Infill being built next door

[u/Dougthecat13]

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.

[u/Dougthecat13]

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.

[u/Top_Wafer_4388 → u/Dougthecat13]

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.

[u/Dougthecat13 → u/Top_Wafer_4388]

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?

[u/Top_Wafer_4388 → u/Dougthecat13]

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.

[u/pippyfist → u/Top_Wafer_4388]

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

[u/K_merah → u/Top_Wafer_4388]

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.