11-15-2015, 02:49 PM
(11-15-2015, 01:57 PM)timc Wrote:(11-12-2015, 11:51 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: OMG, the student ghetto is here! The cafes, the grocery stores, the bookstores, they are all coming!! Run for your lives!!
I'm afraid that Northdale has been a student ghetto for many years already. If anything, adding commercial development will improve its condition.
Of course it will. A student district is what city council makes of it... or allows to be made of it via zoning, to be more precise.
Yet when the result is disappointing city council turns around and blames students for the "student ghetto" rather than taking ownership for the mess they themselves created.
Northdale has been a student district for over 30 years. City council (1) tried to deny this fact (2) uglified the area with its restrictive density no commercial use zoning policies (3) fostered couches in lawns by not allowing proper student outlets in the area (4) made the student area larger than necessary by trying to enforce low density everywhere north of University and (5) blamed the students for all of this.
The newer policies seem to have created a livelier area, stopped student sprawl, made students happier because of increased housing stock near the universities and give an inkling of what this area could become. In the meantime we should lay fault where it belongs and call this area the city-council ghetto since it is them who created it.