11-05-2014, 04:03 PM
The points in the Chronicle article leave something to be desired. Concern that construction is noisy, and needs to be done carefully to avoid damaging neighbours, is an issue about how you do things, not that you can't do things. The point about proximity refers to some variances for setbacks, and while valid, the options are not always great, e.g. "We can move back from a 1m variance to the 1.5m bylaw, but that space will be added vertically, taking our building from a 12 storey podium-tower combo to a maximum-allowed 20 storey cube."
If there has been effort made to work with the developers, I wish it would be reported on more, but the current narrative seems to be of the church opposing anything happening in the block they occupy, however accurate or not that may be.
I was very happy, as a contrast, when Knox rebuilt their church, and delegated at various meetings about how they wanted to be an urban church, recognizing that King-adjacent lands would always be the densest in all of Waterloo, and they supported it, while asking for consideration to be given during construction of things like ION (e.g. noise during important services, in favour of the rail vs Erb path of ION to reduce turning noise at the intersection).
If there has been effort made to work with the developers, I wish it would be reported on more, but the current narrative seems to be of the church opposing anything happening in the block they occupy, however accurate or not that may be.
I was very happy, as a contrast, when Knox rebuilt their church, and delegated at various meetings about how they wanted to be an urban church, recognizing that King-adjacent lands would always be the densest in all of Waterloo, and they supported it, while asking for consideration to be given during construction of things like ION (e.g. noise during important services, in favour of the rail vs Erb path of ION to reduce turning noise at the intersection).