RESIDENTIAL
To do this , South Africa should look to other countries such as Canada that are also facing a housing crisis due to explosive immigration . Currently , annual immigration in Canada amounts to almost 500,000 new immigrants , one of the highest rates per population of any country in the world . All these new arrivals have put enormous pressure on the housing market .
To solve the housing crises , the Canadian government has introduced two groundbreaking reforms . The first , is to permit several provinces and cities to make significant changes to allow more multiunit housing on single family lots . In the province of British Columbia , for example , all municipalities with populations of over 5,000 people , are now required to rezone all single family lots for the development of 3 to 6 multi plex units depending on the size of the lot and or its proximity to transit . This means that every standard residential lot is now rezoned for multi plex development without going through the headache of a rezoning application that is both costly and very time consuming .
This reform makes a lot of sense for a few reasons . Firstly , single family homes have become more and more unaffordable for most middle-income families . They are also dwindling in popularity given that young families no longer hanker after big gardens for their kids to play in . Since the advent of the smart phone , kids spend more time indoors on their screens than playing outside so large gardens are becoming increasingly obsolete . Secondly , the multiplex zoning gives property owners the ability to build units on their existing land for extended family members . This is a perfect scenario for parents who want to downsize and create living space for their children or even their grandchildren . Thirdly , and most importantly , to tackle the housing crises one dwelling now becomes 3 or 4 or 6 so the days of large lots housing 4 to 6 people are now lots that can house 16 to 24 people or more .
The second groundbreaking reform is to rezone all land within 800m of what is known as Transit- Oriented Development ( TOD ) areas in provinces like British Columbia . TOD areas will feature highdensity , mixed-use developments .
44 REI MAGAZINE AUGUST