General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[danbrotherston]

I understand paying for the new pipes that go to your development, but we all know that these recently quadrupled park fees are not going towards parks for these new residents - this is a shakedown that’s been going on for a while and will have some real blowback sooner or later.

Are you suggesting that this money isn't being spent to expand parks area, number, or facilities? That's possible, but I would assume there are some guardrails on it.

Just to be clear, I don't expect these parks will be for the exclusive use of new residents, but new parks increase the park space available to ensure that the addition of new residents doesn't overwhelm the existing park space.

[neonjoe]

Although not as convenient the new suburban Kitchener regional parks do have facilities that you cannot as easily put into a built up area such as sports fields etc. Most of the other newer suburban sprawl neighbourhood parks are funded and built by the developer during the neighbourhood build out. These typically are concessions for requests from the city. The city picks up the maintenance of these parks after.

[jeffster]

I understand paying for the new pipes that go to your development, but we all know that these recently quadrupled park fees are not going towards parks for these new residents - this is a shakedown that’s been going on for a while and will have some real blowback sooner or later.

Are you suggesting that this money isn't being spent to expand parks area, number, or facilities? That's possible, but I would assume there are some guardrails on it.

Just to be clear, I don't expect these parks will be for the exclusive use of new residents, but new parks increase the park space available to ensure that the addition of new residents doesn't overwhelm the existing park space.

To be honest, I don't think development fees have ever gone to the benefit of those paying it over the past several decades. I do remember when before the kids were born we had huge development fees for a new townhouse for future builds of "community centres, arenas, pools" etc. My kids are now 22 and 20 and that area still has nothing, much like it did 40 years ago when that community first started.

We built 4 indoor pools between 1964 and 1990. We have built zero since then. We have 1 real outdoor pool (Harry Class) which has been around for almost 100 years.

We (as in the city) built 5 single pads (at least), The Aud (and the annex), and the twin pads behind The Aud (replaced the Annex), between 1951 and 1986 (35 years). We have built 1 twin pad since (Activa) which replaced at least 2 (Queensmount and Kingsdale) there were shuttered. We did take over Sportsworld, which was a private business. That place really serves Cambridge more than Kitchener, though.

In 30 years, we have added only 1 fire station.

We've done a little better with community centres, but again, most were built before 1990. But in many cases, we've shared responsibility with the school boards or converted other buildings (like Kingsdale).

As for literal parks, most of the money has been spent on existing parks that are well established.

So while I don't expect those fees to be used immediately (since there wouldn't be enough funds), quite often they go to refurbishing older facilities, building facilities that don't benefit the tax payer (like the Kitchener Operations Facility).

I have no idea how much money they have collected over the past 40 years or so, but as I said, most of that money has not been spent on those area.

[danbrotherston]

Are you suggesting that this money isn't being spent to expand parks area, number, or facilities? That's possible, but I would assume there are some guardrails on it.

Just to be clear, I don't expect these parks will be for the exclusive use of new residents, but new parks increase the park space available to ensure that the addition of new residents doesn't overwhelm the existing park space.

To be honest, I don't think development fees have ever gone to the benefit of those paying it over the past several decades. I do remember when before the kids were born we had huge development fees for a new townhouse for future builds of "community centres, arenas, pools" etc. My kids are now 22 and 20 and that area still has nothing, much like it did 40 years ago when that community first started.

We built 4 indoor pools between 1964 and 1990. We have built zero since then. We have 1 real outdoor pool (Harry Class) which has been around for almost 100 years.

We (as in the city) built 5 single pads (at least), The Aud (and the annex), and the twin pads behind The Aud (replaced the Annex), between 1951 and 1986 (35 years). We have built 1 twin pad since (Activa) which replaced at least 2 (Queensmount and Kingsdale) there were shuttered. We did take over Sportsworld, which was a private business. That place really serves Cambridge more than Kitchener, though.

In 30 years, we have added only 1 fire station.

We've done a little better with community centres, but again, most were built before 1990. But in many cases, we've shared responsibility with the school boards or converted other buildings (like Kingsdale).

As for literal parks, most of the money has been spent on existing parks that are well established.

So while I don't expect those fees to be used immediately (since there wouldn't be enough funds), quite often they go to refurbishing older facilities, building facilities that don't benefit the tax payer (like the Kitchener Operations Facility).

I have no idea how much money they have collected over the past 40 years or so, but as I said, most of that money has not been spent on those area.

I mean, someone with more familiarity with municipal budgets can weigh in if they like, but I'd be quite surprised if this was the case. Development charges are legislated by the province, I would think they go into general coffers.

By the way "upgrading" existing facilities is an entirely valid spend for development charges. For example, utility spend often involves increasing force main size to support greater populations.

I also disagree that things like the "Kitchener Operations Facility" doesn't benefit "taxpayers" (and I hate that term by the way--at best, it rejects a civic minded framing for an entitlement framing, at worst it is designed to explicitly exclude non-property-owning people in the community, I'm sure you didn't mean it this way, but residents is a much better term). The residents benefit from a well organized effectively managed government, which involves spending money on operations. Frankly, I think we don't spend enough on that type of thing.

As for parks Kitchener built McLennan park in Kitchener, and AFAIK are working on another multi-deca-million park. While I disagree with the policy of focusing most of our funding on a few enormous parks, I do think that the money is clearly being spent on new facilities.

[nms]

How much would it cost the City to buy an equivalent land area of Victoria Park (~27acres) that was in the downtown core (or 5-10 minute walk from an LRT stop?). A overlooked cost in any new City facility is the cost of the land (which is why some of the Phase 2 LRT project cost is so high).

Are we stuck in an upwards spiral where rising land costs are forcing the City to raise development fees in part to pay for the land for the facilities?

[danbrotherston]

How much would it cost the City to buy an equivalent land area of Victoria Park (~27acres) that was in the downtown core (or 5-10 minute walk from an LRT stop?).  A overlooked cost in any new City facility is the cost of the land (which is why some of the Phase 2 LRT project cost is so high). 

Are we stuck in an upwards spiral where rising land costs are forcing the City to raise development fees in part to pay for the land for the facilities?

Total land area as in multiple disconnected parcels? I dunno...100 million? 200? 300?A single contiguous parcel? Literally absolutely impossible...it would take eminent domain to achieve.

But Victoria Park is huge...there's no real need for additional parks to have that much space. While large parks are nice, small parks are still valuable. Most of the parks near us are small.

That being said, much of the city centre doesn't have much in the way of parks. What it does have is beautiful and quiet highly treed streets which basically serve the same function as parks (except for playgrounds, which are located in small parklets all around). The reason we want so many large parks is our streets are intolerably hostile to people.

[cherrypark]

How much would it cost the City to buy an equivalent land area of Victoria Park (~27acres) that was in the downtown core (or 5-10 minute walk from an LRT stop?).  A overlooked cost in any new City facility is the cost of the land (which is why some of the Phase 2 LRT project cost is so high). 

Are we stuck in an upwards spiral where rising land costs are forcing the City to raise development fees in part to pay for the land for the facilities?

The Bramm St lands 8 acres alone, which is comparable to the non-stormwater pond and forested areas of Victoria Park. Another 2 acres of parking lots on Charles St. A 3 acre contaminated soil plot languishing behind the School of Pharmacy fenced off from a brand new MUT.

As Dan said, also many more smaller parcels that could be made into accessible, small parks that aren't necessarily enormously expensive land assemblies. If the budget and will was there to make good on turning city and region owned asphalt into parks, that could go a long way to start without a single new parcel purchased.

[Chris]

I know I'm living in a dream world here but if the city and region want more parkland, tear down the old transit terminal and sod it over. Use some of the space for a community centre or similar. Gain some more park space as you keep adding thousands of condo residents to the core.

[CP42]

I know I'm living in a dream world here but if the city and region want more parkland, tear down the old transit terminal and sod it over. Use some of the space for a community centre or similar. Gain some more park space as you keep adding thousands of condo residents to the core.

I’d love this more if it wasn’t right next to a field of grass already

[SF22]

I know I'm living in a dream world here but if the city and region want more parkland, tear down the old transit terminal and sod it over. Use some of the space for a community centre or similar. Gain some more park space as you keep adding thousands of condo residents to the core.

I'd pitched this idea to my ward councillor and also on a couple of the Engage Kitchener surveys, but we need to scrap the surface parking lot at Ahrens beside the KPL. There's a whole underground parking garage now, and that whole area could get reutilized into expanding the Civic Centre Park with a basketball court and/or a mini splashpad to service the NE end of downtown (to balance the splashpad in Victoria Park, which is often very busy in the summers). You could double the size of the existing park and make it a larger draw for downtown residents, especially those who will move into 20 Queen, 10 Duke, Civic 66 and The Scott. The city already owns the land, it just needs to happen!

[cherrypark]

I know I'm living in a dream world here but if the city and region want more parkland, tear down the old transit terminal and sod it over. Use some of the space for a community centre or similar. Gain some more park space as you keep adding thousands of condo residents to the core.

I’d love this more if it wasn’t right next to a field of grass already

I am firmly in the sell some or all of it to a private developer camp, with conditions for use, and use that money to assemble land and build facilities elsewhere around downtown to spread out the benefits from Victoria Park a bit. Only hitch there is this is regional land and not city.

[ac3r]

I know I'm living in a dream world here but if the city and region want more parkland, tear down the old transit terminal and sod it over. Use some of the space for a community centre or similar. Gain some more park space as you keep adding thousands of condo residents to the core.

I have some designs I've worked on in AutoCAD that do this. I've made a mockup mixed use project there that includes a ton of new park space (as well as renovated and redesigned space where the big field is, though I think the City of Kitchener would prefer to keep that for event space i.e. the multicultural festival), more park space on the parking lot on Gaukel and a public square kind of where the water fountain is near Gaukel. I also got rid of Joseph Street all together (keeping the bike lane and stuff, of course) and have it all connected to King Street/City Hall. The only real obstacle is the LRT line but there's no changing that now.

I've been meaning to export it all with AutoCAD Rendering though since it's just a fun project and not an actual proposal, I haven't put the time in yet. Unfortunately from what I know, the City of Kitchener is planning on redeveloping that in other ways.

[panamaniac]

I know I'm living in a dream world here but if the city and region want more parkland, tear down the old transit terminal and sod it over. Use some of the space for a community centre or similar. Gain some more park space as you keep adding thousands of condo residents to the core.

More space is needed, but I don’t think a park beside the park is the way to go.  As I’ve said before, it’s unfortunate that the City isn’t acquiring properties for a future DTK park.  With hindsight, it should have been part of the decision to drop development fees for downtown projects.

[danbrotherston]

I know I'm living in a dream world here but if the city and region want more parkland, tear down the old transit terminal and sod it over. Use some of the space for a community centre or similar. Gain some more park space as you keep adding thousands of condo residents to the core.

More space is needed, but I don’t think a park beside the park is the way to go.  As I’ve said before, it’s unfortunate that the City isn’t acquiring properties for a future DTK park.  With hindsight, it should have been part of the decision to drop development fees for downtown projects.

As others have mentioned the city already owns a lot of DTK property. The problem is it’s all wasted on surface parking.

[Lens]

Which project did Vive flip? It doesn't seem to be their business model. (They did get out of OTIS, but that makes sense as it's a condo project, not a rental.)

They generally don't get listed publicly, but will be directly marketed by some of the commercial brokers. Last one was flipped was on King E - maybe the schwaben club property? Lots of examples of them doing this though, but generally done pretty early on. Civic66 and TheScott were both flips by them

I know I'm living in a dream world here but if the city and region want more parkland, tear down the old transit terminal and sod it over. Use some of the space for a community centre or similar. Gain some more park space as you keep adding thousands of condo residents to the core.

I'd pitched this idea to my ward councillor and also on a couple of the Engage Kitchener surveys, but we need to scrap the surface parking lot at Ahrens beside the KPL. There's a whole underground parking garage now, and that whole area could get reutilized into expanding the Civic Centre Park with a basketball court and/or a mini splashpad to service the NE end of downtown (to balance the splashpad in Victoria Park, which is often very busy in the summers). You could double the size of the existing park and make it a larger draw for downtown residents, especially those who will move into 20 Queen, 10 Duke, Civic 66 and The Scott. The city already owns the land, it just needs to happen!

The city/region already had done 3ish different designs for a park on this patch 6-7 years ago. No idea why they're clinging to 30 parking spaces vs an excellent urban park