TEK Tower (30 Francis) | 45 fl | U/C

[Bjays93]

Both IN8 and SRM are basically get rich quick scammers. Companies like this are not uncommon during a construction boom. A developer comes in and realizes they can make a cheap building, marketing it as a beautiful new luxury development. They hire the cheapest possible architect firm they can to design it. Corners get cut after approval to save money and then they end up building an ugly eyesore that begins to fall apart.

Thankfully we're getting more respectable developers and architecture firms working here, as well as some decent local talent that has been doing great work. And the City of Kitchener is not exactly approving every bad development that gets proposed, unlike Waterloo, which has now created a ghetto of student buildings with some of the ugliest architectural designs and coldest/hostile pedestrian environments you can get.

Maybe you can shed some light on this for me: if the city is approving things like above-zoned density or whatever bylaw exceptions they need, why can't some mode of architectural integrity or clear statement of these exterior features be built into their approval? It seems like the render-porn bait and switch is a favourite in town here but I can't figure out why there is no way to protect against it.

If the developers are crowing it will affect the business case for the building then maybe they should suck less at their proposal level planning?

You can't start policing design because it's inherently subjective. You can have something like the design review panel in Toronto that makes non binding suggestions for developers. However as soon as you create a body that has the ability to shoot down a project purely on the merits of its design you risk ruining potentially perfectly good, or maybe even standout developments because the members of the panel weren't fans of whatever that particular design was. It's something that's very hard to objectively quantify even if there is near unanimous agreement in some cases.