Think policy to move beyond ‘tall and sprawl’ cities

The federal Task Force for Housing and Climate recently released its final recommendations for solving Canada’s housing crisis. The Blueprint for More and Better Housing contains suggestions for adding new affordable and climate-friendly homes by 2030.

The task force was launched in September 2023 to help federal, provincial and municipal governments address housing affordability and the climate crises in Canada. The report is aimed at building 3.8 million new homes, in line with estimates of housing need from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

However, the task force’s report recommendations fall short by failing to fully consider land and housing market dynamics.

Its recommendations could incentivize the building of overly-dense urban cores, perpetuating something called “tall and sprawl,” a term that refers to development patterns in cities that have very high, dense urban cores surrounded by large areas of lowrise housing.

The report’s premise is on target in many ways. Considering more than 80 per cent of Canadians live in cities and most urban land is residential, any effective urban climate solutions must consider housing.

The report argues that increasing urban density can help protect greenfield areas from being converted to housing. However, it doesn’t take into account that too-high urban densities — densely paved and without sufficient green space — can exacerbate climate impacts.

This can intensify urban heat island effects, a phenomenon where an urban area is warmer than surrounding areas, leaving households more vulnerable during combined extreme heat and power outage events.

The report recommends governments implement province-wide zoning rules to better manage urban development. But it also suggests eliminating zoning regulations that ensure new buildings leave space for the green infrastructure that is essential to address climate challenges in our cities, like trees that provide urban cooling and absorb stormwater.

These actions contradict the report’s excellent suggestion that municipalities should plan for 40 per cent tree canopy cover, which research shows can help control daytime urban heat island impacts.

Trees need places to grow and thrive, which is typically ensured by regulations like minimum setbacks, landscaping requirements and maximum building footprints. Without these measures, land and housing markets will likely overlook the importance of providing these public good aspects, leaving buildings too close together and encouraging sprawling development.

Housing research tells us how households respond to too-dense, nature-deficient environments.

We know that many households seek “missing middle” housing, which refers to medium-density, family-sized housing such as townhomes, duplexes and triplexes, and lowrise to midrise apartment buildings.

Without this type of housing being built in the green and amenity-rich environments they demand, households will move further afield, increasing pressures for greenfield conversion.

The report encourages municipalities to build affordable housing on their own land, facilitated by financing, to help them acquire new land.

This is a strategy that has wide support, but it could backfire by adding fuel to already-inflated land values because it fails to acknowledge how those inflated land values are created.

Housing markets are more than builders who supply homes and residents who demand them.

Dawn Parker is a professor at the University of Waterloo.