Kitchener and Waterloo councillors ignore neighbourhoods
Nurturing the health and vibrancy of urban neighbourhoods should always be a top priority for city councillors and planners.
But that didn’t seem to be the case in Kitchener and Waterloo this week as obsequious officials and councillors ignored interests of residents in two communities to placate a developer, avoid offending those running our universities and satisfy student-housing demands.
In the west end of Kitchener, it looks as though we’re preparing to bulldoze heritage buildings at Joseph and Victoria streets. The historic properties, part of the Lang Tannery development, are threatened with demolition to make way for yet another unnecessary surface parking lot.
Meanwhile, in Waterloo, officials who don’t want to ruffle academia feathers continue to look the other way and refuse to take meaningful action to address worsening problems created by a ghetto of rental, student housing that is destroying what used to be attractive Albert Street neighbourhoods.
It’s ironic that during a week where numerous events were held to honour the late urban activist Jane Jacobs, articles in this newspaper detailed troubling issues faced by the two Kitchener-Waterloo communities. Jacobs was a forceful defender of neighbourhoods and an outspoken critic of any urban renewal that put older buildings at risk.
I’ve written before about the disgraceful situation in Waterloo where besieged residents desperate for a little peace, quiet and quality living are being driven out of their homes by a minority of party-animal students who, based on their childish behaviour, should be sent back to kindergarten.
For years, little has been done about a situation where residents have tolerated drunken students vomiting and urinating on their property. They have watched their communities gutted by tacky rental-housing owned by irresponsible landlords while enduring rowdy parties and property damage.
Statistics show that between 2005 and 2008, police were called to Albert a staggering 2, 486 times. Many of those police responses — paid for by regional taxpayers — were to control student parties and babysit slobbering drunks. The complaints included 107 calls to report sick or injured people and 266 noise complaints.
Back in Kitchener, architect John MacDonald wants the city to stop Toronto-based developer, Cadan, from demolishing buildings to create additional parking in the warehouse district. He wants city officials to support the content of their own official plan which says heritage buildings should be preserved and surface parking lots discouraged.
MacDonald, who would rather see the heritage buildings used for galleries, restaurants or housing, says it’s unlikely public meetings will take place to debate the proposed demolitions because zoning on the tannery land already allows parking lots.
Cadan plans to eventually replace the surface lot with a multi-storey parking garage in a city that is already spending $70 million on other downtown parking complexes. The tannery proposal would negatively impact nearby homes the same way Joseph Street houses have already been degraded near Water Street South by another ugly parking garage.
Kitchener’s car-worshiping councillors and planners who just can’t get enough of those parking lots and care little about encouraging greater use of public transit will no doubt approve demolition of the tannery buildings in their ongoing scramble to justify millions of dollars they have spent on downtown revitalization.
A good example of this insatiable love of parking lots is the $15.5-million currently being spent to erect a 500-vehicle monstrosity at Charles and Benton streets where city council is squandering one of our most valuable piece of downtown real estate in order to build a multi-level parking eyesore.
For the sake of future generations, Kitchener-Waterloo councillors should make more effort to protect their neighbourhoods instead of kowtowing to the demands of developers, businesses and universities.
Kitchener journalist Frank Etherington writes on alternate Thursdays. He welcomes comments at fetherington@sympatico.ca
2 comments:
Northdale is way beyond saving in its current form.
The area should be redesigned from the ground up.
There are nearly no taxpaying non-student residents left to preserve it for.
It's a student precinct when all is said and done.
Oh, so instead of northdale having the population it does right now, you want to build HIGHER density housing to put more students into the neighbouhood?
Yeah I'm sure that's really going to reduce the amount of police calls to the neighbourhood.
You're logic is sickening.
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