Intensification.  It's 15 letters.  On our keyboards, that adds up to 10 letters that are becoming increasingly worn down.

In short, we've been writing a lot about intensification this year.

From landlords looking to maximize profits by rezoning duplexes to triplexes, to the 500 new residential units pending in the Westboro area, intensification has been a huge issue here in the west end.

Queensway Terrace North has had 847 Ivanhoe Ave. (a duplex to triplex rezoning) and 931 Pinecrest Ave. (an illegal sixplex which the owner hoped to rezone to four units; the city granted him three).

Britannia Village's community association unsuccessfully opposed a rezoning on Don St. that allowed three where there had been two.

In Woodroffe North this year, 71 Woodroffe Ave. became triplex number six in spite of residents' objections and a new highrise for the area is a possibility.

Woodpark has had 1142 Richmond Rd. (more than 20 units wedged in on a lot at the edge of a single home community) and the still pending 446 Edgeworth Ave. application (again, 20+ on a single lot).

Most recently hundreds in Westboro, Highland Park and McKellar Park have said 'enough' and are asking for a freeze on development for some sober second thought in the form of a community study.

The local city councillor, Shawn Little, is on side, but it seems to be too late to stop the development at 495 Richmond (48 condo units and a 24-storey highrise) which those hundreds also oppose.  Planning committee has already said yes.

City Coun. Alex Cullen, meanwhile, is championing a community study in Queensway Terrace North and Britannia Heights dealing specifically with what the limits on intensification should be.  If completed, it could bring some much needed forethought to this whole business.  Whether it proceeds is up to council as a whole.

We applaud both initiatives.

Nonetheless, given all of the above, one wonders just what city hall has been waiting for.

We're talking in all cases of old neighbourhoods with infrastructure built to suit them.  Now, with intensification (a stated goal in the city's Official Plan), they're beginning to put downtown-sized demands on it.

Like a game of Jenga, they're building a fragile and wobbly figurative tower.  So far, it's holding.  But for how long?

A report from city staff on 495 Richmond acknowledges that area sewers are "at capacity".  Please note that construction of the 24-storey highrise and 48 condo units has not even begun.

Leaders from communities across the west end knew this was coming and have said as much publicly.  The city has nonetheless stumbled forward.

Intensification is, in a general sense, a good idea; more sustainable and less expensive for the taxpayer than more Orleans or Kanata-style suburbs.

What the Official Plan (approved just last year) is missing, however, is the very policy being sought in the Queensway Terrace North proposal; the one to tell us how much can we sustain.

Under the circumstances, we think no one could be blamed for thinking that city planning officials simply never saw development they didn't like.

What else are residents to think of a municipality that acts first and thinks later?