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What does DTK need? - Printable Version +- Waterloo Region Connected (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com) +-- Forum: Urban Issues (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=9) +--- Forum: Urban Issues (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: What does DTK need? (/showthread.php?tid=1740) |
RE: Charlie West (Charles & Gaukel) | 31 fl | Complete - Rainrider22 - 01-11-2023 (01-11-2023, 04:00 AM)dtkvictim Wrote: Sorry, I'm incredibly late responding to these... Thank you for sharing your intimate experience. I would love it if you shared this with mayor and city counsel. I am going to share it with my cousin who sits on the police service board and regional counsel as well. We need more real personal stories like this that remove the bias and say it like it is. RE: What does DTK need? - danbrotherston - 01-11-2023 (12-20-2022, 02:05 PM)KevinL Wrote: The vendors at the market all have standard signs, as well, indicating if they are the growers directly, a reseller for local growers, or just an importer. Yes, the vendor signage was really awesome. I loved that they did that. RE: Charlie West (Charles & Gaukel) | 31 fl | Complete - danbrotherston - 01-11-2023 (01-11-2023, 04:00 AM)dtkvictim Wrote: Sorry, I'm incredibly late responding to these... With those clarifications, I agree, those are not comfortable or safe experiences, and I'd agree that I would also feel unsafe in those situations. You seem to describe a similar tolerance to experience that I have. I only suggested a difference in tolerance because it seemed more likely than us having wildly different actual experiences living in such close proximity. I really cannot explain that difference. FWIW when we lived in a house in a near-downtown but still clearly suburban location, we did come home to our door half broken open (yes, security doors for the win). But in our condo building, I didn't even bother locking our apartment door. In the four years we were there, we had 2 break and enter related thefts, but in both cases, the offenders did not enter apartments, did not even go near apartments. RE: What does DTK need? - tomh009 - 01-11-2023 Thanks for the concrete examples. I can't explain all of it, but some of it (break-in attempts, smashed car windows) that are not happening to us may well correlate with modern condo building security (security fob entry, secured garage) vs older buildings. Absolutely not good experiences for you -- and yet not happening to me or our neighbours (I think our building's 200-car garage has seen only a handful of cars broken into in the seven years that we have been here). I don't know that there is any easy fix here, apart from moving to a newer building. The "DIE" and sign-throwing incidents ... wow. I have not witnessed similar. I walk a lot on King St, Water St, Francis St, but probably not as much as you do, and probably much less after dark. These do feel like mental health issues, but not as harmless as many such issues are. As a society, we do need to address these. I think it's quite difficult to completely eliminate such problems, but certainly we need to work on them. All that said ... I suspect these kinds of issues can occur in any larger city, they are not unique to Kitchener. But, as I wrote above, new downtown residents may be less likely to encounter them if they are living in new condo or apartment buildings with reasonable security, and maybe spending less time outside in the dark? It's a hypothesis, though, I really have no hard evidence to back that up. RE: What does DTK need? - ijmorlan - 01-12-2023 (01-11-2023, 10:34 PM)tomh009 Wrote: The "DIE" and sign-throwing incidents ... wow. I have not witnessed similar. I walk a lot on King St, Water St, Francis St, but probably not as much as you do, and probably much less after dark. These do feel like mental health issues, but not as harmless as many such issues are. As a society, we do need to address these. I think it's quite difficult to completely eliminate such problems, but certainly we need to work on them. These are difficult for many reasons but one problem I see is that a lot of the debate (if it can be called that) is between “leftists” (to stereotype) who want to provide poverty and mental health supports; and “rightists” (to stereotype again) who want to lock them all up and throw away the key. Of course, the real response is a combination of various responses. Obviously, just having harsher and harsher punishments is a recipe for enormous expense in the criminal justice system, not to mention the downstream effects of incarcerating lots of people. And for crimes that arise from desperation or mental health, the deterrence concept doesn’t really apply (by contrast, credibly threaten jail for economic crimes committed by rich people, and watch the crime disappear — those people can do the math, and will do anything to stay away from prison). On the other hand, many of these crimes are crimes and are serious, even if not individually then in their overall effect on the city. So the mental health supports cannot be seen as an optional thing that is available to people if they want it; if somebody is regularly caught committing petty crimes, and it is judged to be a consequence of mental health problems, they need to be forced to participate in appropriate treatment. If they won’t, then that is tough for them: their right to whatever doesn’t trump the rights of the rest of us. RE: What does DTK need? - plam - 01-12-2023 (01-12-2023, 12:20 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: On the other hand, many of these crimes are crimes and are serious, even if not individually then in their overall effect on the city. So the mental health supports cannot be seen as an optional thing that is available to people if they want it; if somebody is regularly caught committing petty crimes, and it is judged to be a consequence of mental health problems, they need to be forced to participate in appropriate treatment. If they won’t, then that is tough for them: their right to whatever doesn’t trump the rights of the rest of us. I agree with almost all you're saying here. I will point out that mental health treatment is hard at the best of times and forcing people to participate in treatment is likely not going to get any good results at all. What's the solution? I don't know, sorry. RE: What does DTK need? - ijmorlan - 01-13-2023 (01-12-2023, 11:52 AM)plam Wrote:(01-12-2023, 12:20 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: On the other hand, many of these crimes are crimes and are serious, even if not individually then in their overall effect on the city. So the mental health supports cannot be seen as an optional thing that is available to people if they want it; if somebody is regularly caught committing petty crimes, and it is judged to be a consequence of mental health problems, they need to be forced to participate in appropriate treatment. If they won’t, then that is tough for them: their right to whatever doesn’t trump the rights of the rest of us. I don’t like the concept of forced treatment either. I just think it’s better than prison. Instead of repeatedly punishing people who are in many cases incapable of learning from the punishment, keep them where they have the best chance of surviving their problems without repeatedly harming others; and give them the possibility of obtaining treatment. RE: What does DTK need? - dtkvictim - 01-15-2023 (01-11-2023, 07:43 AM)Rainrider22 Wrote: Thank you for sharing your intimate experience. I would love it if you shared this with mayor and city counsel. I am going to share it with my cousin who sits on the police service board and regional counsel as well. We need more real personal stories like this that remove the bias and say it like it is. I have shared a number of my experiences with a Downtown BIA member, who I believe raised some discussion with the mayor and police. But you are right, I should be more active about sharing my experiences in my own words with the people that matter, since I don't know if my experiences were portrayed in the manner I would have wanted. Has anyone writing Mike Morris gotten personal responses? I've been meaning to write him for a while, as I have more faith in him than anyone else I can write, and I believe most of the issues brought up here can't be solved exclusively (maybe not even significantly) by municipalities. Though he may have the lowest amount of real political influence of anyone I can write. (01-11-2023, 10:34 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Thanks for the concrete examples. I can't explain all of it, but some of it (break-in attempts, smashed car windows) that are not happening to us may well correlate with modern condo building security (security fob entry, secured garage) vs older buildings. Absolutely not good experiences for you -- and yet not happening to me or our neighbours (I think our building's 200-car garage has seen only a handful of cars broken into in the seven years that we have been here). I don't know that there is any easy fix here, apart from moving to a newer building. I'm glad for you and all the others who haven't had significant issues. There is so much here to love, between the high quality independent shop owners and staff, best cycling infrastructure in the region, transit access, the park and trails, etc. And so I hope living here can continue to be a net positive for all of you. But my initial point in all of this was that my personal experiences align with how large swaths of Canadians perceive urban Canada, and so it frustrates me to see their views dismissed as ignorant, hateful suburbanites (while acknowledging that many of them do exist). My urbanist ideals are primarily motivated by climate change, so the inability to get suburban Canada on board with radical changes to our built environment because we dismiss their concerns is a frightening prospect to me. You are 100% right that this isn't a Kitchener specific issue though. As I've mentioned before, I've now seen probably thousands of comments from Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and Calgary forums telling similar tales to mine, and so while I don't found others on this forums sharing my experience, I know it's not just me. I must have read 100+ comments from people claiming to have abandoned the TTC in favour of buying a car, even before the recent high profile events, which given my motivations, is a highly disappointing development. Even transit enthusiast (sometimes even transit apologist) RMTransit has noted safety concerns stemming from the same mental health and drug addiction roots. And another point I want to address, not directly to you Tom, but I've seen people here use the development and population increase of places like DTK as evidence of the area's improvement and desirability. But for those of you looking for evidence that revitalization is working, I wouldn't recommend this metric during a housing crisis. I think I'm quite a bit below the average age of this forum, and frankly most of the people I know of my age aren't choosing where to live. They are taking the first housing that is both available and affordable, which usually means living in one of the few areas that actually has active development and small (cheap) units. RE: What does DTK need? - tomh009 - 01-16-2023 (01-15-2023, 09:52 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: And another point I want to address, not directly to you Tom, but I've seen people here use the development and population increase of places like DTK as evidence of the area's improvement and desirability. But for those of you looking for evidence that revitalization is working, I wouldn't recommend this metric during a housing crisis. I think I'm quite a bit below the average age of this forum, and frankly most of the people I know of my age aren't choosing where to live. They are taking the first housing that is both available and affordable, which usually means living in one of the few areas that actually has active development and small (cheap) units. This is quite true -- we have young people on our team. But some of them are specifically looking to not buy a car, so they are looking to ideally live near downtown (walkable to work) or else convenient to transit. Because driving a car is expensive, too. So, indirectly, some young people also end up looking for housing near downtown. RE: What does DTK need? - ijmorlan - 01-16-2023 (01-16-2023, 11:08 AM)tomh009 Wrote:(01-15-2023, 09:52 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: And another point I want to address, not directly to you Tom, but I've seen people here use the development and population increase of places like DTK as evidence of the area's improvement and desirability. But for those of you looking for evidence that revitalization is working, I wouldn't recommend this metric during a housing crisis. I think I'm quite a bit below the average age of this forum, and frankly most of the people I know of my age aren't choosing where to live. They are taking the first housing that is both available and affordable, which usually means living in one of the few areas that actually has active development and small (cheap) units. Of course, really they’re looking for a walkable neighbourhood; but thanks to zoning, the only place it’s legal to build walkable is downtown. Leading to an undersupply and walkability becoming associated in people’s minds with unaffordability even though in fact it is way more efficient and economical than designing the city to require driving everywhere. RE: What does DTK need? - tomh009 - 01-16-2023 (01-16-2023, 12:15 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Of course, really they’re looking for a walkable neighbourhood; but thanks to zoning, the only place it’s legal to build walkable is downtown. Leading to an undersupply and walkability becoming associated in people’s minds with unaffordability even though in fact it is way more efficient and economical than designing the city to require driving everywhere. That is quite true. RE: What does DTK need? - Momo26 - 01-20-2023 My company is leaving the DTK area entirely. The two biggest issues to push for the move... parking (people rather have free then pay - ironically less important now given how the return to office has played out) and safety. The safety piece coming in higher than accessibility for our clients (many of which travel by public transit) and aesthetics/space and cost (I am not sure if new place is even cheaper per sqft tbh but it is on the EDGE of the region). So that's even less crowd for coffee and lunch rush in DTK soon... RE: What does DTK need? - danbrotherston - 01-20-2023 (01-20-2023, 02:39 PM)Momo26 Wrote: My company is leaving the DTK area entirely. The two biggest issues to push for the move... parking (people rather have free then pay - ironically less important now given how the return to office has played out) and safety. The safety piece coming in higher than accessibility for our clients (many of which travel by public transit) and aesthetics/space and cost (I am not sure if new place is even cheaper per sqft tbh but it is on the EDGE of the region). Leaving safety aside... Ahh...the "free parking" complaint. So exhausting. Of course, there is no free parking. The difference is now parking will be a business expense that employees get for free. Meaning anyone who doesn't drive will now be paid less. And moving to the edge of town is really shitty for any clients who take public transit, what proportion of clients is this? Does your company know how many this will affect? RE: What does DTK need? - bravado - 01-20-2023 Is parking at work a taxable benefit in some alternative reality? Should people who don’t drive get a refund from their employer? RE: What does DTK need? - taylortbb - 01-20-2023 (01-20-2023, 04:00 PM)bravado Wrote: Is parking at work a taxable benefit in some alternative reality? Should people who don’t drive get a refund from their employer? Parking at work is a taxable benefit when parking costs money, like in DTK. But in the suburbs, where zoning mandates such massive amounts of parking that it drives the market price to zero, it's not considered a taxable benefit. But just because the market price of parking is zero, doesn't mean parking is zero cost. It still has to be built, maintained, cleared of snow, etc. Some areas have adopted rules called parking cash out, which mandate that employees who don't use the parking get paid an amount equivalent to what the employer spends on providing free parking for the employees who drive. It seems quite fair to me. If the employer is going to spend money on providing free parking, they should be mandated to offer an equally valuable credit towards transit/cycling/etc. The easiest form of which is to just give cash. |