ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[tomh009]

All the streets you mention are city streets, not regional roads. I believe the city owns the sidewalks, too, though I could possibly be wrong on that. So the city is in control: if you want to make a proposal, you can either present to council or join in with the Gaukel Greenway group

The terminal land is just like private ownership of property, it just happens to be the region. City will generally not have any rights on that unless it chooses to expropriate the land.

I believe Charles is Regional.

Anyway, my point is that the Region shouldn’t just sell the land, no strings attached. Instead, they should work with the City to plan what the block will look like at street level. If that includes severing part of the block to widen the space available at Gaukel or some other adjustment to property boundaries, that is best done cooperatively between the two governments. The relationship between the building and the surrounding streets should also be worked out. Then the developer can decide what to build, how tall, how much commercial, etc. within the urban planning context established by the City and the Region.

You are indeed correct about Charles, my mistake. But that border unlikely to change anyway given that the LRT tracks now define the edge of Charles St against this property.

In any case, planning and zoning is a city responsibility, and I think any kind of joint decision-making here would become super complex and difficult to reach consensus. I strongly believe this kind of thing -- especially regarding parks in Kitchener -- needs to be done by the city. The city can use zoning (and the variance negotiation process) to drive the design of the development. And if they want to go further on this, the city can purchase the property from the region, and then resell to a developer with the right conditions.

I have no complaints about our regional government, I just don't see this kind of joint planning to be a workable model.