Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
Record Editorial Friday February 19th 2010
Cari
Howard
Community
Editorial Board
Visions for Northdale’s future are no answer for residents’ real concerns
Residents of the Northdale neighbourhood
in Waterloo want their community to
be a place where students, families and
urban professionals all live in harmony.
There’s a new vision for the area, proposed
and supported by the group Help
Urbanize the Ghetto, or HUG, where cars
are not needed because there are lots of
trails and public transit, and where fiveand
six-storey condos are built to the highest
efficiency standards, featuring shops
and restaurants at ground level and rooftop
gardens above — a place where every morning,
Al Gore will greet passing cyclists and
pedestrians with a hearty rendition of
Won’t You Be My Neighbour?
The vision is definitely pleasant, and one
any community could be proud of. But the
recent decision by Waterloo city council to
clarify its Vision for Northdale and Help
Urbanize the Ghetto’s Green Solution for
Northdale surprised me. As a former homeowner
in that area (I owned and lived in a
house on Columbia Street for five years), I
never thought the problems in the area
stemmed from a lack of vision for the future,
but from the daily reality of noise,
Rezoning the land won’t make the vision a
reality, and it certainly won’t address the
issues that residents are dealing with today.
City of Waterloo staff have been asked to
report back to council in April to clarify the
vision for the Northdale neighbourhood.
They’ve been asked to provide information
on the planning, development and other
tools available to achieve the vision, and the
options, costs, and timeframes that will be
required. But I don’t see anyone being asked
to report on an ongoing strategy to deal
with the daily challenges still facing the
community.
I can’t help but feel that attention is focused
on the wrong letter in the Help Urbanize
the Ghetto acronym. The focus shouldn’t
be on U for urbanize, but on G for ghetto.
How will homeowners feel the day after
zoning changes are approved for their
neighbourhood, when the run-down, unkempt
rental properties that breed noise
and nuisance are still there? Probably not
much like HUG-ing.
Homeowners in Northdale aren’t
looking to the city for help because people
are driving cars down the streets and using
shingles for roofing instead of plants.
There’s obviously pedestrian traffic
through the neighbourhood; who else is
knocking over garbage cans and urinating
on the bushes? And are rooftop gardens in
an urban setting really better than the
green space of large yards and mature
trees? No, not unless the real issue with
those yards is the space they provide for
outdoor parties and lawn parking.
The residents in this neighbourhood
aren’t upset because their ghetto doesn’t
have a concrete vision for the future.
They’re upset because it’s a ghetto.
I’m not arguing with the goal of a green
Northdale. People living in such a pleasant
urban neighbourhood would not face the
same issues as this community. (They’d be
too busy complaining about the neighbourhood
square that someone is bound to
incorporate into the design.) But we’re not
talking about a wasteland of space just
waiting for the right planning solution to
come along before the shovels hit the dirt.
litter and property damage in an area sporting
overgrown lawns in summer and snowcovered
sidewalks in winter.
A quick glance through the student accommodation
study prepared by city staff
in 2004 shows that the long-term vision for
the Northdale neighbourhood back then
was not much different from the one now
proposed by Help Urbanize the Ghetto. The
words “urban,” “pedestrian,” “cyclist” and
“transit” are all featured in the 68 total
recommendations for this community.
But homeowners also had immediate
concerns about rental property upkeep and
tenant behaviour. These were addressed in
recommendations that included words like
“bylaw,” “police” and “enforcement.” So
why haven’t residents seen results in the
past six years? I can’t believe it’s because
the vision wasn’t clear enough.
Visions for Northdale’s future are no answer for residents’ real concerns
Cari Howard is a project manager with the Region of
Waterloo’s waste management division.
Cari
Howard
Community
Editorial Board
News columnist
Cari
Howard
Community
Editorial Board
Visions for Northdale’s future are no answer for residents’ real concerns
Residents of the Northdale neighbourhood
in Waterloo want their community to
be a place where students, families and
urban professionals all live in harmony.
There’s a new vision for the area, proposed
and supported by the group Help
Urbanize the Ghetto, or HUG, where cars
are not needed because there are lots of
trails and public transit, and where fiveand
six-storey condos are built to the highest
efficiency standards, featuring shops
and restaurants at ground level and rooftop
gardens above — a place where every morning,
Al Gore will greet passing cyclists and
pedestrians with a hearty rendition of
Won’t You Be My Neighbour?
The vision is definitely pleasant, and one
any community could be proud of. But the
recent decision by Waterloo city council to
clarify its Vision for Northdale and Help
Urbanize the Ghetto’s Green Solution for
Northdale surprised me. As a former homeowner
in that area (I owned and lived in a
house on Columbia Street for five years), I
never thought the problems in the area
stemmed from a lack of vision for the future,
but from the daily reality of noise,
Rezoning the land won’t make the vision a
reality, and it certainly won’t address the
issues that residents are dealing with today.
City of Waterloo staff have been asked to
report back to council in April to clarify the
vision for the Northdale neighbourhood.
They’ve been asked to provide information
on the planning, development and other
tools available to achieve the vision, and the
options, costs, and timeframes that will be
required. But I don’t see anyone being asked
to report on an ongoing strategy to deal
with the daily challenges still facing the
community.
I can’t help but feel that attention is focused
on the wrong letter in the Help Urbanize
the Ghetto acronym. The focus shouldn’t
be on U for urbanize, but on G for ghetto.
How will homeowners feel the day after
zoning changes are approved for their
neighbourhood, when the run-down, unkempt
rental properties that breed noise
and nuisance are still there? Probably not
much like HUG-ing.
Homeowners in Northdale aren’t
looking to the city for help because people
are driving cars down the streets and using
shingles for roofing instead of plants.
There’s obviously pedestrian traffic
through the neighbourhood; who else is
knocking over garbage cans and urinating
on the bushes? And are rooftop gardens in
an urban setting really better than the
green space of large yards and mature
trees? No, not unless the real issue with
those yards is the space they provide for
outdoor parties and lawn parking.
The residents in this neighbourhood
aren’t upset because their ghetto doesn’t
have a concrete vision for the future.
They’re upset because it’s a ghetto.
I’m not arguing with the goal of a green
Northdale. People living in such a pleasant
urban neighbourhood would not face the
same issues as this community. (They’d be
too busy complaining about the neighbourhood
square that someone is bound to
incorporate into the design.) But we’re not
talking about a wasteland of space just
waiting for the right planning solution to
come along before the shovels hit the dirt.
litter and property damage in an area sporting
overgrown lawns in summer and snowcovered
sidewalks in winter.
A quick glance through the student accommodation
study prepared by city staff
in 2004 shows that the long-term vision for
the Northdale neighbourhood back then
was not much different from the one now
proposed by Help Urbanize the Ghetto. The
words “urban,” “pedestrian,” “cyclist” and
“transit” are all featured in the 68 total
recommendations for this community.
But homeowners also had immediate
concerns about rental property upkeep and
tenant behaviour. These were addressed in
recommendations that included words like
“bylaw,” “police” and “enforcement.” So
why haven’t residents seen results in the
past six years? I can’t believe it’s because
the vision wasn’t clear enough.
Visions for Northdale’s future are no answer for residents’ real concerns
Cari Howard is a project manager with the Region of
Waterloo’s waste management division.
Cari
Howard
Community
Editorial Board
News columnist
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)