General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[MidTowner]

Countless governments (including ours) have tried to bribe families with various types of child tax credits (or maybe this is demonizing, too?) to have larger families, and it really does not significantly move the needle. Some individuals, yes, but not enough.

What does work, at least somewhat? Enabling women to have children AND continue their careers. And how do you do that? With $10/day child care.

The Canadian government doesn't have any natalist policies: as far as I know it has never stated that a goal of any policy is to increase the birth rate. The Canada Child Benefit, for instance, the biggest such program, is intended to lift children out of poverty, and the evidence has been that it really has. Some people view it as a "bribe" to have children or to have children, but that's not the intent. It doesn't privilege larger families, for instance. No Canadian policies do, and to some extent most actually privilege families with fewer children.

If you have seen some evidence that subsidized day care works to increase fertility rates, I'd love to see it. I personally doubt it- but it's still probably good policy for all sorts of reasons.

[plam]

Countless governments (including ours) have tried to bribe families with various types of child tax credits (or maybe this is demonizing, too?) to have larger families, and it really does not significantly move the needle. Some individuals, yes, but not enough.

What does work, at least somewhat? Enabling women to have children AND continue their careers. And how do you do that? With $10/day child care.

It really ought to help, yes.

[tomh009]

If you have seen some evidence that subsidized day care works to increase fertility rates, I'd love to see it. I personally doubt it- but it's still probably good policy for all sorts of reasons.

Here is a study that used pretty high-quality data from Germany, that indicates a significant impact from the availability of child care. Still probably not enough to get to a replacement level fertility rate, but still an improvement.
https://www.cesifo.org/en/publications/2...d-care-and

[tomh009]

Here is a ranking of reasons for having (or not having) children from a study in Australia. Food for thought.

   

[bravado]

I think the cost thing is a natural conclusion since kids are expensive, but still not reflected in the real world. There are countries where the amount of money spent by governments on new parents is basically infinite - but didn't budge the birth rate in any meaningful way. People just want fewer kids and if they are allowed to do that, they will do it.

[Lebronj23]

I know this is just a rendering but it’s marked as 150 strange St. I think the site of a current warehouse?

Anyways it appears to have a 56 storey tower

https://www.dhrendering.com/high-rise/#p...ry_1%5D/3/

Anyone have any info on this?

[Acitta]

I know this is just a rendering but it’s marked as 150 strange St. I think the site of a current warehouse?

Anyways it appears to have a 56 storey tower

https://www.dhrendering.com/high-rise/#p...ry_1%5D/3/

Anyone have any info on this?

It appears to be the big parking lot between Strange and Park.

[nms]

That lot has been for sale for a while now and was formerly used as overflow staff parking for GRH.

[westwardloo]

Beautiful render though. Obviously this will never be built in our region. Developers in Vaughan, Markham or Mississauga would build something of this quality, but never KWC.  I could see this area getting developed in the future. The Ontario seed company building, the old curling club/ Badminton club and even the AirBoss (Dominion Tire) factory if it ever decided to move or close, would all be great locations for mixed use developments.

[panamaniac]

Beautiful render though. Obviously this will never be built in our region. Developers in Vaughan, Markham or Mississauga would build something of this quality, but never KWC.  I could see this area getting developed in the future. The Ontario seed company building, the old curling club/ Badminton club and even the AirBoss (Dominion Tire) factory if it ever decided to move or close, would all be great locations for mixed use developments.

Are the old Granite Club building and at least parts of the old Dominion Tire building not designated heritage structures?  They should be, if they are not.

[westwardloo]

Beautiful render though. Obviously this will never be built in our region. Developers in Vaughan, Markham or Mississauga would build something of this quality, but never KWC.  I could see this area getting developed in the future. The Ontario seed company building, the old curling club/ Badminton club and even the AirBoss (Dominion Tire) factory if it ever decided to move or close, would all be great locations for mixed use developments.

Are the old Granite Club building and at least parts of the old Dominion Tire building not designated heritage structures?  They should be, if they are not.

I do not know, but I agree, the Old Dominion Tire Building should 100% be designated as a Heritage Structure. The Granite Club, the front facade is nice enough, but not sure it justifies Heritage Designation.

[panamaniac]

Are the old Granite Club building and at least parts of the old Dominion Tire building not designated heritage structures?  They should be, if they are not.

I do not know, but I agree, the Old Dominion Tire Building should 100% be designated as a Heritage Structure. The Granite Club, the front facade is nice enough, but not sure it justifies Heritage Designation.

In the case of the Granite Club, it would be more the social history elements than the architecture that would justify designation, one would think,

[ZEBuilder]

Beautiful render though. Obviously this will never be built in our region. Developers in Vaughan, Markham or Mississauga would build something of this quality, but never KWC.  I could see this area getting developed in the future. The Ontario seed company building, the old curling club/ Badminton club and even the AirBoss (Dominion Tire) factory if it ever decided to move or close, would all be great locations for mixed use developments.

Are the old Granite Club building and at least parts of the old Dominion Tire building not designated heritage structures?  They should be, if they are not.

The old Granite Club building was designated as heritage at the January 7th Heritage Kitchener meeting.

https://pub-kitchener.escribemeetings.co...ntId=23544

The Airboss building isn't designated yet, it wouldn't be all that surprising if they're actively working on the designation though.

The entire swath of land from King to Belmont north of the tracks is all SGA 4 zoning in Growing Together so there's definitely potential for projects of that magnitude. I wouldn't say developers won't build to that quality, there's a couple prominent GTA developers who have been looking at KW and they don't skimp on cladding. Even that rendering screams spandrel nightmare so it's not necessarily a good design.

[ac3r]

I'm going by memory here but I recall that render was just to represent potential at the location, not an actual proposal. It has indeed been up for sale for a while. As ZEBuilder states it's not a great design or anything.

To elaborate, a lot of the time when someone is hired to produce a very conceptual render, they may not be going off actual plans they've been provided. Instead, a lot of the time they just throw together something that "looks" like a building, but may not make actual sense or just not have much thought into the design. Sometimes the people doing the work may not have any architectural background either, but they are really good in something like V-Ray or Blender. It's definitely a weird looking structure, but I suspect that's because it was made just for sales promotion.

Either way, that particular company offers a good look at project ideas around the region! You can see a new one they have posted for 84 Frederick Street, the site of the old YMCA women's shelter downtown next to Duke Tower. I'm not sure if that property has been sold yet but you can see they have a rendering for a tower there that's 28 floors. ZEBuilder may know more about this as they seem to have their finger on the pulse of the planning side of things more than I do haha. It could also just be a mock rendering to facilitate a property sale, or potentially a proposed project.

[ZEBuilder]

I'm going by memory here but I recall that render was just to represent potential at the location, not an actual proposal. It has indeed been up for sale for a while. As ZEBuilder states it's not a great design or anything.

To elaborate, a lot of the time when someone is hired to produce a very conceptual render, they may not be going off actual plans they've been provided. Instead, a lot of the time they just throw together something that "looks" like a building, but may not make actual sense or just not have much thought into the design. Sometimes the people doing the work may not have any architectural background either, but they are really good in something like V-Ray or Blender. It's definitely a weird looking structure, but I suspect that's because it was made just for sales promotion.

Either way, that particular company offers a good look at project ideas around the region! You can see a new one they have posted for 84 Frederick Street, the site of the old YMCA women's shelter downtown next to Duke Tower. I'm not sure if that property has been sold yet but you can see they have a rendering for a tower there that's 28 floors. ZEBuilder may know more about this as they seem to have their finger on the pulse of the planning side of things more than I do haha. It could also just be a mock rendering to facilitate a property sale, or potentially a proposed project.

Like ac3r points out many of those renders are marketing material, there are some which have more worth than others on there, but I will leave it at that. There are a handful of projects as well which haven't had renders publicly yet so there are some nice looking concepts to come (unless they get VEd, which is just as much of an issue in the GTA). I haven't heard anything directly about that Park St property, it is off the market now so someone may have picked it up, but that rendering from what I recall is marketing material. 

The rendering of the 84 Frederick property is also purely marketing/Growing Together related. The Region ended up purchasing that property, so don't expect that rendered tower to actually be built.