193 Water St S and 62 Highman Ave | 5x 15 fl | Proposed

[Acitta]

OR06/21 – 193 Water Street South and 62 Highman Avenue
The submitted applications are for the development of five, 15-storey apartment buildings, including five levels of parking. The proposed development provides for a total of 991 dwelling units (a combination of one, two, and three-bedroom apartment units and two-storey townhouses wrapped around the rear of the parking structures) and 1,176 parking spaces. The application also proposes 693 bicycle parking spaces and 3,964 square metres (42,668 square feet) of amenity area. A new public parkette has also been proposed on the adjacent property to the east of 193 Water Street South, known municipally as 62 Highman Avenue, and will include a pedestrian connection between the proposed development and the public amenity area. Furthermore, the applicant has proposed to donate five units to the City of Cambridge for affordable housing purposes.

[Acitta]

Cambridge Today: Proposed Water Street development details show five 15-storey buildings totaling 991 units

The developer has offered to donate five units for affordable housing purposes

[Acitta]

A lot of people living on Highman Avenue will not be happy that most of the trees will be removed from behind their properties if this goes ahead. I expect there will be a lot of pushback on this.

"An Official Plan Amendment, submitted as part of this combined application is required to re-designate 193 Water Street South from the “Natural Open Space System” designation to the “High-Density Residential” designation."

[ac3r]

Developer: https://ljm.ca/
Architect: https://rawdesign.ca/

Should be a nice infill project for an otherwise barren piece of land. I've never heard of LJM; RAW Design is mediocre at best. Public consultation meeting will be August 24, 2021.

Preliminary renders:

Massing:

I don't have a whole lot of faith Cambridge will let this one get approved. Also, 5 affordable units is a slap in the face. An entire building should be affordable. Overall, it looks pretty ugly to me. The project looked a lot different a few months ago when I saw it. Regardless, Cambridge can do better than this.

[tomh009]

I was reading "Water St S" and trying to think where this would be on Water St ... but then I saw Cambridge!

A good density addition to Cambridge, I think. I like the height, the inclusion of three-bedroom units and the donation of units for affordable housing. I would like to see some more affordable units (five units is only 0.5%) and I'd like to see a better ratio of bicycle spaces to car spaces.

[dtkvictim]

Does anyone else hate the way "multi-building" apartments seem to get designed here? I don't know what it is, maybe the composition is unnerving or something, but they really upset me to look at. Even khrushchyovka were often placed with a little more "chaos" to them, in a pleasing way. Other countries have these mass produced, repetitive buildings that don't give me the same feeling; I actually like many of them in places like Scandinavia.

I don't think anything in the region bothers me more than when these buildings appear on the horizon...

[tomh009]

Garment St/100 Victoria and Trio do have the buildings clustered rather than lined up, as does the Station Park site plan. In Waterloo, Barrel Yards does that as well. And the stillborn project at Charles/Stirling had a variation of the angle of the three buildings.

Metz (Schneiders) is a bit different as it has a lot of buildings with internal streets but, it, too, varies building shapes and avoids putting them in a straight line.

[plam]

What, you mean like these?



Or maybe these?



Beijing probably has more affordable housing than we do, but we can probably do better than this architecture.

[ac3r]

Does anyone else hate the way "multi-building" apartments seem to get designed here? I don't know what it is, maybe the composition is unnerving or something, but they really upset me to look at.

It's thanks to developers placing profit above all else. Architects could design an interesting, unique livable space but all too often developers cut corners and the design is one of the main things they slash. One main issue in my industry is that a developer wants a very nice, unique building - common sense, no? If you're selling cars, you want a flashy car. But developers are are mostly pariah's and can't escape their nature, seeking to make money, forcing them to cut costs in regards to design. They hire an architect, get them to design the bare minimum that is legally acceptable and passes the "do the NIMBYs hate it" test and then push it through. It's a shame because it looks so bad, gives the architects a bad reputation and ultimately puts a physical stain on the city for at least 50+ years.

[jamincan]

A lot of people living on Highman Avenue will not be happy that most of the trees will be removed from behind their properties if this goes ahead. I expect there will be a lot of pushback on this.

"An Official Plan Amendment, submitted as part of this combined application is required to re-designate 193 Water Street South from the “Natural Open Space System” designation to the “High-Density Residential” designation."

I'd be interesting in seeing the planning justification for such a change, because going from Natural Open Space to High-Density Residential seems about as huge a shift as you can get and I have a hard time seeing what about that site would justify the change except that the developer happens to own it.

[ijmorlan]

A lot of people living on Highman Avenue will not be happy that most of the trees will be removed from behind their properties if this goes ahead. I expect there will be a lot of pushback on this.

"An Official Plan Amendment, submitted as part of this combined application is required to re-designate 193 Water Street South from the “Natural Open Space System” designation to the “High-Density Residential” designation."

I'd be interesting in seeing the planning justification for such a change, because going from Natural Open Space to High-Density Residential seems about as huge a shift as you can get and I have a hard time seeing what about that site would justify the change except that the developer happens to own it.

Yes! Normally I’m Mr. “full speed ahead, who cares about the zoning” but whether a large plot of land is open space for plants and animals or built up with huge buildings is a pretty major planning decision that should be made once and then maintained consistently unless something significant happens to change it.

If this is approved then what basis does the City have for maintaining the rest of their zoning? Also the developer should be required to pay the city the entire increase in value of the vacant lot arising from the rezoning.

[panamaniac]

But the developer is offering 5 affordable units. Five whole units ...

[ac3r]

For once, I might actually be compelled to join the public meeting and raise the issue of affordability. 5 units doesn't do a damn thing to address the housing crisis in this country.

[Bjays93]

There will of course be push back, but once again I think this is a really good place for density in Cambridge. I like the development being around the edge of the galt core. I'd very much like to see downtown galt preserved as like "old galt" in a way similar to what you see in montreal say (apples to oranges I know) but seeing how badly HIP botched the heritage integration at south works mall with their gaslight district project I believe it's best to leave stuff like that well enough alone unless we can get better developers and architects here.

This. This is a great spot though

[panamaniac]

For once, I might actually be compelled to join the public meeting and raise the issue of affordability. 5 units doesn't do a damn thing to address the housing crisis in this country.

50 or fugedaboudit.