
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How Are We Doing?
æ
Getting Better
(data table available in
Smart Growth & Placemaking in London, Proposed
Demonstration Project, May 2004)
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The
evidence is clear that new subdivisions are, on
average, being constructed at much higher
densities than those of previous eras. In fact,
some new subdivision lots are half the size of
comparable development in the 1980s. Typical lot
frontages in the range of 9 to 11 metres are
common in today’s subdivisions, where lot
frontages in the range of 14 and 15 metres were
prevalent 20 to 30 years ago. Lot sizes and
frontages within these newer low density
development areas are cause to be optimistic
about the desire to grow smart and utilize a
more compact urban form in new subdivisions.
Taking Responsibility – What You Can Do
-
Read
the
Citizen's Guide to the Land Use Planning System
in Ontario, produced by the Ministry of
Municipal Affairs and Housing.
-
Get
involved in the Planning Process. See the
Saturday edition of the London Free Press
“Living in the City” notices of public meetings
or link to the City of London Web site “Living
in the City” page at:
Advocate for Smart Growth:
Narrow front yards
Narrower streets
Create minimum development density targets in
the Official Plan
We Must All Be
Accountable – Improving Urban Planning
- Find Out More
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