New Year, new plans.
This January, YIMBY Winnipeg officially reached one year old. Starting in response to urgent and evolving policy, especially the City’s Infill Strategy, we’ve learned a lot about the challenges of promoting infill, sustainability and densification in our City.
Our first meeting of the year was held on January 6, 2019. We had a lot of new faces at this meeting. We discussed marketing, how to fund future events, and the possible structure for YIMBY Winnipeg going forward. We also discussed the need for a clear story/frame to make the case for infill.
We also discussed some of the major events we have planned.
Big Events for the first quarter of 2020
We have two big events planned for the first quarter of 2020.
- Living the Suite Life in Winnipeg: An educational information session on infill and secondary suites in Winnipeg with Q&A and networking. This evening provides attendees with an in-depth look at garden, garage suites, and infill in Winnipeg. Will feature a talk from an industry expert on secondary suites. $20.00 price of admission, tickets only available on EventBrite.
- Informational session on Infill: Tentatively scheduled for late March, we hope to hold a informational session on infill. This is still in the conceptual stage.Infill in the News
- Infill Residents Speak Up (The Lance)Glenwood residents Adam and Ava spoke to a Community Correspondent in The Lance about their experience living in an infill house.”We moved into one of the first infill houses on the street. We had been looking in different areas, like Fort Rouge after a few years in a Corydon apartment.”…
“We like that it’s close to schools and community centres, it’s a safe neighbourhood, and we wanted to be in cycling and bus distance of work.”
“It’s hard to have a discussion with some of the people who oppose infill, because they can’t be wrong. Their voices are much louder than people who are just happy in their house, living their lives. We don’t speak up enough, but it’s not worth it because there’s so much negativity you get back”
“That said, I understand why they are concerned. They’ve lived here for years, now are seeing all these changes. But for the city and neighbourhood, it’s definitely better to create more density, replace decrepit houses, bring in more families”
- Infill builder deals with City rigmarole (The Herald)
Infill builder Zekarias Worku has been trying to develop a 22,302-square-foot lot in West Transcona. Worku has changed his plans for the site many times since 2014, in response to City Planner and East Kildonan-Transcona Community Committee complaints. In November 2019, the Community Committee voted against many changes Worku requested for the site that had the support of Planners. Opponent delegations may have swayed the Committee. Worku has come to see the City’s process as uncertain, biased and challenging. - CMHC figures show declining rental vacancy rate, need to build more rental, in many Canadian metros (CMHC) The 2019 CMHC Rental Market Survey shows that the National Vacancy Rate declined for the third consecutive year. CMHC economist Bob Dugan concludes that, in some of the larger metros, more rental is needed.Winnipeg’s rental vacancy rate is at 3%, which is not great for tentants but is higher than the large metros. This is not evidence of complacency, however. Increased demand reduced our vacancy rate to 0.8% in 2010 and, if supply doesn’t keep up, we could be facing a similar predicament in the future.