528, 533, 550 Lancaster St W | 10, 12, 18, 30, 30 fl | U/C

[Chris]

I actually reached out to the City of Kitchener just recently, asking about the possibility of additional bike/people bridges over the Grand to help link neighbourhoods together,

"Hello and thank you for your interest in the Region. While we have no reports of people swimming across the river to get to the other side we have determined that more bridges are not needed."

[nms]

How about a cable ferry raft? As you paddle across, the raft from the other side is hauled in the other direction so there is always an option to cross? :-)

[ZEBuilder]

This is going to The Planning and Strategic Initatives Commitee meeting next monday (May 8th). Staff are recommending approval for both the OPA and ZBA as well as the relocation of the two existing house's onto Bridge St.

[KaiserWilhelmsBust]

This is going to The Planning and Strategic Initatives Commitee meeting next monday (May 8th). Staff are recommending approval for both the OPA and ZBA as well as the relocation of the two existing house's onto Bridge St.

If you can handle the cringe, the City posts emails they receive from neighbors under the development attachments. There are some UNHINGED people.

[ZEBuilder]

This is going to The Planning and Strategic Initatives Commitee meeting next monday (May 8th). Staff are recommending approval for both the OPA and ZBA as well as the relocation of the two existing house's onto Bridge St.

If you can handle the cringe, the City posts emails they receive from neighbors under the development attachments. There are some UNHINGED people.

Alot of the comments on all of the developments are always the same so it's not really suprising to see them. It's just the usual complaining about traffic and density, similar comments happened with Victoria and Park and Mill and Ottawa. This just has the added comments about Bridgeport being this super historical area so these towers apparently don't fit. But there's nothing really suprising in them

[ac3r]

This is going to The Planning and Strategic Initatives Commitee meeting next monday (May 8th). Staff are recommending approval for both the OPA and ZBA as well as the relocation of the two existing house's onto Bridge St.

If you can handle the cringe, the City posts emails they receive from neighbors under the development attachments. There are some UNHINGED people.

Anytime me and my colleages read stuff like that we start boiling over haha. Absolute idiots, the lot of them.

[cherrypark]

I actually reached out to the City of Kitchener just recently, asking about the possibility of additional bike/people bridges over the Grand to help link neighbourhoods together, namely connecting the tail-end of Riverbend across to the Bridgeport Sportsfield, and then another bridge crossing from Schaefer Park over to the Bridgeport North neighbourhood, so that pedestrians/cyclists could navigate the Lancaster/Bridge area without having to actually travel on those streets. (I was told that, at this time, there are no additional plans for pedestrians bridges like the one down by Doon, although they will revisit it in the future). Might be worth reaching out to the City yourself to ask for something like this, show that there's demand for alternate routes!

This is a pretty good idea IMO. Lancaster/Bridge can be kind of wild to ride during busy times.

Thirded here. Would really be a benefit to have that new density have access to the parkland across the river.

[dtkmelissa]

Thanks for the link jeffster.  This one bit stood out for me:

In the early 20th Century, families often had many children, resulting in large households. However, during this era, households were often flexible, expanding and contracting as the need arose. It was not unusual for households to include relatives, boarders or other individuals, either temporarily or on a longer-term basis.

I wonder how many "boarders or other individuals" are captured by households with multiple roommates sharing the rent.  It would also be interesting see the results of the 2021 census found an increase in larger families to capture those situations where families consolidated to save money.

Looking at the article above, using the statistics there, in 1941 there were 1.45 million households of 4 or more people (I consolidated the 4 and the 5+ categories); in 2011 there were 3.02 million households with 4 or more people.

In 2016, in the Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge census area there were 516,085 people living in 200,495 units.  The overall average household size of 2.6 with a peak of 2.9 for single family homes and a lowest average of 1.7 for "Apartment in a building that has fewer than five storeys". (Which must include most seniors homes) (1 - see reference below)

Another interesting statistic was "Housing Suitability" which means: "whether the dwelling has enough bedrooms for the size and composition of the household". The full definition is:

'Housing suitability' refers to whether a private household is living in suitable accommodations according to the National Occupancy Standard (NOS); that is, whether the dwelling has enough bedrooms for the size and composition of the household. A household is deemed to be living in suitable accommodations if its dwelling has enough bedrooms, as calculated using the NOS.

'Housing suitability' assesses the required number of bedrooms for a household based on the age, sex, and relationships among household members. An alternative variable, 'persons per room,' considers all rooms in a private dwelling and the number of household members.

Housing suitability and the National Occupancy Standard (NOS) on which it is based were developed by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) through consultations with provincial housing agencies.

In Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge here is what was found (the table generator defeated me, so sorry for the mess below):

                                     Total --- Owned ---    Rented
Suitable:                    191,550  --- 132,545 ---  59,015
Not Suitable:                 8,940  ---   3595  ---      5345
One Bedroom shortfall:   7240  ---   2890   ---      4355
Two bedroom shortfall:   1235  ---     515   ---       720
3+ bedroom shortfall:      465   ---    190   ---       270

When developers asked why they don't build larger units, the standard reply is "no one buys them". This table suggest that there are close to 9000 households that would happily buy a larger a unit.  Perhaps the developers actually mean "no one buys them at the price that we want to charge for them"?

To bring the discussion back to this development on Lancaster, there is a chance that it will address some of this shortfall as the urban design brief describes the project as, "1198 units with a mix of one bedroom units, two bedroom units and two bedroom plus den units". The brief didn't say how much of each were going to be in the development.  The project will likely not address any of the 3+ bedroom shortfall and possibly none of the two bedroom shortfall should the den in the plus den units be used for a den rather than a sleeping unit.

The reports that I looked at were: 
1. "Structural Type of Dwelling (10) and Household Size (8) for Occupied Private Dwellings of Canada, Provinces and Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2016 Census - 100% Data"
2. "Housing Suitability (6), Tenure (4), Number of Persons per Room (5), Number of Rooms (12), Number of Bedrooms (6), Household Type Including Census Family Structure (16) and Household Size (8) for Private Households of Canada, Provinces and Territories, Census Metropolitan Areas and Census Agglomerations, 2016 Census - 25% Sample Data"

I thought this was an interesting article about why we don't have a lot of larger family units being built in multi-residential buildings. https://www.centerforbuilding.org/blog/w...th-america

[jeffster]

I thought this was an interesting article about why we don't have a lot of larger family units being built in multi-residential buildings. https://www.centerforbuilding.org/blog/w...th-america

Interesting. And odd. Especially the USA. So many codes to protect everyone, yet, no care what goes into your food!

Also to add, the codes are likely required more so in the USA (and Canada) due to build quality. But it is a good explanation on why we'd not likely ever see units with 4 bedrooms. However, I do have to wonder if there are merits to having 2-floor units. There are some 2-floor apartment buildings in the region (Mooregate comes to mind).

https://www.padmapper.com/apartments/521...on-n2m-2e9

Also, it's more likely in Europe that they are used to those style of apartments, and are OK with the smaller units, and the layout. Around here, not so much. My father-in-law lived at The York in DTK. It was a 3 bedroom unit. Place was huge. Bedrooms were huge. High ceilings. Kitchen, though...it was cramped. Only downside. Literally marginally larger than the bathroom (which was also small). It also had heating elements (long since disconnected) in the fireplaces (I am assuming they were this way from the start).

[Lebronj23]

Concerns prompt Kitchener councillors to defer vote on multi-tower Bridgeport development

https://archive.ph/6V4ih

[bravado]

Concerns prompt Kitchener councillors to defer vote on multi-tower Bridgeport development

https://archive.ph/6V4ih

You heard it here folks: the housing crisis is over!

[ZEBuilder]

Concerns prompt Kitchener councillors to defer vote on multi-tower Bridgeport development

https://archive.ph/6V4ih

They could easily address the concerns about height by going back to their second propsal. Currently it is 10, 12, 18, 26, 34 storeys. Up until a few months ago it was 10, 12, 18, 30, 30. 4 less storeys means a reduction of 12 meters or so in height seems like a deal. Traffic concerns? How about we narrow the lanes on Bridgeport and Lancaster maybe even get rid of a lane and install dedicated seperated cycling infrastructure, while we're at it lets increase bus service. Removal of 6 dwelling units for the addition of over 1000, seems like a no brainer but no “'I just want to know that we have a safe place to sleep at night,”'said Tiffany Balork", you know who else wants to know that? The hundreds of people living paycheck to paycheck because housing is so expensive, this development will not single handedly solve that problem but it at least allows for some pressure to be taken off of the existing supply which in theory should lower prices. "Brilla said the “poorly planned” development will impact the wildlife corridor along the river," The properties in question don't even touch the river and are surronded by other developed properties so what corridor?

I hate how there are so many people who only complain and complain because they don't like change, yet if we made solutions that would solve their exact complaints they would still complain and complain because it is different then the status quo. KW is among the fastest growing areas in the country of course you are going to have change.

[ac3r]

Typical NIMBY bullshit. I hope it gets approved and while the city has been better at approving things, I could also see this still being at risk as it's not a centrally located development.

In any case, just one more reminder why we're still not yet to be taken seriously as a city/region yet. If this was somewhere more important, these generic NIMBY concerns wouldn't even be entertained because the council would know that none of these concerns matter in the larger picture. Like, what qualifications does a "singer-songwriter" living in an apartment have that allows her to deem a residential development to be "poorly planned"? If this were Toronto or Montreal, these people wouldn't be listened to yet we publish entire articles about their ignorance and derail the development of thousands of homes because of it. It's ridiculous.

[taylortbb]

If this were Toronto or Montreal, these people wouldn't be listened to yet we publish entire articles about their ignorance and derail the development of thousands of homes because of it. It's ridiculous.

https://twitter.com/KamilKaramali/status...2033863680

Global News ran a story about how a neighbourhood in Toronto wants to save a parking lot from becoming affordable housing, with one local resident even describing the parking lot as "the heart of our community". This NIMBY shit exists everywhere.

[ac3r]

They exist everywhere but do you think Toronto would put a massive project offering thousands of new homes on pause because some stinky hippy folk musician and a couple other angry NIMBYs complained? They'd be lucky to even get a reply email back, let alone an entire news article written about their concerns and council deferring a vote on something we desperately need.