Metro planners aim to launch a full-scale attack on civic disease known as urban sprawl.
This was indicated Monday when planning committee received an extensive study on the subject, prepared by Metro planning administrators.
To illustrate the pitfalls of urban sprawl — a condition that springs up when the city meets the suburbs — Metro used a section of North Kildonan and East St. Paul.
This report will be incorporated in the Metro Development Plan either in its present form or combined with other material under the same subject.
Four "serious effects" of urban sprawl in Greater Winnipeg are:
The area studied by Metro was bounded on the south by the Bergen cut-off, on the east by Raleigh St., on the north by Foxgrove Ave. in East St. Paul and on the west by the Red River.
This district was once purely agricultural but now uncontrolled residential development has taken place in a band along Henderson Highway and in strips along roads running east of this highway.
There are 620 homes with a gross density of 1.7 persons to the acre — typical of low-density urban sprawl areas. Municipal services include road maintenance and snow removal, street lighting on Henderson Highway, transit service and a garbage pickup every two weeks.
There is no sewage disposal system in the area and only 135 homes are served by the water system.
Metro planners divide the North Kildonan bus route into three sections — Springfield Heights, the section in the study area and the portion from here to the Pritchard farm road in East St. Paul.
The average hourly running cost of a bus if $6.82, which amounts to an operating cost of 50.8 cents a mile.
Using this, it was found the Springfield Heights section lost $8,570; the study section $13,201 and the other $7,811.
"As the transit deficit is paid for by all residents of the Metro area," says the report, "it is evident that the study area is subsidized by and is a burden on the remainder of Greater Winnipeg..."
Metro expects the transit system to lose about $850,000 this year.
Similar figures in the report show that education costs are higher for urban sprawl areas and result in a heavier tax burden for all Greater Winnipeg residents.
One recommendation the report suggests is different taxation rates — higher rates on undeveloped land than on developed land.
Another recommendation is to re-assess the land frequently. This would raise the taxable value of the land held in an undeveloped state as development approached.
"This would have the effect of lessening any gain to be reaped by speculators and would prove to be an incentive to early development," the report says.
The report was approved by transit director D. I. MacDonald before (being) distributed to planning committee members.