> inagility of anyone to have a usable discussion on the lack of strategic planning in initiatives like this...
Have you considered the possibility that you fail to have what you perceive to be a usablr discussion on your topics of choice because your personal concerns have no rational basis or support?
I mean, this newspiece covers a regulatory change, one that preserves low density occupation eventhough it opens the way to a gradual and very slow increase in occupation. This gradual impact enables services to infer the actual demand of a system, and their patterns, and actually adapt the supply to the actual demand. In other words, day-to-day management of this sort of public infeastructure.
Supply of basic utilities such as power and water are provided centrally, thus they are more than able to adjust to demand. System bottlenecks are already known by utility and sanitatoon services. Therefore even if occupation doubled overnight the only problems they would cause would be localized in some bottlenecks that are handled by small-scale interventions.
So, what's bothering you? Do you believe that a duplex has the same effect as suddenly buildiling a massive network of high-rise buildings?
Infrastructure is demand driven. You don't plan a business district and start to dig subway tunnels under agricultural land. The city develops until it needs a subway, which is then dug under the most dense areas.
Property up-zoneing is such a slow and predictable process that no competent utility provider should have a problem in estimating future demand and upgrade accordingly. If infrastructure is failing left and right, it's because the public and private providers are incompetent and improperly regulated, not due to "excessive urban growth".
The exception to these are public services that require land, for example roads and parks, which are very expensive to re-acquire and demolish afterwards. For these purposes, land is typically set aside by the local urban planner and building on certain plots is not allowed.
Maybe now that the law is in force, they'll start to make plans so they're ready. It wouldn't have made any sense to plan for higher density previously when laws forbade it.