Waterloo Region Connected

(03-26-2016, 08:08 PM)notmyfriends Wrote: [ -> ]Oh, I think you might be right.  That does look like University Heights in the background of this picture:

Ironically University Heights is the lowest point on University Ave.

(03-26-2016, 06:30 PM)Lens Wrote: [ -> ]A few renders for what look like new projects...

105 University W http://pgdstudio.com/205-albert-2/

85 Columbia http://pgdstudio.com/85-columbia/

Me thinks they had an out of town agency or more likely from abroad write this ....

Project Details

"105 University Av. East is a 13 storey residential projected located in Waterloo, Ontario across Conestoga College."

That is right across from Conestoga's Waterloo campus. The grammar is atrocious, but the geography checks out.

What would need to be torn down to accommodate this, if anything? The Pizza Hut? Popeyes? The entire DQ plaza?

I seem to recall some water table issues in that location, so that and grammar will be the two challenges.

It's currently a one-level office building neighbouring Pizza Hut.  There was a proposal around 6-7 years ago for a highrise to be built there.  There was significant NIMBY action from the Village on the Green Residents which is right behind the development.  It's not the water table that will be the issue, it will be the NIMBYs.  I'm have no architectural background but these designs are gross like their grammar, in my opinion.

(03-29-2016, 09:33 AM)Watdot Wrote: [ -> ]gross like their grammar, in my opinion.

(03-29-2016, 09:33 AM)Watdot Wrote: [ -> ]I'm have no architectural background

(03-29-2016, 09:49 AM)GtwoK Wrote: [ -> ]

(03-29-2016, 09:33 AM)Watdot Wrote: [ -> ]gross like their grammar, in my opinion.

(03-29-2016, 09:33 AM)Watdot Wrote: [ -> ]I'm have no architectural background

I'm going to apply for a position there.

(03-28-2016, 11:09 PM)GtwoK Wrote: [ -> ]What would need to be torn down to accommodate this, if anything? The Pizza Hut? Popeyes? The entire DQ plaza?

It's the ugly one-story building housing KW4Rent. I think it would be a great location to build something nice. I really don't understand the NIMBY aspect of this sort of thing. If anything, it would help to block more of the street noise from University Avenue.

Apparently the proposal I was referring to was back in 2003 for the property at 105 University Avenue East.  I found evidence of it in City of Waterloo Density papers, however, the newspaper reports of NIMBY opposition are buried or deleted.  I remember it was to be a student-focused highrise building and NIMBYs were arguing that there would be shadow casting and students falling off balconies.  A lot has changed in those 13 years so the NIMBY thing just might be a dead issue now.  I see that the City will allow for density up to 13 storeys, which is definitely appropriate for this area.

I don't know if this is the correct thread, but does anybody have a good grasp of what Waterloo City Council is trying to do with its "one bedroom plus den/define "bedroom" debate? I can sort of see the problem in terms of developers/landlords playing fast and loose with zoning, and in terms of practical issues like parking. What I'm not clear about is how the City can take effective measures to deal with the problem.

(04-27-2016, 11:37 AM)panamaniac Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know if this is the correct thread, but does anybody have a good grasp of what Waterloo City Council is trying to do with its "one bedroom plus den/define "bedroom" debate?  I can sort of see the problem in terms of developers/landlords playing fast and loose with zoning, and in terms of practical issues like parking.  What I'm not clear about is how the City can take effective measures to deal with the problem.

The city wants to know how many people will be flushing toilets and taking showers, legitimate. The city and neighbours want to "know" how many cars will be there, potentially creating traffic and parking issues, semi-legitimate if a tad prescriptive of how people must commute. Neighbours want to know whether they'll have X professional neighbours, or 2X loud, noisy, messy students next door, not very legitimate.

I live in what might be qualified by Waterloo's new plan as a 2 den home, as neither enclosed room has to-the-ceiling walls, windows, or much floorspace after a queen bed is in it. It was likely sold (we rent) as a 1+den. My girlfriend and I share one bedroom, and have a spare. The former owners had a family of 5/6 living there. Just some examples of how much, or little, any classification means.

Right. A "den" doesn't necessarily mean student accommodations. It doesn't necessarily even mean more people, though it could, regardless of whether it's a "real" den or a bedroom masquerading as a den.

If you want to know how many rooms that are usable as bedrooms there are, then don't hang your hat on the name. Instead, the city should count "bedroom-equivalent" rooms, maybe anything larger than 8 square metres, for example. That will give a reasonable metric of how many people might live in a building, although it's hard to estimate how many normally-unoccupied spare bedrooms or actual dens there would be in any given building, as that really depends on the people living there. Same for the demographic of the residents.

As to parking, if Waterloo were to relax its parking requirement, this would become a non-issue. The number of cars in the building will not (significantly) exceed the number of parking spots anyway, as overnight street parking is not permitted.

I fired off a small tweetstorm about this just now:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">What is a bedroom? Why are <a href="https://twitter.com/citywaterloo">@citywaterloo</a> staff so concerned? As usual, it comes down to parking. (1/8) <a href="https://t.co/Mrx17KbPyC">https://t.co/Mrx17KbPyC</a></p>&mdash; Mark Jackson-Brown (@Markster3000) <a href="https://twitter.com/Markster3000/status/725415717819023361">April 27, 2016</a></blockquote>

And the rest in non-tweet form:

Yesterday at the @citywaterloo Uptown Parking strategy meeting, staff mentioned cases of Northdale buildings running out of resident parking
i.e. A resident calls the city asking for a street parking exemption because their building has sold out of on site parking.
The first response staff give is "have you tried calling neighbouring buildings?"
Reasonable advice, but it points to a problem in Northdale: There is no Public Parking. Only private lots.
Cold-calling apartment buildings asking for parking passes is difficult. But in Northdale, right now that's the only option.
If we want to push parking minimums down, there needs to be visible, accessible supply to smooth out these local peaks and troughs.
No one wants to see surface lots, so @citywaterloo should consider giving incentives to developments that will incorporate public parking.

</tweets>

Basically, the City is afraid (terrified, almost) that parking demand in any single development will outstrip the on-site parking, leading to nuisance parking, or at least frazzled nerves. And there's still a culture around these parts that there Is A Place For My Car. There's a friction brewing in Northdale right now, because there's a really poor balance of parking supply, demand, and price. Since every development has somewhere between "plenty" and "kinda" enough parking, there are not enough customers to create enough incentive for any of them to operate a public market-rate lot. It leaves the excess parking supply scattered across dozens of sites each of which may or may not be on the after-market.

As I said, there needs to be some manner of encouraging a few developments to have enough parking to serve as an actual public garage. One that you can see driving down the street, and when you desperately need to put your car somewhere, is available... at a price.

Or they could, gasp, allow (at least in Northdale) on street parking like most cities in this planet do.