Quote:Is Waterloo adding too many highrises, packed too closely?
Let me answer this for you, Jeff: no.
A journalist is supposed to be objective but even when a story is short, his stuff is filled with emotional language and strongly loaded headlines. Everything he writes just says "I hate living in a city" or pushes a strong NIMBY narrative. Maybe it's time he goes to live in the woods where he can escape urban life.
Anyway I don't think these towers are too close. 12 meters is nothing... Go to any big city in the world and they're even closer than that. I'll also say loss of view should be pretty irrelevant. Nobody is fundamentally entitled to a nice view out their window, though it's nice to have of course. If one lives in a city and expect that, then maybe city life isn't what they should be doing. Or if it wants, Waterloo can put legislation in place to curtail density but that would be a really bad decision to do when this region is exploding in population, more and more students are studying here and the federal government is aiming to bring in roughly 500'000 immigrants per year. If they do that, then they need to expand the approval of medium density.
It would be nice if these buildings had more than 1 bedroom on average (and actually looked nice, but I digress) but let's be honest, it's the university area of Waterloo. These places are mostly geared to students or young people without families, not people with 2+ children (or multiple adult family members) already. And nobody wise should raising a family on the 25th floor of a building anyway as doing so has been consistently linked to a myriad of problems: higher degrees of mental illness, breakdowns in social interactions leading to isolation, a sedentary lifestyle leading to worsened physical health, a potential for higher rates of crime and anti-social behaviour and so on. This is why we need more midrise apartment blocks which can add density yet mitigate the health and social issues related to living in higher towers and skyscrapers. I think issues like these are often forgotten by people who promote high density. They're only looking to solve certain issues (loss of green space, farmland etc) by mitigating sprawl and assuming high density is the key, but it comes at a cost.
Pack the kids studying and young graduates in these existing dense areas like this whilst building midrise buildings and some single family homes elsewhere which provide a better environment for raising families. Balance is the key, but it feels like Waterloo only goes in either polar opposite of SFH's and these towers up to 25 floors (which is the maximum height they allow in the city).