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It's just the design that worked in The Scott building's favour. It's precast like everything else they do. I don't think it's a particularly great design or anything, but it isn't offensive and it just works. Probably because it isn't monochromatic.
SRM is bad but they do have some people working there who have some skills. If you pull up the People page under Our Firm and just Google search the names of people who have B.Arch or M.Arch degrees, you can sometimes find the public portfolios of some of their team. I honestly put a lot of the fault and a lot of the bad work - on of course some architects who are just bad - but also on the developers they're hired by as well as the team leads and project managers at SRM itself.
Expect SRM to get even worse as time goes on, by the way...hah. You may notice that they've recently put up some blue signs on active sites they did the design for? One that is easy to spot is on the fence of the construction site across from Grand River Hospital. It says SRM Architects and Ubran Planning now. They recently merged with MSAi out of the GTA and are attempting to use the talent from MSAi to help SRM move into the urban design field. But just click the link on the link above...they're awful and unfortunately many of the staff from there are now in leadership positions at SRM.
Anyway, fortunately this project isn't by SRM. I think it's an ugly design nonetheless. Too many right angles, too much precast, tiny windows, very little use of colour, flat facades. Vive has no desire to design anything that looks actually nice. These sort of buildings honestly remind me of the sort of tower blocks found in eastern Berlin that the German Democratic Republic built all over the place. It's purely functional architecture.
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This is the other large project going to council for approval on the 18th. Staff are again recommending approval. Public comments for this one come from 3 main people the property owners next door (parking lot on Pandora) there comment is about staying informed as they are planning a highrise on their property. Another one comes from a member of the public which is mostly positive but brings up some valid concerns that others have said on here such as will commercial be viable in this location. Lastly the third public comment is from a city staff member which is mostly about the need for more parking as well as shadows.
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This has been approved with all councillors voting in favour with the exception of Chapman as expected.
There might be some fairly significant additional height coming to this location based on comments from councillor Davey, Schneider and Singh, the jist of what they were saying is there's only one shot at the building, we're in a major housing crisis so they are hoping for additional density considering it is within a MTSA, councillor Chapman really did not like that idea. Councillor Davey is the councillor who worked with Auburn to add the 600 additional units to The Metz in the week between original approval and final approval so this project could be very different come next weeks meeting, if not it would have to go through OBA/ZBA all over again based on what one of the councillors was saying.
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This was given the green light at council today. The following are the notably changes, an increase in building height from 17 floors to 27 floors, making it the tallest building within the Kitchener Market MTSA. The FSR increased from 9.8 to 14. The unit count increased from 163 to 279 (net change of +116). Due to changes that Ford made to the planning act council is no longer allowed to require affordable housing for an increase in density but Vive is going to include 32 affordable housing units which is 11.5% of the total units up from 0%, from what Litt was saying 22 of the units will be at 80% of market rate which is currently $1750, and then 10 of the units will be at 70% of market rate which is $1550. Vive is also including 2 additional barrier free units on the site for a total of 4 from the original 2.
Like normal Councillor Chapman was complaining about all sorts of things at the meeting, she was upset that this didn't get another neighbourhood information meeting, the affordable housing isn't enough (even though there was 0 units originally), and her normal shenanigans. It got to the point in the meeting where Councillor Davey was very obviously frustrated with her and was intending some of his comments towards Chapman when he commented on how no one should be saying no to a developer willingly increasing the number of units when we're in an extreme housing crisis. Then Councillor Singh and Schnider both praised Vive to some degree thanking them for their willingness to work with council and increase the density.
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Two blocks from both the Market and Borden stations, that's great!
I think we really need to see some new park space in this area of town to help support the new towers that are on deck around the Market and Borden stations. It's frustrating that we haven't seen ANY progress on improving park area in the downtown core. Currently around these stations, there's the Schneider Creek/Stirling Greenway, which is just trails along the concrete creek channel, Sandhills Park at Cedar/Courtland, and the First Mennonite Cemetery (which is very limited in how it can be used, ie: cannot repurpose a section to be kid-friendly with a playground). The Cameron Heights field counts as a park too, but it's limited in its scope as well - a running track and an open field, that I believe has a playground shoved in the back corner that's only accessible off Stirling near Courtland.
It would be nice to see, say, the MCC Thrift (50 Kent) donate the back corner of their parking lot near the Schneider Creek bridge to be developed as a park space that is already surrounded by mature trees. Or the city could trim off the end of Palmer St that crosses the Iron Horse Trail and use that space; right now it's only providing rear access to a unit that has frontage on Kent. Just curve Hurst right around to Palmer, and we could regain a depth of 40-45m for parkland. Or both together!
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(09-27-2023, 08:49 AM)SF22 Wrote: Two blocks from both the Market and Borden stations, that's great!
I think we really need to see some new park space in this area of town to help support the new towers that are on deck around the Market and Borden stations. It's frustrating that we haven't seen ANY progress on improving park area in the downtown core. Currently around these stations, there's the Schneider Creek/Stirling Greenway, which is just trails along the concrete creek channel, Sandhills Park at Cedar/Courtland, and the First Mennonite Cemetery (which is very limited in how it can be used, ie: cannot repurpose a section to be kid-friendly with a playground). The Cameron Heights field counts as a park too, but it's limited in its scope as well - a running track and an open field, that I believe has a playground shoved in the back corner that's only accessible off Stirling near Courtland.
It would be nice to see, say, the MCC Thrift (50 Kent) donate the back corner of their parking lot near the Schneider Creek bridge to be developed as a park space that is already surrounded by mature trees. Or the city could trim off the end of Palmer St that crosses the Iron Horse Trail and use that space; right now it's only providing rear access to a unit that has frontage on Kent. Just curve Hurst right around to Palmer, and we could regain a depth of 40-45m for parkland. Or both together!
There are plans to naturalize Schneider and Shoemaker creeks in that area. https://www.engagewr.ca/schneidercreekea
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(09-27-2023, 12:10 PM)Acitta Wrote: (09-27-2023, 08:49 AM)SF22 Wrote: Two blocks from both the Market and Borden stations, that's great!
I think we really need to see some new park space in this area of town to help support the new towers that are on deck around the Market and Borden stations. It's frustrating that we haven't seen ANY progress on improving park area in the downtown core. Currently around these stations, there's the Schneider Creek/Stirling Greenway, which is just trails along the concrete creek channel, Sandhills Park at Cedar/Courtland, and the First Mennonite Cemetery (which is very limited in how it can be used, ie: cannot repurpose a section to be kid-friendly with a playground). The Cameron Heights field counts as a park too, but it's limited in its scope as well - a running track and an open field, that I believe has a playground shoved in the back corner that's only accessible off Stirling near Courtland.
It would be nice to see, say, the MCC Thrift (50 Kent) donate the back corner of their parking lot near the Schneider Creek bridge to be developed as a park space that is already surrounded by mature trees. Or the city could trim off the end of Palmer St that crosses the Iron Horse Trail and use that space; right now it's only providing rear access to a unit that has frontage on Kent. Just curve Hurst right around to Palmer, and we could regain a depth of 40-45m for parkland. Or both together!
There are plans to naturalize Schneider and Shoemaker creeks in that area. https://www.engagewr.ca/schneidercreekea
That's something! I will keep an eye on that project. Hopefully the naturalization leaves them space to improve the greenspace in other ways, as well.
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Does the NDP read this stuff and think "we are fucked in the by-election"?
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(09-27-2023, 12:26 PM)Chris Wrote: Does the NDP read this stuff and think "we are fucked in the by-election"?
No, they have the convenient excuse when they lose and return to their ivory towers: “the masses just didn’t understand our message!”
The masses want a roof over their heads.
local cambridge weirdo
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Just for taking on Champan, I hope the NDP does as bad as they possibly can next election.
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Chapman literally told me in person that she does not agree that supply and demand has anything at all to do with housing prices.
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I considered myself a stubborn NDP voter; I even voted for Beisan Zubi!! But this is the last straw for me. Never again.
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Zubi pissed me off for basically just using her win as a springboard for her career. I don't think she even lasted a year before saying thanks guys but I can make more money elsewhere.
Champagne socialists...many such cases.
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