rediscovering the centre

facelift

2008-11-23T11:17:00.000-08:00

City of Kitchener's urban design guru/doctor has prepared a report that recommends a complete facelift for its aging downtown @ $600,000 botox injection over five years to fill in the gaps and to restore/remove the unsightly blemishes....rest of blog continues here: facelift

redirect

2008-03-06T16:26:00.000-08:00

Visitors to this blog may wish to visit RR's main blog Shirt Tales as that blog consolidates the various issue-specific blogs: www.forsythkitchener.blogspot.com

the Vancouver model

2006-05-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

The Old Berlin streetscape per Sandamara Images 2006, L to R: Mayfair Hotel, Hymmen Hardware, Webers Chambers, Capitol Theatre, and the pre-Confderation Canadian Block.

Glen Murray preaches thus on ethos and a sense of place:

" Every city’s unique. [Kitchener]has a history like no other city. It is a place different than any other place. It can be things that only [Kitchener] can be...because of its people, its geography. Because of what [we've] already got, [we] have a unique set of possibilities. If [we] have a utilitarian value set, the ethos of [our] city doesn’t matter because [we] place no value on [our] history and [we] do not understand [our] present. What [we] want to be is just like everybody else."

This sentiment was repeated by City of Vancouver's Director of Planning Larry Beasley who insisted that cities are each vividly different from each other. This difference arises out of each city's needs, scale, history and economy. Vancouverites, according to Beasley, have learned to "live on our wits and good looks." It has helped though that the city has become a safe haven for people and capital. Random jottings from his lecture:

"congestion is our friend"
save ever heritage building as it adds character & provides cues for new designs as well as neighbourhood culture;
every new development must provide minimum of 25% low income/affordable housing as well as parks and schools;
"if a city works well for children, it works well for others" ===> bring families with children downtown; to make that happen, plan for 50% social housing for families with children & build the schools/daycare centres in the downtown neighbourhoods.
sidewalks belong to the realm of public life;
landscape creates the sense of place;
205 acre False Creek redevelopment at waterfront @ 15,000 proposed population is to meet these guidelines: 1/3 to parks; 1/3 to modest housing; 1/5 to affordable housing; balance to market rate housing;
Vancouver allows only underground parking; Beasley insists there are no traffic jams downtown as 60% residents walk/bike everywhere.

Compare the Kitchener popul. 204,000 profile:

18,000 live in central neighbourhoods; 186,000 live in car-dependent suburbs
Region of Waterloo popul. 490,000 has 390,000 registered vehicles & is counted in top 3 worst air-quality spots in Ontario.

Should we take some cues from the Vancouver model-- a city that could not outgrow its boundaries -- as it is hemmed in by water on all four sides?

Suburbanites and their car-dependent lifestyles are headed for an unprecedented fiasco with the end of cheap oil**, according to James Kunstler, a leading expert on energy depletion. -- as reported by T. Pender for the Record, "Fighting the Scourge of Suburbia."

** the real reason for the US led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq -- as the Project for the New Century predicted we will run out of [cheap] oil by 2020. Iraq, by the way, has the cheapest oil to produce. Want to read a really, really good blog? go to www.agonist.com

how to manage change?

2006-05-16T07:47:00.000-07:00

Photos copyright Sandamara Images: Front entrance to 72 Victoria Street South, formerly and adaptive re-use to house offices of ; City of Kitchener landbank awaiting redevelopment into commercial/residential maximum density project; facade and brick detail of the Betzner Townhouses project on King Street East by King Street Holdings. Photos selected to illustrate various attempts to manage change. How to manage change?

City of Vancouver top planner Larry Beasley tells us to reinvent the planning process and shared his basic principles during a lecture at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture in Cambridge on 6 February 2006:

The first principle requires a strong collective vision. Note: Beasley believes in the power of design as a social and economic force.
Put in place appropriate laws re design guidelines, zoning for mixed uses, and financial incentives.
Development decisions to be made by professionals who have design and economic literacy, not by politicians or lay volunteers.
Implement the collaborative design process
Require sustained public involvement in the re-urbanization process.
Take advice from design peers & convene an urban design panel to advise Council.
Provide efficient customer service.
Use public funds to create a capital investment fund to implement the urban vision.

Miscellaneous jottings from my notebooks:

Turn to the development process to fund the public common wealth.
Implement 1) the urban design panel and 2) the peer review to empower architects.
The new urbanism promotes cities as an experience.
Quality always sells!
the Vancouver model is based on the "Living First Strategy."

"Cities have to be places of choice to live in and increasingly, we have to compete for citizenry, for talent, for creativity and investment like we and no other generation has before, because of the mobility of ideas, of people, and information technology capacity, which is instantaneous. Creativity is universalised and localized all at the same time."

-- Glen Murray, former Mayor of Winnipeg speaking at Creative Places + Spaces Conference October 17–18, 2003 - The Distillery Historic District - Toronto, Ontario

design your downtown

2006-05-08T14:09:00.000-07:00

Gentle Readers, Rambling Rose invites you to peruse the streetscape above in order to improve on the downtown King Street East Kitchener streetscape above. The challenge, however, is this: you must keep all the buildings shown; however, you may create one modern infill structure to complete the hole in the wall that exists between Marina's boomtown facade and the adjacent 2 storey red brick block that houses Popey's pizza. Directly opposite you will be facing Your !!! Kichener Market and the upscale Le Marche condos. Have fun imagining the possibilities and then perhaps you may wish to send suggestions to the City's planning staff:

City provides website for public input on the design of the downtown: http://www.downtownkitchener.ca/urbandesign allows for 1) comment and 2) posting of personal photographs
City will be printing 2,000 brochures dealing with urban design guidelines for distribution in the core downtown area
"This city is consulting the public now because it wants the urban-design guidelines in place before developers start building in the core... We know that once the universities start, there is going to be fairly extensive redevelopment interest."-- per Corey Bluhm, City planner
budget of $3,300,000 to improve the downtown streetscape
Link to : T. Pender, "Downtown designs need your input" The Record 8 May 06http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/therecord/1033352681.html?did=1033352681&FMT=ABS&FMTS=FT&date=May+8%2C+2006&author=TERRY+PENDER&pub=The+Record&desc=Downtown+designs+need+your+input%3B+Kitchener+sets+up+website+to+hear+from+locals
Photos: copyright to Sandamara Images 2006.

downtown demographics

2005-12-31T13:15:00.000-08:00

Photo: The Still's patio bar in downtown Kitchener on the south side of King Street.

King Street, Kitchener and its undernourished downtown core are about to receive several life-supporting injections – or so City planners hope. Currently 1,795 folks make their home in the King Street area – compared to 11,000 folks who work there, park in subsidized garages, and workday done, head home to the suburbs and to the malls and Power Centres throughout Kitchener. The City has staked a $110 million Economic Development Fund to change the status quo.

The latest re-urbanization strategy hinges on capturing the ‘captive’ audience for urban living: Students/Young Professionals; Empty Nesters; Seniors. By 2007, planners have projected an influx of students to the satellite campuses of Wilfrid Laurier University and University of Waterloo. In all, it is expected that 670 students will require housing downtown: 599 single and 128 married in all age groups although the U of W undergrad students will be much younger that WLU’s graduate students.

Add to this number, the young professionals, empty nesters, and seniors buying into trendy loft conversions at these locations:

Eaton Lofts 2005 x 32 units selling at @ $99,000-$299,000;
Kaufmann Lofts 2006 x 100 units selling at @ $115,900 - $221,900; 530 - 1,215 sq. ft;
Le Marche 2006 x 68 units selling at@ $159,400 - $240,400.
A total of 200 units X 1.4 persons occupancy conversion rate = + 280 increase in population.
Now, if this captive market ( +950 population increase) buys into the downtown, King Street’s resident population should swell to 2,745.
Based on existing trends,* King Street just might come alive again.
It sure looks like City planners and politicians know all about Jeff Speck’s Design Resolution #7. Build Normal (Affordable) Housing: to be successful, affordable housing must do two things: be integrated with market rate housing, and look like market-rate housing. Apparently there is a demand downtown for loft conversions, low-rise condominiums and brownstones, and rental apartments or rental/owner-occupied town homes.
It all sounds good until I imagine that I am living there. I ask myself some questions: Where’s the nearest gas station? grocery/drug store? laundromat? post office? Tim Horton’s? ....and draw blank after blank. Will these essential services come downtown once more? Are 2,745 King Street residents the critical mass required to sustain such small-business enterprises? Time will tell.
* latest trends: a) There was a waiting list of 600 people as of Dec2004 hoping to buy into the Kaufmann Lofts; b) Of 2,300 Kitchener housing starts in 05, 440 were loft condos @ 19% or 1:5 ratio with median Purchase Price of $123,000.

places to make the heart sing

2005-12-28T07:47:00.000-08:00

Kitchener City Hall (1993) Architects: Kuwabara Payne McKenna & Blumberg: note the colonnaded & floating portico on the entrance facade and the grand staircase to the balcony above the floating portico. In winter, the fountain area is used as a skating rink.

"There is no evidence that the amount or quality of parking contributes to downtown health in any significant way." --Tyler Study of Downtowns www.emich.edu/public/geo/557book/e110.tyler.html

Jeff Speck, Urban Planner and co-Author of Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream has provided City Mayors with a list of ten City Design Resolutions to "make better places....that will make our hearts sing" cf. http://www.planetizen.com/node/138

Let us begin with Jeff Speck's resolution #2:

"Overrule the Specialists surrounding you, Your Worship Mayor Carl Zehr. The modern world is full of experts who are paid to ignore criteria beyond their profession. But the specialist is the enemy of the city, which is by definition a general enterprise...Cities need generalists like mayors to weigh the advice of specialists against the common good."

Followed now by "resolution #4: Hide the Parking Lots."

The goal of this entire reurbanization project is to bring people not cars back to the downtown. We already have a downtown littered with six parking lots and yet, Council recently approved Parking Feasibility Study DTS 05-160 as discussed in my previous post. Just coming back to that report briefly to look at the most important sentence which I overlooked: "a shortage of parking...especially during the day on a typical weekday when employees are parking in public parking..."

Who then is creating this parking shortage? I am still mulling these numbers:

There are approximately 1,800 people living in the King Street area;
There are approximately 5,619 people working in the downtown core who already have parking provided to them:
572 are City Kitchener employees with subsidized parking provided at City Hall
1,036 Manulife employees with access to the King Centre parking lot
300 Record and 268 Stantec employees have access to the Market Square parking lot.

City Council needs to disregard the consultant's advice that "...although other sites may be less costly...., it does not make sense to construct parking in areas of the Downtown where there is no demand for such a facility."-- per 26 Sept 05 DTS minutes. The Tyler Study of Downtowns which found that convenient parking was the characteristic least correlated with the downtown health index.as there is no evidence that the amount or quality of parking contributes to downtown health in any significant way. To read the entire study go to: http://www.emich.edu/public/geo/557book/e110.tyler.html

There is still time to speak up for people downtown and not more boring parking lots!

Go to http://www.city.kitchener.on.ca/ and scroll down to the link Tell us what you think about parking in Downtown Kitchener. However, as with most surveys this particular one avoids the discussion as to whether building more garages downtown is the best use of city-owned land at this time.

To e-mail our Mayor and your City Councillor go to this link: http://www.city.kitchener.on.ca/city_hall/mayor_council/council.html

turn, turn, turn ....

2005-12-15T17:28:00.000-08:00

Photo: industrial artifact corner King and Francis Streets, Kitchener ON. This piece of obsolete industrial machinery has been painted and mounted in a corner park to establish the theme of the Warehouse District nearby. To everything/ There is a season/And a time for every purpose under heaven...

It's rather fitting that access to downtown parking will pass by this wheel in order to enter the Charles/Water Street above-ground parking garage for 380 cars soon to be built at a cost to the taxpayer of $10 million or $26, 316 per parking space. A second below-ground parking garage for another 380 cars is to be built in the Centre Block at an additional cost of $15 million or $39,474 as recommended by the recently Council approved Downtown

Parking Feasibility Study.

Inside that report, one can learn that existing municipally operated parking facilities:

generated $784,000 annual revenues in 2005;
cost taxpayers $900,000 in annual subsidies;
thereby, creating a net loss of $116,000 to the taxpayer.

Nonetheless, the report recommended building two more parking facilities to meet the anticipated parking shortage downtown. Deferred in this discussion were the following options:

use of subsidized transit passes especially for City Staff;
increased parking rates;
discontinue parking subsidies
and a rather interesting suggestion made by M. Wasilka/ Friends of Public Transit that the City put as much funding into alternative transportation as put into creation of additional parking spaces eg provide free bus rides for everyone along King Street. Apparently the City of Calgary has already embraced this strategy.

Perhaps the time has come to re-examine our dependence on our turning wheels? Even the City's top planner Jeff Wilmer wondered whether to provide for current parking demand or encourage other modes of travel. Councillor Gazzola noted that hundreds of parking spaces in core could be freed up if city stopped subsidizing parking for municipal employees and instead issued bus tickets or subsidized transit passes.

Note: of a total employment of 10,801 in all downtown districts, 572 are City of Kitchener employees who receive subsidized parking passes per contract provisions; another 455 are Region of Waterloo employees for a total of 1,027 subsidized parking spaces. What if approximately 50% of these spaces, perhaps 500, were freed up per Councillor Gazzola's suggestion? Employment statistics are derived from http://www.city.kitchener.on.ca/pdf/downtown_monitoring_report.pdf

Further, here's an interesting cost comparison:

to take the bus downtown @ $2.25 per trip will cost a total of $4.50 per round trip; but
For the minimal cost of a toonie $2.00, you can now park for your first three hours in three downtown parking garages.

Not much incentive to abandon the convenience of one's warm car at this time of year is there?

For a list and map of places to park downtown, go to http://www.city.kitchener.on.ca/city_hall/departments/downtown/dt_parking.html

Unfortunately the window for public input into the parking study appears to have elapsed as the link to the parking study on the City's website has disappeared entirely. Nonetheless, there is still time to carry on this discussion with your councillor as the issue of downtown parking will be on the agenda again during 2006 as the Centre Block parking garage business case will be presented in March & the Charles/Water parking garage business case is to be presented to Council in June.

What do you think ? Should the City provide for current parking demand? or Should the City encourage alternative forms of travel downtown?

Write or phone your Councillor and give him/her a piece of your mind as well as your hard-earned tax dollars to spend for you.

Here's the contact information: http://www.city.kitchener.on.ca/city_hall/mayor_council/council.html

a people place

2005-12-01T17:16:00.000-08:00

Photo of King Street West, Kitchener ON looking east towards Market Square. The streetscape presents a lively juxtaposition of old and new: historic buildings dating back to the City's Busy Berlin industrial heritage juxtaposed with the postmodern architecture in the Market Square Building. The City's reurbanization process is evident in the wide brick sidewalk to encourage pedestrian/cycling /rollerblading activity and the retro Victorian lampposts.

Will the City retain its heritage buildings hidden behind the facades in this photograph as it redevelops its Centre Block and practice what it preaches in its Municipal Plan? cf.

"The Downtown will continue to be the cultural, entertainment and social focal point of the City and will remain the primary regional centre for administrative, business, cultural and commercial entertainment facilities."
"The heritage resources of the City will be protected through an emphasis on the conservation of buildings, structure, street scapes, urban and rural landscapes, archaeological and natural heritage features as well as districts which have a heritage value based on their architectural, historical, or scenic significance."

Thus far, the Centre Block/KPL Main Library indicated its preference to "incorporate in whole or in part where economically viable" the following heritage buildings in the Centre Block:

Forsyth Building including Smythe Residence, designated 1999 & city-owned: 1888 Queen Anne buff brick; 1900 Berlin industrial vernacular brick & timber structure; 1937 Art Deco concrete structure
Mayfair Hotel, city-owned, not listed: 1906 Classical Revival/Art Deco brown/yellow brick structure
Commercial Block, 156-158 King Street West, city-owned, not listed: 1906 Classical Revival
Legion Building, city-owned, not listed: 1914 Classical Revival brownstone
cf Project Timeline Schedule http://www.city.kitchener.on.ca/pdf/kpl_centreblock/timeline_schedule_oct2005_march2006.pdf

However, the same Committee in 18 August minutes called for structural analysis and development scenarios for The Forsyth building which cast in doubt the economic viability of a restoration project. The study is posted at this link: http://www.city.kitchener.on.ca/pdf/kpl_centreblock/forsyth_dev_3scenarios_rev_may17_2005.pdf

Regarding the Mayfair Hotel, the minutes note that "based on current market conditions, the developer will make a decision on the viability of the building."--- the developer??? will decide what will happen to a city-owned heritage building??? As of 28 November 05, City Council deferred until February 06 the City of Kitchener Heritage Advisory Committee's request to list both city- and privately-owned heritage properties.

Somewhat belatedly, City Council approved interim protective measures to prevent further damages from fire and water to the Forsythe building at the urging of three delegates committed to the cause of pricking the Councillors' tendency to defer, delay, deny responsibility for the maintenance and upkeep of a building the City acquired in 1999.

In the same meeting, a report by Facilties Management had already projected a cost of $350,000 to demolish the Forsythe building. Earlier in Sept 05, the business case for a new central library prepared by the same committee provided $450,000 as the cost of demolishing the Forsythe building to construct 150 surface parking spaces. Cf. KPL Business Case, p. 26 to be found at this link: http://www.city.kitchener.on.ca/pdf/kpl_centreblock/kpl_business_case_sept4_2005.pdf

The average citizen can be forgiven the confusion as it appears that City of Kitchener is likewise confused: do we save our built and irreplaceable heritage or destroy entirely?

Perhaps it's time to speak up and tell City Council that heritage does matter!

the impulse of the Centre

2005-12-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

Welcome to busy Berlin's (1854-1916) main street as it was then, as it is now, and as it will be someday!

Berlin was renamed Kitchener in 1916 and is recognized for its rich industrial heritage. At the height of its success, Kitchener's King Street was a reflection of residents' pride and prosperity.

Today Kitchener hopes to regain its position as the focal point of the Region. Although there are many downtowns throughout the Region, Kitchener is the largest. Today downtown Kitchener is the Region's largest employer with more than 12,000 people working in the area. As the geographic centre of the Region, it is the most strategically prositioned." -- Fedy 03 study of downtown Kitchener