Where's the streetscape? Another free loading developer? Or maybe the developers pockets aren't deep enough to have included any. This is the type of developer that upsets people in the neighborhood. Take a look at that picture and consider what that street and neighborhood would look like if everybody did the same as that developer.
First of all, here's a hard reality which many seem to forget for some reason: Unless you live in an infill home completely built and financed by yourself,
your house was built by a developer. Developers are who build the vast majority of our housing, no matter if its a single detached home or an apartment building. I'm not a fan of the extreme commodification of housing either, believe me, and I wish the provincial and federal governments would actually commit to a sustained and country-wide public housing program, but this is the reality of where we live.
Secondly, just like how there can be different styles, forms and orientations for houses, there can be the same for buildings. Windsor Terrace is going to look different than Westrich's project behind it and both look different than the Bentley beside them. Regarding the scale of the building, I'd like to point out that, due to restrictive zoning laws of the past, there is a lot of latent demand for housing in Windsor Park as it borders the largest institution in the entire city and what is essentially our second downtown. If a more natural increase of density happened over time in Windsor Park, projects like this could've panned out differently, but higher-density projects are the outcome of artificially suppressing growth in areas of high land value.
It's really unfortunate that a utility service corridor had to be run around what looks like around the entire building. Wonder if the developer could plant some trees in the boulevard across the street as a compromise? Also wonder if the development in the block to the east will rip out the trees and not replant any.
Unless there's an exception, like with Windsor Terrace specifically, every project has
minimum landscaping requirements as set out in the Zoning Bylaw. Also, I'd personally blame lackluster road and street design for a lack of urban canopy in many areas around the city, especially along urban arterials like 87th avenue. Having well-landscaped boulevards and park spaces is critical in urban environments, I agree, but that's majorly the city's responsibility. I wish we could reconfigure/take lanes off of many large roads and make beautiful boulevards with large trees, wide sidewalks and cycle paths, but that would make too many people mad in the short term so it most likely won't happen.
. “wOnT sOmEbOdY tHiNk AbOuT nEiGhBoUrHoOd ChArAcTeR?!”
