03-03-2017, 11:04 AM
(03-02-2017, 09:10 PM)MidTowner Wrote: Viewfromthe42: That is a wonderful street wall of heritage buildings with commercial uses right against the sidewalk and apartments or other uses on the above floors. Is it some kind of a sign of a lack of progress that it hasn't been razed for- what?- tall apartment buildings with modern-day setbacks?
I agree with you, DHLawrence, there are opportunities here, but there are residents who will push back against "intensification" of a nice area like this. That's not at all the case on Hespeler Road, for good reason.
I'm actually against Kitchener's TBUDG plan to have minimum setbacks of building height (e.g. 1Victoria would have to be set back equivalent to six floors). But in today's world, and our urban corridor, we need to support density along our transit spine. You're not going to have much luck building a condo or apartment building in the middle of Mary Allen neighbourhood, so your options are either to densify along the main corridor, or else push development out to greenfield. Same idea applies throughout our main cities. I don't believe we have to raze everything (see the proposal for the condos at the former Brick brewery, or the kiboshed proposal for the old-home-enclosing condo just north of the school at King and Central in Waterloo), but either we support the cores by allowing people to live and work there in decent numbers, or we support the rolling outward of strip malls, as places like the Boardwalk replace inner rings of strip malls, and that will be replaced as greenfield development pushes beyond them as well.