142 & 146 Fergus Avenue | 7 fl | Proposed

[ac3r]

2467491 Ontario Inc is proposing a 7 floor residential project for 142-146 Fergus Avenue in Kitchener. They are proposing a residential development with 78 units, 86 underground and 8 above ground parking spaces. The applicant documents can be found here: https://app2.kitchener.ca/AppDocs/OpenDa...643096.pdf

[ac3r]

I have to say this is a very ugly looking building. But it's nice that this area (Weber East) is finally getting a lot of interest from developers even though it's very car dependent. Just nextdoor are the Elevate Condos, Hush Condos+Townhomes, the nearby proposal of 1157 & 1175 Weber East and 1668 King East. It's a bit disconnected from transit apart from buses or owning a car, but at least there are growing pockets of density going up all around the city.

[Lebronj23]

It looks like a small school lol

[the_conestoga_guy]

I'm normally 100% on-board with these types of developments, but there are a couple pretty glaring issues that I think need to be addressed with this building. 

First, those glass stairwells aren't going to be making friends with the neighbours. At night, I can totally envision them illuminating the neighbours. If I were in this neighbourhood, I'd be advocating for them to consider of a solid wall rather than the glass. I know "it will ruin the view" is a pretty NIMBY argument, I just think it would annoy me if a 7-storey illuminated rectangle was constructed next to my home. This sort of design is better suited to more urban or industrial areas. 

And second, I know this might be controversial in this forum, but I empathize with the seniors who are living in the retirement community next door. Often, these people aren't too mobile and spend all of their time indoors. This development would block all of their evening light - not the end of the world, but it would certainly suck. If this were 3 or 4-storeys and spread across more of the site, I think this could mitigate the issue.

[ac3r]

Yeah. The building design is very weird. I think a 12 year old kid could design something better just playing The Sims. Not sure how these architects manage to graduate university if this is what the result of 4 years of education and tens of thousands of dollars in tuition results in. I'd fail any student that presented me something like this for a project haha.

[tomh009]

First, those glass stairwells aren't going to be making friends with the neighbours. At night, I can totally envision them illuminating the neighbours. If I were in this neighbourhood, I'd be advocating for them to consider of a solid wall rather than the glass. I know "it will ruin the view" is a pretty NIMBY argument, I just think it would annoy me if a 7-storey illuminated rectangle was constructed next to my home. This sort of design is better suited to more urban or industrial areas. 

And second, I know this might be controversial in this forum, but I empathize with the seniors who are living in the retirement community next door. Often, these people aren't too mobile and spend all of their time indoors. This development would block all of their evening light - not the end of the world, but it would certainly suck. If this were 3 or 4-storeys and spread across more of the site, I think this could mitigate the issue.

There are two external staircases, one at the front and one at the back. The front one faces Fergus Ave, and mostly the intersection with Falesy Ave. Given the setback, the staircase is about 60 m away from the nearest houses, and as long as the lights are not aimed at the windows, they should not bother anyone in those houses. And the back staircase faces the cemetery where no one is likely to be bothered by any lights.

As for the shadows, a portion of the retirement home -- roughly 1/3 to 1/4 of the west-facing units, or 1/6 to 1/8 of the total -- would be in the shade in the late afternoon. They would not be in the darkness but they would not have direct sunlight, either. I think this is not unreasonable, many (many!) people live in apartments and condos that never get any direct sunlight.

[jamincan]

I can see the NIMBYs coming out for this one. The city has already installed a gazillion speed bumps along Kinzie presumably due to complaints about through traffic. I can't see neighbours being thrilled about a large building coming in. Does anyone recall whether the Emmanuel Bible College redevelopment garnered much opposition?

[timio]

Back in the mid 2000's, the college had a 15 year plan to buy these properties (along with the other two houses they eventually did purchase that were beside the chapel) and expand housing options for students as part of a multi-phase expansion project, the academic centre closest to Weber/Fergus being phase 1.

[ac3r]

Approved, sadly: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...ty.html?rf

[dtkmelissa]

Approved, sadly: https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-...ty.html?rf

I honestly can't understand the 'sadly' qualifier. I get that everyone has their own tastes and preferences, but to be disappointed that midrise housing is getting built on this street, with added park space, when we absolutely need more projects like this in all neighbourhoods, is beyond me.

[ac3r]

It just looks terrible. I know the bar is real, real low in Waterloo Region but I can't look at this and see anything of value apart from a few extra housing units that will exist, which is fine.

But you have to look at the bigger picture here. You ran for council, right? So you should understand that there are different complexities involved when it comes to creating a good, livable community. You have to have some degree of standards to follow. A good looking building/city is just as important as the concept of a building. More midrise is necessary, absolutely, but it should be good looking midrise. It doesn't have to win an award, but it should at least have some effort put into it. I don't want us to just green stamp projects under the pretext of "good enough" because then that just sets the standard for what developers are going to sink money into if they know the city is going to approve it. They'll sit in their meeting and say "well, we obviously don't need to put too much thought into the design, just hire the cheapest guy we can get and go crazy with the discount bin preclad".

You've got to remember, developers are in this business to make money. But us citizens should be in this "business" to make a city and region we can be proud of, from the way our homes look to the park spaces we can enjoy and the ways we get around. Mediocrity is what resulted in this place turning into a wasteland of cookie cutter subdivisions, roads and parking lots. And mediocrity is what turned Northdale into what it is now: high density, but with terribly ugly buildings that are suffering from problems and an environment that isn't exactly pleasing to pedestrians.

[bravado]

Can I ask an architecture/planning history question?

How did the market incentivize “beauty” in the past but we have completely lost it now? What’s in our current business model that allows developers to not build things for humans to actually enjoy? How did people 100 years ago make tenements for lower income residents that were beautiful and lasted for decades?

I guess I just wonder about design committees - since we didn't need them in the past, so what's special about now?

[ac3r]

Can I ask an architecture/planning history question?

How did the market incentivize “beauty” in the past but we have completely lost it now? What’s in our current business model that allows developers to not build things for humans to actually enjoy? How did people 100 years ago make tenements for lower income residents that were beautiful and lasted for decades?

I guess I just wonder about design committees - since we didn't need them in the past, so what's special about now?

Beauty in architecture has been at a loss due to the evolution of capitalism and individualism. As the decades went on, money became all that mattered in the world. The economic and philosophical shift in Western societies has resulted in what we see around us these days. Now of course there is still wonderful architecture - probably now more than ever - but there is also an abundance of buildings, meaning so many of them are designed without putting any necessity on the aesthetics. The failure of social democracy to really get a foothold in the 1960s within Western democracies also resulted in capital being seen as more important and more useful. With that, became less willingness to design projects for the people. Now, it's all major multinational corporations, investment banks, real estate trusts, unchecked foreign investment now that foreign people see Canada as just a place to buy up properties, developers who genuinely do want to build midrise or highrise projects in cities like ours but who are confined by budgets and so on.

We still design gorgeous housing, factories, offices, single detached homes and have them look incredible. Here are totally random examples...

• A small home in Montreal: https://divisare.com/projects/445183-pel...-residence
  
• A warehouse in Spain: https://divisare.com/projects/460163-man...vation-hub
  
• A swiss prison: https://divisare.com/projects/338287-arc...brenaz-100
  
• An incredible French parking garage: https://divisare.com/projects/447700-rau...ve-housing
  

Compare that to a project like the one this thread is about, you know for sure the developer didn't give 1 shit about what this looked like. They had a parcel of property and then spent as little money as possible on it with the only real goal being to earn money. Because that's all so many developers care about. The profit they make.

Midrise buildings can be nice. Very nice. Just check out these:

• Here's a nice one in London (England): https://divisare.com/projects/475329-ree...in-barking
  
• Here's a really striking complex of high tech looking buildings but with lots of gorgeous wood in Luxembourg: https://divisare.com/projects/474665-ama...luxembourg
  
• Here's a great one in Nantes, France. I adore those balconoies on the white buildings: https://divisare.com/projects/474228-dea...jerez-onyx
  

There's no reason we can't have that here other than it would appear we have no standards. A design review panel is looking like a great idea going forward. And us citizens need to be vocal and integrated into our communities more. Let's face it, the average person doesn't really give a shit about this stuff - but they should. We need to bring back a sense of community pride amongst those who live here, who can demand (even more than we do now) more parks, rest areas, bike infrastructure, recreation, shops and nice homes to live in and which can harmonize within our existing communities. It shouldn't just be a handful of decision makers sitting in council chambers, rich developers and small brigades of NIMBYs who get to have the most impact on this place.

I would say, apart from the capital issue, is that there is no will to see this stuff created. At least not here. You can find plenty of beautiful buildings in Europe and there is some higher degree of standard expected and which people must oblige by. I've worked many years in Germany, France and Ireland. Also many years in Canada. I just feel like we don't care as much in North America. We're an apathetic people.

[creative]

Can I ask an architecture/planning history question?

How did the market incentivize “beauty” in the past but we have completely lost it now? What’s in our current business model that allows developers to not build things for humans to actually enjoy? How did people 100 years ago make tenements for lower income residents that were beautiful and lasted for decades?

I guess I just wonder about design committees - since we didn't need them in the past, so what's special about now?

Beauty in architecture has been at a loss due to the evolution of capitalism and individualism. As the decades went on, money became all that mattered in the world. The economic and philosophical shift in Western societies has resulted in what we see around us these days. Now of course there is still wonderful architecture - probably now more than ever - but there is also an abundance of buildings, meaning so many of them are designed without putting any necessity on the aesthetics. The failure of social democracy to really get a foothold in the 1960s within Western democracies also resulted in capital being seen as more important and more useful. With that, became less willingness to design projects for the people. Now, it's all major multinational corporations, investment banks, real estate trusts, unchecked foreign investment now that foreign people see Canada as just a place to buy up properties, developers who genuinely do want to build midrise or highrise projects in cities like ours but who are confined by budgets and so on.

We still design gorgeous housing, factories, offices, single detached homes and have them look incredible. Here are totally random examples...

• A small home in Montreal: https://divisare.com/projects/445183-pel...-residence
  
• A warehouse in Spain: https://divisare.com/projects/460163-man...vation-hub
  
• A swiss prison: https://divisare.com/projects/338287-arc...brenaz-100
  
• An incredible French parking garage: https://divisare.com/projects/447700-rau...ve-housing
  

Compare that to a project like the one this thread is about, you know for sure the developer didn't give 1 shit about what this looked like. They had a parcel of property and then spent as little money as possible on it with the only real goal being to earn money. Because that's all so many developers care about. The profit they make.

Midrise buildings can be nice. Very nice. Just check out these:

• Here's a nice one in London (England): https://divisare.com/projects/475329-ree...in-barking
  
• Here's a really striking complex of high tech looking buildings but with lots of gorgeous wood in Luxembourg: https://divisare.com/projects/474665-ama...luxembourg
  
• Here's a great one in Nantes, France. I adore those balconoies on the white buildings: https://divisare.com/projects/474228-dea...jerez-onyx
  

There's no reason we can't have that here other than it would appear we have no standards. A design review panel is looking like a great idea going forward. And us citizens need to be vocal and integrated into our communities more. Let's face it, the average person doesn't really give a shit about this stuff - but they should. We need to bring back a sense of community pride amongst those who live here, who can demand (even more than we do now) more parks, rest areas, bike infrastructure, recreation, shops and nice homes to live in and which can harmonize within our existing communities. It shouldn't just be a handful of decision makers sitting in council chambers, rich developers and small brigades of NIMBYs who get to have the most impact on this place.

I would say, apart from the capital issue, is that there is no will to see this stuff created. At least not here. You can find plenty of beautiful buildings in Europe and there is some higher degree of standard expected and which people must oblige by. I've worked many years in Germany, France and Ireland. Also many years in Canada. I just feel like we don't care as much in North America. We're an apathetic people.

I would love to see your portfolio of projects that you have designed/worked on. If one exists I and I’m sure others would love to see your work.

[dtkmelissa]

It just looks terrible. I know the bar is real, real low in Waterloo Region but I can't look at this and see anything of value apart from a few extra housing units that will exist, which is fine.

But you have to look at the bigger picture here. You ran for council, right? So you should understand that there are different complexities involved when it comes to creating a good, livable community. You have to have some degree of standards to follow. A good looking building/city is just as important as the concept of a building. More midrise is necessary, absolutely, but it should be good looking midrise. It doesn't have to win an award, but it should at least have some effort put into it. I don't want us to just green stamp projects under the pretext of "good enough" because then that just sets the standard for what developers are going to sink money into if they know the city is going to approve it. They'll sit in their meeting and say "well, we obviously don't need to put too much thought into the design, just hire the cheapest guy we can get and go crazy with the discount bin preclad".

You've got to remember, developers are in this business to make money. But us citizens should be in this "business" to make a city and region we can be proud of, from the way our homes look to the park spaces we can enjoy and the ways we get around. Mediocrity is what resulted in this place turning into a wasteland of cookie cutter subdivisions, roads and parking lots. And mediocrity is what turned Northdale into what it is now: high density, but with terribly ugly buildings that are suffering from problems and an environment that isn't exactly pleasing to pedestrians.

I can't really imagine what adding very specific aesthetic guidelines would even look like process-wise. There is some real diversity in thought on what constitutes a good looking building (even within this forum). I mean, even in the handful of midrise examples you provided, I think the Fergus Ave building looks at least as good, if not better, than this one: https://divisare.com/projects/474228-dea...jerez-onyx I wouldn't be sad if that got built here, it just likely wouldn't be a favourite building of mine. I think we need to ensure we are investing in quality and sustainable materials, adding greenspace and the like, but I simply don't see how 'aesthetics' fits into all of this.