Fourplexes everywhere? Yes, please!

Municipalities across Canada have begun hearing back from federal Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Sean Fraser about their applications to the Housing Accelerator Fund. This fund, a 2021 election promise from the federal Liberal Party, seeks to support “initiatives that increase housing supply and promote the development of affordable, inclusive and diverse communities that are low-carbon and climate-resilient” to the tune of 100,000 homes nation-wide. Now that the application deadline has passed, Minister Fraser has begun responding to applications and distributing the program’s $4 billion.

There was significant pressure on applicant municipalities: as the minister said recently, “If cities decide to do something less than their best offer, they will be competing for what's left in the fund after we’ve addressed the most ambitious applications.” A number of cities have heard back already, including Moncton, Vaughan, and Kelowna. While the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) laid out ten “best practices” for applications, a theme arising from news about these applications is fourplexes—that is, the ability to build four units on any residential lot. See, for example, the minister’s letters to the mayors of London and Halifax.

The question of legalizing fourplexes has been an issue in Ottawa too: it came up at an October meeting of the Planning and Housing Committee, where the committee discussed—and approved—allowing three units per lot city-wide. (Limited credit to the committee, to be sure: this merely brought the City’s bylaws into compliance with the Province’s More Homes Built Faster bill passed last fall.) Yet upgrading to four units by right—one more—has evidently raised the hackles of some. 

There are many reasons to allow four units by right. Most obviously, doing so responds to the housing emergency—which City Council itself declared in 2020: it’ll be easier to make more homes. But it will also increase density, which has substantial economic benefits. A study commissioned by the City showed that serving new low-density housing built on undeveloped land costs taxpayers $465 per person per year, and high-density infill, by contrast, not only pays for itself, but also adds $606 per person per year. In short, sprawl costs taxpayers, while density adds to the coffers. 

But there are also ecological benefits to permitting fourplexes by right. The same reason that denser housing is more economical underlies the ecological argument: denser housing uses resources more efficiently. Detached houses take up one of our most precious ecological resources, space—particularly when they include a lawn and a driveway, which have almost no and no ecological value, respectively. Better land use means more room for biodiversity-rich spaces, like forest or wetlands. Denser housing also makes delivering services more efficient. Take roads, for example: the amount of road needed for four detached houses as compared with four units on one of those lots is four times greater. Denser housing also makes delivering transit more efficient, which in turn means better transit, which in turn boosts ridership. And denser housing makes it easier to support the numerous amenities—like grocery stores, libraries, parks, and so on—or even small businesses that improve livability and make it easy to get around by walking, rolling, and biking. In short, denser housing is an important ingredient for environmentally sustainable living.

To be sure, there’s nothing magical about fourplexes to unlock these gains; why not allow six units, as Vancouver recently did, or even eight? I myself live in a three-storey twelveplex in a residential part of Centretown, and in my three years living here, the sky hasn’t fallen even once.

While Ottawa’s application for the Housing Accelerator doesn’t promise to legalize four units by right city-wide (although it does in certain circumstances), the City is in the process of reconsidering its zoning bylaws. Once the process for determining Budget 2024 is past, please get involved with the Zoning Bylaw Review. You can even get a head start by asking your councillor for greater density.

William van Geest is a Living Cities Program Coordinator at Ecology Ottawa.