Welcome Guest! In order to take advantage of all the great features that Waterloo Region Connected has to offer, including participating in the lively discussions below, you're going to have to register. The good news is that it'll take less than a minute and you can get started enjoying Waterloo Region's best online community right away. Login or Create an Account
This is a single tower development being developed by a numbered company (1658194 Ontario LTD), from looking at the owner this is seemingly a rezone and flip situation but I would love to be wrong.
The building itself is 20 floors with a 4 floor podium and 1 level of underground parking. In total there will be 166 parking spaces between the underground level and 4 floors of the podium, however due to the site the parking will be mostly be hidden from Mill St. There will also be 100 bike spaces in the building. There will be a total of 293 units comprised of 4 3bdrm, 52 2bdrm, 208 1brdm, and 29 studio. There is no breakdown in the docs so I may have counted wrong from the arch plans.
In terms of amenity space there will be 536 sqm of indoor amenity space split between the first, second, third and fifth floors, this will include a lounge, a gym, a yoga studio, a games room and a kitchen/dining area. The 3rd floor will also contain some offices but it is unclear whether this will be building management related or available for residents. In terms of outdoor amenity area there is 822 sqm split between the 5th, 16th and 18th floor.
There will also be 212 sqm of commercial space on the ground floor.
I've always wondered what the story is behind the substantilal amount of undeveloped land behind this site. Afaik, there has never been anything on it, although industrial buildings have nibbled at the edges over the years.
It would be really nice to see a pedestrian/cyclist connection made in the same area that Shoemaker creek cuts under the train tracks, to connect this development (and Mill St in general) with the Schneiders development on Courtland, especially considering the park that's meant to be going into the Schneider development, and the commercial space that's earmarked for both areas. Having a trail that follows the creek would be a gorgeous natural extension to the park space, especially if it undergoes a renaturalization process like Schneider Creek just a few blocks away.
Nice to see some 2 and 3-bedrooms units in this one, too. They also seem to have gone heavy on dens - they mentioned in the Urban Design doc that there's obviously been a rise in people working from home since COVID, and it's really great to see that reflected in what they're building.
In terms of the big empty space between this building and the tracks, the City of Kitchener property map says it's part of 325 Stirling Ave S and zoned for industrial. Looks like the storage building that fronts Stirling isn't connected to this big lot, but the building behind the storage place is. It includes the driveway that comes up between the Mill St Parkette and the autoshop on Mill.
(07-24-2024, 01:39 PM)SF22 Wrote: In terms of the big empty space between this building and the tracks, the City of Kitchener property map says it's part of 325 Stirling Ave S and zoned for industrial. Looks like the storage building that fronts Stirling isn't connected to this big lot, but the building behind the storage place is. It includes the driveway that comes up between the Mill St Parkette and the autoshop on Mill.
That driveway is currently blocked off and not in use. It got used when they were re-naturalizing Shoemaker Creek, but they dropped several blocks of concrete in the way when they were done.
(07-24-2024, 01:39 PM)SF22 Wrote: In terms of the big empty space between this building and the tracks, the City of Kitchener property map says it's part of 325 Stirling Ave S and zoned for industrial. Looks like the storage building that fronts Stirling isn't connected to this big lot, but the building behind the storage place is. It includes the driveway that comes up between the Mill St Parkette and the autoshop on Mill.
That driveway is currently blocked off and not in use. It got used when they were re-naturalizing Shoemaker Creek, but they dropped several blocks of concrete in the way when they were done.
I know the driveway you mean but, to the best of my recollection, it has never been used to give regular vehicle access to the field out back. With the development pending on the other side of the tracks, the area would seem to offer opportunity for either residential development or even parkland.
(07-24-2024, 05:09 PM)Acitta Wrote: That driveway is currently blocked off and not in use. It got used when they were re-naturalizing Shoemaker Creek, but they dropped several blocks of concrete in the way when they were done.
I know the driveway you mean but, to the best of my recollection, it has never been used to give regular vehicle access to the field out back. With the development pending on the other side of the tracks, the area would seem to offer opportunity for either residential development or even parkland.
I think this should not be too expensive for the city to acquire, and would be a nice-size park, adding to the existing park space there.
This is 99.9999% guaranteed to be a rezone and flip project. Just looking at the architectural layout it makes very little sense. The design of the building is a dead giveaway too, using shitty royalty free assets like the brown brick and windows. The numbered company is probably someone who acquired the property and now wants to try and get in on the development boom even though it is basically dead, so surely hired the cheapest of the shittiest local architects (Masri O, just go look at her bio on their website lol) to throw this together to pitch it to the city. It's so low effort.
In cases like this, it's probably better that it's a rezone and flip, though. Same with half the shit Vive does and anyone else doing it. We need to stop approving awful proposals because there is only so much inner city land to develop and we don't need it all to be occupied by terrible projects for the next century. The entire city/region should be the best possible city, especially the cores. Imagine what Toronto or Chicago would look like if they let terrible developers define the cores of those built environments.
(08-11-2024, 09:08 PM)ac3r Wrote: By the way, hopefully my avatar isn't triggering anyone now! I heard it was making some of you feel upset. Sorry about that.
(08-11-2024, 09:08 PM)ac3r Wrote: By the way, hopefully my avatar isn't triggering anyone now! I heard it was making some of you feel upset. Sorry about that.
08-12-2024, 09:10 PM (This post was last modified: 08-12-2024, 09:17 PM by ac3r.)
That's Sam Hyde. An important thinker, a creator, innovator, artist, idea. But above all else, he's a passionate childlike innovator. He's been all around the grlobe!
(08-12-2024, 09:10 PM)ac3r Wrote: That's Sam Hyde. An important thinker, a creator, innovator, artist, idea. But above all else, he's a passionate childlike innovator. He's been all around the grlobe!
I don't get that from the Wikipedia article about him. Anyhow, he has nothing to do with this forum, so no further comment.
City staff are recommending that the ZBA for this site be DENIED. This will be the first time this has happened in what feels like years.
Staff is of the opinion that the amendments that the applicants is requesting are not required given the current zoning of the land. The property is already zoned SGA-3 which allows for as of right zoning up to a 28 floor building. However the applicant is asking for a larger built form (slab) and shorter building which results in less set backs between property lines (1m instead of the required 3), and a built form that doesn't contain step backs as required in the current Growing Together bylaw. The applicant also doesn't adequately show how a smaller setback affects the potential redevelopment of adjacent lands.
Staff also note that if the applicant conforms to the approved SGA zoning they can still get the same amount of units that they want while conforming to all of the requirements of the SGA-3 zone with regards to building step backs, lot setbacks etc.
