Strata | 16 & 22 fl | Proposed

[Viewfromthe42]

I had to look up BANANA....lol...there are plenty of those. Too many in fact.

With Kae Elgie, did you mean 'further south of this site' and 'further north than the Bauer condos'?  I am wondering because if meant what you said, that's mostly outside UTW. (Further south of Bauer is getting into Kitchener).

Of course, unless you meant what you said, and it included UTW, then yeah, that's really Banana's.

With Kae and several others, opposition to development has been pretty consistent for anything within Peppler, Marshall, Erb, Westmount, Union, Moore, Bridgeport. Generally it's always along the thread of there being too many shadows cast near LRT stations and the most important regional road, not enough parking near the highest usage of active transportation, and everything is heritage so fragile that not only can old buildings not be changed, but they can't be forced to be near new buildings, either. I would much prefer if the money they currently force developers to spend on years of extra financial carrying costs and lawyers be instead spent on better design, or more affordable developments, because they well know that the impacts they impose (how many years of Alexandra condo delays have they put forward?) are in the millions and beyond.

[panamaniac]

An opinion piece in today's Record sets out a number of questions/concerns of a "citizen with a background in land-use planning".

https://www.therecord.com/opinion-story/...ng-issues/

[KevinL]

Is his assessment of how this matches with the Official Plan accurate? Does the plan truly exclude a 'trendy' image for Uptown per his point 2?

[Viewfromthe42]

There's a lot to take issue with in his critiques. There's a bit of disagreement between different groups on heritage and how to conserve it. Some view differing adjacent built forms to be offensive to heritage built forms, but there is little as derided as much as "fauxchitecture", where a modern take on attempting to duplicate an old heritage style is seen in poor taste and quality. Not to mention that I really don't think we want to promote a monoculture in UpTown.

[panamaniac]

Is his assessment of how this matches with the Official Plan accurate? Does the plan truly exclude a 'trendy' image for Uptown per his point 2?

There's a lot to take issue with in his critiques. There's a bit of disagreement between different groups on heritage and how to conserve it. Some view differing adjacent built forms to be offensive to heritage built forms, but there is little as derided as much as "fauxchitecture", where a modern take on attempting to duplicate an old heritage style is seen in poor taste and quality. Not to mention that I really don't think we want to promote a monoculture in UpTown.

Ottawa is experiencing that disagreement big time at the moment wrt the proposed addition to the Chateau Laurier.  It seems that the "modern" school is winning at the moment (City staff has recommended approval of the latest iteration of the modern proposal), but I'm not convinced the politicians won't try to impose "fauxchitecture", as that seems to be by far the more popular choice among voters.

[Markster]

Here's a link to the Official Plan, specifically regarding design in Uptown:

https://www.waterloo.ca/en/contentresour...df#page=45

I feel like they are latching on to some of the brief references of heritage architecture, such as "Accommodate development that conserves cultural heritage resources" and extrapolating that this means that anything that does not strictly match "heritage". See also pdf page 48/49 on "Architectural Integrity" and "Cultural Heritage Resources". My read on those is that it's about more about preserving existing heritage stock. But their argument does not even touch on the demolition of the Post Office.

The plan clearly indicates a preference for "four storey built form character and massing of the streetscape is maintained through an appropriate upper storey façade setback." Of course, this building does indeed do that.

Nothing in the plan specifically forbids height or specific design sensibilities.

[Markster]

Here are the primary goals for Uptown:

(1)Serve as a major focal point and destination for investment in institutional and Region-wide public services, as well as residential, commercial, employment, social, cultural, entertainment, recreational, accommodation and public open space uses;
(2) Accommodate and support major transit, pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure;
(3) Serve as a higher density major employment centre that will attract significant employment uses, with a particular focus on office employment;
(4) Accommodate a significant share of the City’s future population and employment growth in a compact urban form that features high-quality design, supports a balanced transportation mode share and is designed to increase the number of pedestrians and cyclists;
(5) Achieve a minimum gross density target of 200 persons and jobs combined per hectare by 2031 or earlier. To achieve this target, intensification of properties will occur over time in a manner that is compatible with, and appropriate within, the context of the surrounding neighbourhood. To support achievement of this target:
(a) A range of development heights and densities are planned for within the Uptown Waterloo Urban Growth Centre, as shown on Schedule‘B1’ – Height and Density of this Plan; and,
(b) A development application, excluding applications for site plan approval, for lands located within the Uptown Waterloo Urban Growth Centre which proposes densities lower than 200 persons and jobs per hectare must provide an appropriate and accepted rationale through a 26 Planning Justification Report.
(6) Accommodate development that conserves cultural heritage resources.

I'll leave it as an exercise to others to detail what the development hits and misses.

[panamaniac]

Except for #3, which doesn't apply, the proposal seems (arguably) to accomodate all those objectives. #6 seems to me so vaguely worded that it could accommodate almost anything that's not demolishing heritage structures.

[Viewfromthe42]

The writer is also disingenuous in the mould of John Shortreed. Shortreed would tout his transportation planning knowledge as to why he should be trusted on LRT matters, but his area of focus for research was on long haul trucking. In this case, J. Gordon's area of focus is on environmental assessments of ecologically significant and undeveloped lands.

[ijmorlan]

The writer is also disingenuous in the mould of John Shortreed. Shortreed would tout his transportation planning knowledge as to why he should be trusted on LRT matters, but his area of focus for research was on long haul trucking. In this case, J. Gordon's area of focus is on environmental assessments of ecologically significant and undeveloped lands.

Wasn’t he also heavily involved in Ottawa’s Transitway? I always got the feeling that he viewed LRT, especially in Ottawa, as a repudiation of his life’s work. I saw it instead as a validation of his life’s work: well planned transit can be highly successful, and sometimes the way to get to highly successful transit that merits LRT is to build a BRT.

In any case, I agree that expertise isn’t always as relevant as it may appear at first.

[panamaniac]

Seems like the knives are out in normally genteel corners of the community ...

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/868...-approval/

[tomh009]

Seems like the knives are out in normally genteel corners of the community ...

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/868...-approval/

Rather than bring another STEAM-oriented project to the region, University of Waterloo professor Marcel O'Gorman said he'd like to see Launch do something different in this community

etc etc.

If Launch is a privately-funded initiative that is not looking for public funding, why do all these people think that they should be able to tell Launch what kind of programs they should run? Mr O'Gorman can certainly run these initiatives himself, too, there is nothing stopping him. Launch sees an opportunity, I don't see why we should stop them (or even that we COULD stop them, there is nothing in what they propose that requires approvals as far as I know).

[panamaniac]

Seems like the knives are out in normally genteel corners of the community ...

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/868...-approval/

Rather than bring another STEAM-oriented project to the region, University of Waterloo professor Marcel O'Gorman said he'd like to see Launch do something different in this community

etc etc.

If Launch is a privately-funded initiative that is not looking for public funding, why do all these people think that they should be able to tell Launch what kind of programs they should run? Mr O'Gorman can certainly run these initiatives himself, too, there is nothing stopping him. Launch sees an opportunity, I don't see why we should stop them (or even that we COULD stop them, there is nothing in what they propose that requires approvals as far as I know).

That article did make clear (for first time?) that Launch is intended as a private sector initiative.  More than anything else, there seems to be a lack of communication betweeen Launch proponents and the local cultural establishment, something that should be corrected, istm.

[Viewfromthe42]

Formal public meeting has been pushed from June 25 to target of September 10. Must have a lot to review. This will make for a very pressured election-time decision.

[panamaniac]

Formal public meeting has been pushed from June 25 to target of September 10. Must have a lot to review. This will make for a very pressured election-time decision.

More likely pushes decisions beyond the election, no?