What do you think of this project?

  • Total voters
    25
Yeggy said:
I talked to a city planner about this site when we were doing the district plannjng.

I told them to go to council with a bid to buy the whole strathearn heights parcel. I am
so tired of the city taking on all these high risk parcels of land with site remediation and social issues. I said buy it and parcel it out with restrictions Nd build timelines. Be Bold like Calgary and stop p**** footing around. This site and owner have been nothing but a bunch of (insert multiple swear words) We literally built them an LRT, if that wasnt enough incentive buy the whole dam thing.
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Yup, Nearctic is a joke.
 
Foolworm said:
It's infuriating because there are literally no other restaurants (the Red Ox Inn is gone too) in a 2 km radius. Literally have to go to Whyte unless you call for delivery.
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Well now we can have the best food truck festival ever… in this gravel lot… next to a billion dollar train we built for it.

Btw someone was asking why start the redevelopment here? this site is to house the community amenities for the other buildings. Also, i suspect, best opportunity for relocation of existing tenants.
 
scyeg said:
How can the city possibly be okay with this?! Just mind-boggling stuff.
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Because this city falls for the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.

Strathearn Heights, BMO tower, Emerald tower, J123, Bateman Lands, to name a few where the city falls for this Charlie Brown process of allowing demolition permits with no contingency then the developer leaves the sites in poor or abandoned condition resulting in the city crying that it cant enforce all of the vacant lots that it allows in the first place.

Its almost laughable how this continues to happen.

Fix the process. Stop allowing demolition without building permits. There are several other solutions that people we pay tax money to should be coming up with. This is just lazy at this point.
 
CaptainBL said:
Because this city falls for the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.

Strathearn Heights, BMO tower, Emerald tower, J123, Bateman Lands, to name a few where the city falls for this Charlie Brown process of allowing demolition permits with no contingency then the developer leaves the sites in poor or abandoned condition resulting in the city crying that it cant enforce all of the vacant lots that it allows in the first place.

Its almost laughable how this continues to happen.

Fix the process. Stop allowing demolition without building permits. There are several other solutions that people we pay tax money to should be coming up with. This is just lazy at this point.
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I've hit my limit...
 
CaptainBL said:
Because this city falls for the same thing over and over and over and over and over again.

Strathearn Heights, BMO tower, Emerald tower, J123, Bateman Lands, to name a few where the city falls for this Charlie Brown process of allowing demolition permits with no contingency then the developer leaves the sites in poor or abandoned condition resulting in the city crying that it cant enforce all of the vacant lots that it allows in the first place.

Its almost laughable how this continues to happen.

Fix the process. Stop allowing demolition without building permits. There are several other solutions that people we pay tax money to should be coming up with. This is just lazy at this point.
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what can we do?
 
davcocom said:
what can we do?
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A very good question. While I also find this situation frustrating, there are no easy answers. The city absolutely cannot decide at this point they are unhappy with an individual developer's decision and try to take action against them. That type of reactionary thinking will not create a business-friendly environment when no one knows what the rules are until Council decides it doesn't like something. I'm also not sure how that would be legal, unless there is a specific municipal bylaw the developer is contravening (maintenance?).

I also don't know how a general prohibition on demolitions would work across the city. You can't write laws to target one person (or at least you shouldn't). So would homeowners be prohibited from bringing down an old house without being ready to start new construction immediately? What about properties in unsafe/unsanitary condition? Would a rule only apply to condo projects and would that discourage this type of development? How do you deal with changes in the market after demolition has started?

Writing laws is hard and while I am sure there are options out there, it is fantasy to believe that no one in charge cares or that the problem can be easily snapped out of existence.
 
I don't think that no one in charge cares, but I believe it is really not a priority for them.

I have heard more than once that the city (or another level of government) "can do anything about ...", but when sufficient public pressure occurs they somehow figure out how to do it.
 
David A said:
I don't think that no one in charge cares, but I believe it is really not a priority for them.

I have heard more than once that the city (or another level of government) "can do anything about ...", but when sufficient public pressure occurs they somehow figure out how to do it.
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We buy it. That is the ultimate stick.
 
tkoe_ said:
A very good question. While I also find this situation frustrating, there are no easy answers. The city absolutely cannot decide at this point they are unhappy with an individual developer's decision and try to take action against them. That type of reactionary thinking will not create a business-friendly environment when no one knows what the rules are until Council decides it doesn't like something. I'm also not sure how that would be legal, unless there is a specific municipal bylaw the developer is contravening (maintenance?).

I also don't know how a general prohibition on demolitions would work across the city. You can't write laws to target one person (or at least you shouldn't). So would homeowners be prohibited from bringing down an old house without being ready to start new construction immediately? What about properties in unsafe/unsanitary condition? Would a rule only apply to condo projects and would that discourage this type of development? How do you deal with changes in the market after demolition has started?

Writing laws is hard and while I am sure there are options out there, it is fantasy to believe that no one in charge cares or that the problem can be easily snapped out of existence.
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There are ways of making this work, and you can have carrots and sticks, for example:

- You can limit the requirement to certain zonings and types of buildings (multi-family and commercial buildings), or specifically make some exempt (SFH, Townhomes, etc).
- We know that a lot of these sites are demo'ed because of property taxes being lower for vacant land, for example. The city can use this fact to create a sort of "subsidy" to prevent demolition: if a developer submits a Demolition Permit without the accompanying Building Permit, the city lowers the taxes for X amount of years, so as to keep the building standing, and maybe even in use. During this timeframe, the developer has to submit their Building Permit and start building, and the Demolition Permit would only be approved when the Building Permit is submitted.
If they don't start building it within the timeframe,, they have to pay the tax delta, retroactively. This has the added benefit of potentially keeping some businesses open and in place for a bit (or a lot) longer, and even activate, albeit temporarily, some buildings that are destined for the chopping board.

I know this sounds simplistic, and there are probably many shortcomings, as well, but an idea like this could be a starting point to getting something going, in this sense.
 
tkoe_ said:
A very good question. While I also find this situation frustrating, there are no easy answers. The city absolutely cannot decide at this point they are unhappy with an individual developer's decision and try to take action against them. That type of reactionary thinking will not create a business-friendly environment when no one knows what the rules are until Council decides it doesn't like something. I'm also not sure how that would be legal, unless there is a specific municipal bylaw the developer is contravening (maintenance?).

I also don't know how a general prohibition on demolitions would work across the city. You can't write laws to target one person (or at least you shouldn't). So would homeowners be prohibited from bringing down an old house without being ready to start new construction immediately? What about properties in unsafe/unsanitary condition? Would a rule only apply to condo projects and would that discourage this type of development? How do you deal with changes in the market after demolition has started?

Writing laws is hard and while I am sure there are options out there, it is fantasy to believe that no one in charge cares or that the problem can be easily snapped out of existence.
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The city is already doing quite a bit if you think about their new zoning approach and substantial completion standard. Without new neighborhoods opened up ASAP on the south side we are going to see the elastic quickly get tighter to the point of snapping. Demand has to go somewhere - if the grand plan is to redirect it to projects like this I just hope the City has thought about whether the advantages we are currently enjoying from more affordable single family homes are worth giving up. Presumably they have concluded that the answer is "yes".
 
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