06-09-2016, 09:12 AM
Was at the Tall Building Urban Design Guidelines meeting last night (I'm going to start calling it The BUDGie, for the acronym, and because our ability to accommodate tall buildings and to do them well is a canary-in-the-coalmine of sorts for our urban fabric.
After the roundtables, where people had voted on 8 facets of The BUDGie, and discussed the table's top 3 in detail, the main areas of concern were around public and private open spaces, massing and scale, fitting into local context, architecture, and safety. One table's consensus was that tall buildings should start with boulevard sidewalks, then greenway buffer, then public park, and if you could actually fit a building onto the remaining parcel surrounded by this massive buffer, well it didn't really need to be more than 4 storeys, did it? (note: The BUDGie concerns only structures of 9+ storeys) I was also a bit shocked that a resident living across from Google felt that 1Vic was too tall for the area, and even Google's expansion was a bit massive, even if the preservation of much old building was appreciated. There was some nodding when I mentioned that with GRT/ION/GO Bus/GO Train/Greyhound/VIA/Regional Roads with highway access/potential high-speed-rail, King and Victoria should be the densest, tallest place in the region. Still, I was left with the feeling that a lot of people in the area have the mindset of wanting to be close to the amenities of downtown, but don't want neighbours that don't live the same as them (fake-itecture was something the developers and architects at my table lamented, but many other tables seemed to champion).
Online information can be found here and comments submitted to Dayna.Edwards@kitchener.ca, and further consultations will happen this year, with the initial draft coming in July.
After the roundtables, where people had voted on 8 facets of The BUDGie, and discussed the table's top 3 in detail, the main areas of concern were around public and private open spaces, massing and scale, fitting into local context, architecture, and safety. One table's consensus was that tall buildings should start with boulevard sidewalks, then greenway buffer, then public park, and if you could actually fit a building onto the remaining parcel surrounded by this massive buffer, well it didn't really need to be more than 4 storeys, did it? (note: The BUDGie concerns only structures of 9+ storeys) I was also a bit shocked that a resident living across from Google felt that 1Vic was too tall for the area, and even Google's expansion was a bit massive, even if the preservation of much old building was appreciated. There was some nodding when I mentioned that with GRT/ION/GO Bus/GO Train/Greyhound/VIA/Regional Roads with highway access/potential high-speed-rail, King and Victoria should be the densest, tallest place in the region. Still, I was left with the feeling that a lot of people in the area have the mindset of wanting to be close to the amenities of downtown, but don't want neighbours that don't live the same as them (fake-itecture was something the developers and architects at my table lamented, but many other tables seemed to champion).
Online information can be found here and comments submitted to Dayna.Edwards@kitchener.ca, and further consultations will happen this year, with the initial draft coming in July.