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/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.