PanoTowns | 3fl | U/C

[ijmorlan]

The entrances to 20, 24, 26, and 30 are around back and require an excessive walk from the entrance and from the parking lot. They should be re-arranged to be more like the entrances to 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18. Also the City should extend the sidewalk from the southeast at least across the entire front of the development.

The pathway seems to indicate those units are on a grade, so a side entrance might be a challenge.

But the back walkway could connect directly to the sidewalk instead of requiring residents to walk up the hill the parking lot, but the lack of smart sidewalk connections is par for the course even in places where there are sidewalks.

In a modern development, grade is not a big issue when it comes to details like placement of entrances. The amount of earth moving that is done means that the existing grade is mostly irrelevant. I agree that some of the units are better than others. If the entrances to 24 and 26 were just moved to the side, even in the same corner of the building as now, that would be OK — it would just shorten the walk significantly without really changing the design much. But look at 20: there is a parking spot not 3m from the unit, but to get to the entrance one would have to walk all the way around the entire building. 30 is in a similar situation, albeit slightly less extreme. Overall, on second viewing, I still consider it sloppy design.

I would just eliminate the back sidewalk entirely and put stairs down to the lower level units right at the parking lot. This would also give the “private amenity area”s more feeling of privacy, and allow them to be bigger without any additional cost because they could extend right to the border fence.

Also I would put roofs over all the exterior stairs. I don’t believe in outdoor stairs — they’re just a snow shovelling nuisance. In a new development it should be possible to design things so that all snow shovelling can be done by plows, without small areas that require hand shovelling.