Victoria and Park | 25, 36, 38 fl | Proposed

[CP42]

Sorry, do we know who the developer is yet?

https://www.dovcapital.com/

Is this their first residential project?

[skyrise32]

https://www.dovcapital.com/

Is this their first residential project?

They look like more of a partner/financer, i see 2 previous projects they were "involved" with were Lanterra jobs. Cant see them going on their own to actually market/build their own condos.

[danbrotherston]

Well, there's an article about it in the paper today:

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...hener.html

It exclusively quotes NIMBYs, leaves their usual bad faith and incorrect arguments unchallenged, but worst of all, it implies that everyone in the neighbouring neighbourhoods oppose the towers, which, given that I exist, and for the moment, still live here, I can tell you is false.

I'm about done with this bullshit though.

[CP42]

Well, there's an article about it in the paper today:

https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...hener.html

It exclusively quotes NIMBYs, leaves their usual bad faith and incorrect arguments unchallenged, but worst of all, it implies that everyone in the neighbouring neighbourhoods oppose the towers, which, given that I exist, and for the moment, still live here, I can tell you is false.

I'm about done with this bullshit though.

Housing/development advocates need to be louder and drown out the few that are trying to hold back progress.

[danbrotherston]

The comments to that petition are braindead...

"Go build these in the empty farm fields...better place for them"...

"This will ruin the quiet streets around Victoria Park"...

These folks don't have a clue...

[ac3r]

It's strange they are complaining about this project while nobody said a word about Station Park and 30 Francis which are in the exact same neighbourhood but considerably taller. Also, they love to say these sort of new projects are encroaching on "established heritage neighbourhoods". Just because a house is old doesn't automatically make it or the neighbourhood a heritage neighbourhood and this argument is always annoying to see. Most of the houses around this particular area are generic, post-WW2 era cookie cutter houses that exist all over the country/province, in every single city and small town. There is nothing special about them; half of them are falling apart.

Hopefully there are no height reductions. I'll be very disappointed if there are. Hopefully the city has the smarts to allow it as is. I don't know how many people on average generally write in support for these sort of things but I hope some have. I reached out to them weeks ago at a personal level but also prior to that since I worked on this. This only got 247 signatures, but that's still a considerable amount of people, even if most of them likely don't know what they're talking about, like Tony K suggesting we start building skyscrapers on empty farmland...huh?

[KingandWeber]

This is my favourite quote:

“We don’t need it. We don’t want it,” said Jane Harding, who lives on Michael Street.

“We don’t need more condos. We need more affordable housing. We live downtown. We see it,” she said.

So this lady understands we need more affordable housing and therefore she opposes...more supply of housing.

Meanwhile, the developer "will commit to 50 affordable housing units (ownership at $368,000) as well as a financial contribution to an affordable housing provider to build units elsewhere in Kitchener." 

So if she has her way, there will be 1000+ fewer units of housing supply, including no affordable units, and no donation to an affordable housing provider in Kitchener. I would love to hear her try to explain exactly how that specific outcome helps contribute to resolving the need for more affordable housing. And since it obviously doesn't, I'd actually be even more interested to hear what her true complaint is and then have a discussion about why that should outweigh building as many housing units as possible on this piece of property. It'd be fascinating to know if, once you boiled it down to whatever is truly bothering her, she would come out and say, "Yes, I understand this helps address the issue of affordable housing in Kitchener, but I believe an extra hour of shadow per day on my house (or insert whatever harm she is worried about) is not worth that." I'd have so much more respect for these people if they just said that and then we could have an honest discussion about individual vs. collective rights and what the correct balance is.

[ac3r]

I think her complaint - and those of many other people - is just down to the height of the building, which is why the petition is advocating for less height as many of them do. I can get it - it'd be jarring to see a 38 floor skyscraper out my window within a year if I was used to seeing trees etc - but they ultimately fail to understand what is happening around them. They also fail to understand how affordable housing works i.e. there is a common misconception that it means subsidized housing for the very poor instead of lowering the cost of housing across the board.

For many people there is just a very simplistic objection to the idea of cluster of tall buildings suddenly in view when they weren't there before. I'd say it goes back to Heidegger's concept of building/dwelling/thinking - with humans who by nature will prefer immediately familiar dwelling or environments. But because we're a rapidly growing region/collection of cities, people need to understand that there are going to be changes. The philosopher Bernard Stiegler built upon (second) Heidegger's ideas and specifically his allusion to Greek ideas of episteme and tekhne (technē - so, technology - not art/technique) and made a good point that there are always sudden, drastic changes in human societies history: tehkne develops faster than culture. It makes it hard for people to immediately grasp the changes around them, so they object to them, particularly when it involves drastic cultural, technological and architectural transformation. But those changes are always inevitable, though there will be ups and downs (on a micro scale specific to here, the approval or disapproval of buildings).

Not sure if that makes sense, but it's something studied in urban/architectural/cultural theory. Either way, the region is going to develop no matter what these sort of NIMBYs say.

[ijmorlan]

For many people there is just a very simplistic objection to the idea of cluster of tall buildings suddenly in view when they weren't there before. I'd say it goes back to Heidegger's concept of building/dwelling/thinking - with humans who by nature will prefer immediately familiar dwelling or environments. But because we're a rapidly growing region/collection of cities, people need to understand that there are going to be changes. …

Thanks, this is a really interesting way of thinking about it. I was just thinking about what my reaction will be if/when something tall is proposed near me and I have to admit depending on the exact proposal I might find it a bit jarring at first — but I will understand it as part of the natural evolution of the city and most likely support it in any public consultation.

[BruceAshe]

For many people there is just a very simplistic objection to the idea of cluster of tall buildings suddenly in view when they weren't there before. I'd say it goes back to Heidegger's concept of building/dwelling/thinking - with humans who by nature will prefer immediately familiar dwelling or environments. But because we're a rapidly growing region/collection of cities, people need to understand that there are going to be changes. …

Thanks, this is a really interesting way of thinking about it. I was just thinking about what my reaction will be if/when something tall is proposed near me and I have to admit depending on the exact proposal I might find it a bit jarring at first — but I will understand it as part of the natural evolution of the city and most likely support it in any public consultation.

In the 4 1/2 years we've lived in our home our view has changed and will change even more dramatically over the next couple of years. From one window I can now see DTK (and I assume I'll be able to see 44 Queen as well), from others I can see Market Flats and eventually Drewlo (if it ever gets finished....), plus the future project at Duke/Madison. So completely different skyline then when we bought our house. I don't find it that jarring because the buildings go up so slow that you have time to adjust. And right now I'd take the rumoured 8 storey building instead of the empty lot I walk past every day. 

Maybe the King East neighbourhood seems different than Victoria Park because it is in such need of upgrading, but it is also an older neighbourhood and I wouldn't fight to preserve the area just based on the age of the houses. My house is 150 years old, but I wouldn't call it worthy of preservation.

[Spokes]

This is my favourite quote:

“We don’t need it. We don’t want it,” said Jane Harding, who lives on Michael Street.

“We don’t need more condos. We need more affordable housing. We live downtown. We see it,” she said.

So this lady understands we need more affordable housing and therefore she opposes...more supply of housing.

Meanwhile, the developer "will commit to 50 affordable housing units (ownership at $368,000) as well as a financial contribution to an affordable housing provider to build units elsewhere in Kitchener." 

So if she has her way, there will be 1000+ fewer units of housing supply, including no affordable units, and no donation to an affordable housing provider in Kitchener. I would love to hear her try to explain exactly how that specific outcome helps contribute to resolving the need for more affordable housing. And since it obviously doesn't, I'd actually be even more interested to hear what her true complaint is and then have a discussion about why that should outweigh building as many housing units as possible on this piece of property. It'd be fascinating to know if, once you boiled it down to whatever is truly bothering her, she would come out and say, "Yes, I understand this helps address the issue of affordable housing in Kitchener, but I believe an extra hour of shadow per day on my house (or insert whatever harm she is worried about) is not worth that." I'd have so much more respect for these people if they just said that and then we could have an honest discussion about individual vs. collective rights and what the correct balance is.

How do these units work?  So ownership at $368k, and then once someone owns them are they worth market value and can be sold as such?  Or are they tabbed as "affordible" units long term

[cherrypark]

This is my favourite quote:


So this lady understands we need more affordable housing and therefore she opposes...more supply of housing.

Meanwhile, the developer "will commit to 50 affordable housing units (ownership at $368,000) as well as a financial contribution to an affordable housing provider to build units elsewhere in Kitchener." 

So if she has her way, there will be 1000+ fewer units of housing supply, including no affordable units, and no donation to an affordable housing provider in Kitchener. I would love to hear her try to explain exactly how that specific outcome helps contribute to resolving the need for more affordable housing. And since it obviously doesn't, I'd actually be even more interested to hear what her true complaint is and then have a discussion about why that should outweigh building as many housing units as possible on this piece of property. It'd be fascinating to know if, once you boiled it down to whatever is truly bothering her, she would come out and say, "Yes, I understand this helps address the issue of affordable housing in Kitchener, but I believe an extra hour of shadow per day on my house (or insert whatever harm she is worried about) is not worth that." I'd have so much more respect for these people if they just said that and then we could have an honest discussion about individual vs. collective rights and what the correct balance is.

How do these units work?  So ownership at $368k, and then once someone owns them are they worth market value and can be sold as such?  Or are they tabbed as "affordible" units long term

To my understanding (and per Councillor Chapman) if they are ownership condos there is nothing that blocks them from being resold. In my view, its just a waste of developer bottom line to even include those. Either they need to be part of a rental section of the development (noted as possible in the Urban Design Brief) and rent controlled permanently, or they would be better off just donating the discount value along with a larger additional excess FSR charge to the city to use developing truly need-based housing on public lands (or through some non-profit). I really don't understand why this model isn't the standard for non-rental developments.

[sluismcfc]

This is my favourite quote:


So this lady understands we need more affordable housing and therefore she opposes...more supply of housing.

Meanwhile, the developer "will commit to 50 affordable housing units (ownership at $368,000) as well as a financial contribution to an affordable housing provider to build units elsewhere in Kitchener." 

So if she has her way, there will be 1000+ fewer units of housing supply, including no affordable units, and no donation to an affordable housing provider in Kitchener. I would love to hear her try to explain exactly how that specific outcome helps contribute to resolving the need for more affordable housing. And since it obviously doesn't, I'd actually be even more interested to hear what her true complaint is and then have a discussion about why that should outweigh building as many housing units as possible on this piece of property. It'd be fascinating to know if, once you boiled it down to whatever is truly bothering her, she would come out and say, "Yes, I understand this helps address the issue of affordable housing in Kitchener, but I believe an extra hour of shadow per day on my house (or insert whatever harm she is worried about) is not worth that." I'd have so much more respect for these people if they just said that and then we could have an honest discussion about individual vs. collective rights and what the correct balance is.

How do these units work?  So ownership at $368k, and then once someone owns them are they worth market value and can be sold as such?  Or are they tabbed as "affordible" units long term

I would assume something registered on title that prevents them from being sold at a price higher than some ratio relative to median income or market prices. Usually the numbers you see are 30% of median income as a yearly housing cost or market cost less 10%. It may also be tied to time horizon of 20 or 50 years (just numbers I've seen recently for other projects).

[danbrotherston]

For many people there is just a very simplistic objection to the idea of cluster of tall buildings suddenly in view when they weren't there before. I'd say it goes back to Heidegger's concept of building/dwelling/thinking - with humans who by nature will prefer immediately familiar dwelling or environments. But because we're a rapidly growing region/collection of cities, people need to understand that there are going to be changes. …

Thanks, this is a really interesting way of thinking about it. I was just thinking about what my reaction will be if/when something tall is proposed near me and I have to admit depending on the exact proposal I might find it a bit jarring at first — but I will understand it as part of the natural evolution of the city and most likely support it in any public consultation.

The view out my windows has changed dramatically everywhere I've lived in this city.

I've never once felt that I had any right to oppose it, nor that it would be right to, or even in my interest to do so.

I realize I'm not a typical person, but it really bugs me on several levels the way people act.

[jeffster]

These NIMBY's need to understand that Kitchener is changing, and will be a lot different over the next 5, 10 and 20 years. It likely is already unrecognizable to someone that left 10 or 20 years ago. Even more so downtown, obviously.

We can talk about climate change to boot: if we can have more people living in core areas, they're more likely to use public transit, much like what you see in Toronto. It doesn't eliminate cars, and with ICE cars going out to style in the coming years, we're really going to have to give people living options. Building on farm land isn't one of them.

I am hoping that we start seeing 50 and 60 floors over the next decade, and hopefully for tech companies moving to DTK. It appears this is where we are heading, and rather than gripe, some of these folks should embrace, and if they can't, just accept it.