The Editor,
Re: "Multi-family does not subsidize" (Letters, The Tri-City News, Jan. 20).
Thank you to Rick Evon for his letter questioning the sources for my statements pertaining to infrastructure costs published in The Tri-City News (“Detached homes are a hot commodity," Jan. 5).
The fact that infrastructure required for single-family homes is subsidized by multi-family units has been well documented over the past few decades. A simple internet search for “costs of sprawl” will return many research papers, and one in particular I referred to as a source for my comments was local.
“Understanding Sprawl” is a British Columbia publication of the David Suzuki Foundation; here are two short excerpts.
“Suburban homebuyers often focus on the cost of a house, which is cheaper when built on land further from the city centre. They usually pay only slight attention to the maintenance costs of the infrastructure their new community will need, though these costs may eventually show up as increased property taxes. They may also fail to consider fully the additional transportation costs of living in a setting where all trips require a car, though these transportation costs can begin to add up quickly.”
“It is obviously more expensive to lay sewer, water and gas pipes, and build roads and electric grids over longer distances than shorter ones. It is also more expensive to provide police, fire, sanitation, snow removal and transit services to large low-density areas. The cost of providing services increases with distance and decreases with density.”
The footprint of single-family homes is the least efficient, and one key reason for the justification and widespread adoption of Transit-Oriented Development in urban census metropolitan areas is the many efficiencies it offers.
John Grasty, Port Moody
