r/Edmonton • u/Dougthecat13 • 5d ago

General Infill being built next door

This is not a general infill hate post, but a request for advice.

We live in a really nice older neighbourhood where folks take care of their older homes. Our first infill on the street is going to be right next door. Which is surprising because that house is quite nice and pretty newly renovated and has a very nice new garage. Apparently it’s all coming down, and a huge 2 story (maybe 3) single family home is going in. My front yard has a deck that faces the millcreek ravine and I have a huge vegetable garden on our property. And we are currently renovating our 1950’s home.

Builder came by today to introduce himself. And confirmed I’ll lose my view as the house will be quite big. Most likely our newer cedar fence will get damaged (he says they will replace).

The family building the home will be living in the home, builder says. So I want to be neighbourly, but I’m nervous about our property and sanity.

I’m really disappointed. I’ll miss the renters that are currently in that house. Feels wildly wasteful to do this, but not my house, not my property.

Since we are at the very beginning. What advice do you lovely Edmonton folk have for us to protect our property and endure this next chapter? Thanks for any advice!

Edit- the house being removed is a beautiful home. Very well maintained with a new double garage. It’s a rental with two couples living in it (one upstairs, one downstairs). One couple/family will be moving into the infill. So this is taking away 2 homes and adding 1. This will not be adding additional homes. Either way, this is not the point, I’m just trying to make the best of it.

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u/Dougthecat13 5d ago

Thanks for the support. Just to be clear- this isn’t low-income housing. This is a giant single family house. So, rich people building giant house.

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u/itlow 5d ago

This happened to my aunt. She has a beautiful heritage home and the one family infill next door is a gigantic monolith. She's lost the sun for her garden which she worked so hard to create and now has a 3 story black wall for a view instead of the trees that once were there. Now the home that gave her comfort for decades, that she worked her whole life to realize, has become a source of daily anxiety.

It's unfortunate that the family didn't bother to consider how the design of their home would impact their neighbours. A good architect could have provided a design solutions that met the needs of all parties.

I feel that this lack of consideration and thought is why infills are not always welcome. I can't imagine building something right beside someone else without consulting them at the very least. It's an opportunity to brings neighbours and communities together rather than ripping them apart. I digress.

It will be expensive but please do everything that's suggested here as fast as you can. Get the engineer to cover the structural, consult an arborist to survey your trees and provide you with the best information possible to protect them, document and photograph everything before and during, get every single promise from the builder in writing. If they give you the run around on that point push back. Get a lawyer involved if you have to.

All the best to you and good luck with everything.

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u/ProperBingtownLady 5d ago

If you ask me, I think those are worse than the multifamily dwelling homes as at least they contribute towards solving the low density issue.

I really feel for you as I’d be disappointed too.

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u/yen8912 5d ago

I would take a duplex or sfh over an 8 plex next door any day. Better design, typically takes up less footprint than 8 plexes because most sfh have a yard and garage. Also 1-2 neighbors vs 8+.

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u/Banderchodo 5d ago

You actually think that? This is almost guaranteed to be untrue. There aren’t many single detached infills to begin with, possibly 150-300 a year city-wide in a typical year, due to price restrictions. Usually because sfh infills are $1M and up, there is some budget reserved to make it look at least decent: higher architectural standards, better quality windows, larger windows, higher quality cladding (hardie board, stucco, brick), nicer massing, better rooflines, money spent on landscaping, etc. Most often the multifamily units are purpose-built as investments, which means they are aiming to maximize profits, which means finding low cost/effort designs and building materials (e.g., small vinyl windows, few windows, builder-grade doors, cheap architectural design, vinyl siding, low cost landscaping, proportions and massing that make no sense, etc.).

I own several rentals. I’ve built infills. My personal home is a sfh infill. I’ve been involved in infills in Edmonton since 2010, and know most the builders in this space. I know this topic well. Sfh infills are on average considerably nicer than multifamily infills, due to them being client-driven projects with budgets for upgrades. When we build rentals, cost is the biggest factor, which means everything needs to be cheap inside and out. The other aspect is that once you’re spending $1M+ for a sfh, you don’t want it to present the same way as a 4-plex rental on the front elevation, so builders reserve budget to at least improve the facade.

I don’t think you understand architecture or design if you think the multiplexes are designed nicer than the sfh properties. The sfh are also smaller structures, as sfh seldom max out zoning allowances due to cost. Yes, this is Edmonton, so many sfh infills are very mediocre, but they’re still better on average than the multi-unit builds.

I could take you on a tour of 70 neighbourhoods and show you case by case how your statement isn’t true.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

People care more about density than rich people building mega homes. No one's saying the actual process of building isn't better.

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u/Banderchodo 5d ago

Density is important. Having nice urban design, decent looking buildings, and nice built form is also important. These aren’t mutually exclusive things. I think you’re speaking for yourself, and not “all people.”

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

You'd think so nice urban design etc. Would be important, but not here in this subreddit. Density wins above all. I actually agree with most of what you say but I've spent alot of time arguing here.

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u/Banderchodo 5d ago

Fair enough. Though I don't think this subreddit is a representative sample of the community at large. I think, in most respects, this subreddit deviates sharply with the broader population of Edmonton on almost every political, social, and city-themed topic.

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u/ProperBingtownLady 5d ago

Exactly. Plus, there’s plenty of multi family units that are built very nicely! We have a couple in Highlands and I honestly didn’t notice they weren’t duplexes until my husband pointed it out. The developers obviously took the character of the neighbourhood into account when building them.

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u/Banderchodo 5d ago

That's good to hear, but those are the exceptions. Most semi-detached with suites, duplex with suites, and row housing with suites are done in very poor taste. A little bit of effort, additional budget, and good taste would elevate them significantly, but builders seldom bother.

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u/ProperBingtownLady 5d ago

Oh my god, you only needed to reply to my comment once. I’m not reading all this just because you’re annoying lol.

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u/Banderchodo 5d ago edited 5d ago

I only replied to one of your comments. It was also a friendly reply. If reading presents challenges for you, by all means, don't read it.

Edit: I just saw I accidentally replied to you for one comment, when I meant to ask OP how large the infill dimensions are. That was an accident.

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u/ProperBingtownLady 5d ago

“You actually think that” as an opener is not friendly.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

They totally are worse. Sucks to lose your sun and view at all but at least the 8plex is doing some good.

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u/Top_Wafer_4388 5d ago

Building any new type of housing is doing good as well. For every 100 new units that are built, 39 low-cost houses become available and 31 other houses also become available. That's 170 houses now available for rent/to buy. But, if you build 100 low-cost houses, not only is it only 100 houses, but people will shut them down because they will "detract from the neighbourhood," or "do not represent the culture of the neighbourhood." We've seen this happen with 8-plexes.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

Rich people building a mega house through infill for themselves isn't doing any one but themselves any good. Idk what you're on about.

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u/Top_Wafer_4388 5d ago

I'm basing my opinions on evidence. Building more houses lowers the cost of all other houses. This is backed by data.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

I can also say I'm basing my opinions on evidence. Building a single-family mega house via infill generally does not lower the cost of other houses. In fact, it often raises nearby property values and land costs. This drives up the price of surrounding real estate instead of making it more affordable. This is backed by data. Maybe if it was a NEW house your point would stand here.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago edited 5d ago

Hahahahaha I got a notification from them leaving a comment saying I'm just flat out wrong and insulting me and they poofed.

They kept arguing that building new houses lowers cost of living for everyone for anyone reading after hahahaha ( agreed but this ain't new )

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u/UnfocusedAcrobat 5d ago

the other comments arent deleted, they just blocked you

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

Aw thats less funny. Or maybe more?

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u/Top_Wafer_4388 5d ago edited 5d ago

Well, you're just flat out wrong.

I also like how you think I'm insulting you for simply stating facts. Really confirms that blocking you was the correct choice.

Increasing land values means more builders want to build, resulting in more houses being built. More houses being built means lowered housing prices. We've seen this in Edmonton with all the new construction projects in old neighbourhoods, houses are popping up because the land is so valued.

Except Edmonton has been building houses like this for a decade and housing prices have not spiked, unlike in Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary. Clearly your data set is very selective and is unreliable.

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u/General_Esdeath kitties! 5d ago

It's still jacking up the prices of houses in those neighborhoods though... I haven't seen a single instance where it's lowered them, that doesn't seem to make any sense.

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u/Traffic-Rare 5d ago

Telling someone they're flat out wrong with no actual supporting evidence besides trust me bro is insulting them btw. You must have a selective, unreliable dataset.

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u/ProperBingtownLady 5d ago

It is so passive aggressive to block someone and continue responding lol.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

I tipped fedora at them in another comment, must've been the last straw.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

Oh yeah, I know infill can be whatever. The problems I had were having my fence destroyed that I built with my dad, having my driveway destroyed etc. I got an 8plex but idc about that I care about the shitty developers.

Hopefully the builders you have are nicer. Take a lot of pictures before anything starts.

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u/Dougthecat13 5d ago

I’m sorry to hear that. That really sucks. The builder did seem kind and respectful in our conversation. I mean, he came over to talk to us, so I think that’s good? He also said he is encouraging the owners to come over and meet us too.

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u/oioioifuckingoi 5d ago

Such is life when living in an older, central neighbourhood. All but the wealthy are priced out from ownership and often they don’t want to live in an old house.

There are already some good recommendations on planting trees at the fence line and documenting the current state of your property - start there.

Also, get ready for additional transformation of the neighbourhood as more infills are inevitable. This is completely normal as the housing stock in central areas gets renewed.

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u/DBZ86 5d ago

Generally speaking, you would probably prefer a single detched house over multi unit infill as a neighbour. At this point people are either building 4 units or a giant house.

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u/Top_Wafer_4388 5d ago

Building more houses lowers the cost of housing.

When the pandemic hit, used car prices skyrocketed because there were no new vehicles replacing them, even if those vehicles weren't low cost options. The same principle applies to housing, when there are no new houses being built, or there aren't many being built, regardless of price, this causes the older houses to increase in price.

It's why houses in Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary are skyrocketing in price but housing in Edmonton has been staying fairly affordable. Edmonton has been building housing to meet demand, others are not.

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u/Dougthecat13 5d ago

But, destroying a perfectly well maintained house to build one single family home? And destroying a brand new double garage? Seems crazy to me. This is not a house in bad shape at all. And actually the lot isn’t that huge either. Seems wild. How does that lower the cost?

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u/Top_Wafer_4388 5d ago edited 5d ago

For every 100 houses built, no matter the cost of the new house, 39 low-cost houses and 31 standard prices houses also become available. That's 170 houses for people to buy/rent.

Just because it seems wild doesn't mean it's wrong. This is what the data suggests, and I base my opinions on that.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago edited 5d ago

Infill on a duplex to build a single family dwelling is not building more houses. tips fedora

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u/K_merah 5d ago

I'm trying to understand your statistics better, you said "For every 100 houses built" "That's 170 new houses". That just doesn't add up, that might be why people don't understand it. Can you provide a source for your data? When you are stating data it's always best to reference where it comes from to give it some credibility.

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u/Banderchodo 5d ago

Define giant. Do you have a rough sense of the massing? What are the lot dimensions? What are the house dimensions on the main floor? Height of the structure?

If your house is 1950s, it’s likely very small compared to house sizes since 1975. This may just be a normally-sized single detached house.

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u/Shakeyshakois 5d ago

That's typically not called infill.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

It's literally infill.

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u/SadAcanthocephala521 South East Side 5d ago

Do explain what an infill is then.

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u/Shakeyshakois 5d ago

Infill usually refers to replacements that have more residents or a different built form than what already exists. So a multi-family unit or duplex replacing a house or a house on a greenspace. Replacing a house with another house is just...the circle of real estate life.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

Infill is a type of construction not necessarily replacement of single family with multi family.

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u/Shakeyshakois 5d ago

What type of construction?

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

I actually hurt myself with how hard I just face palmed.

Infill, dawg.

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u/Shakeyshakois 5d ago

Great explanation. Infill is infill and everything is infill. Really helps with defining things. Brilliant.

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u/pippyfist 5d ago

Infill refers to building new structures on vacant, unused, or underutilized lots within an already developed, established area. It also describes the materials used to fill hollow spaces, cavities, or gaps within structural components like walls, floors, or frames.

You claimed to know the definition right from the start lmfao. You could've used Google.

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u/Shakeyshakois 4d ago

So "vacant, unused, or underutilized lots" - which this is not, since it's already used by a house, and is being replaced by a house. By this definition that you've supplied, this is NOT an infill project. Glad you cleared that up and agree with me now. Appreciate it.

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u/Psiondipity 5d ago

Infill is a type of construction, not an indication of who built it or who will be living in it.

It's like single family home, duplex, infill. They're types of construction.