Victoria & Park Development Application at 146 Victoria Street South

By Gail Pool

Below is a revised text of a letter sent to Eric.Schneider@kitchener.ca about the Park and Victoria Development

There are many people who are concerned about saving farmland and who think need to build up in Kitchener. Building up should also increase the housing supply and provide affordable housing for the many people expected to live in Kitchener over the next decades.

Highrise developments have been increasing in height from about 20 storeys to those of 30 and 40 storeys.  However, there are other options to building up and we need a vision for our city about how that should be done.  Currently we are faced with application after application for very tall buildings that many people believe will preserve our farmland and solve the housing crisis.  However, there are other ways to build density and we need better tools to accomplish that. 

So, while there is a need for housing so we do not pave over more agricultural land, these highrise developments overwhelm the people who live here.  They are proposed one after another and we need to step back or they will literally overshadow us in number and size. They are too expensive for the people who need housing. Building more of these does not help but rather destroys the low rental areas. 

We need to house people densely, but that can be met with low rise builds in areas where there are now factories with huge, underutilized car lots.  Many warehouses are single floor​ structures​ and there is a movement to build and re-build warehouses to ​​multi-storey buildings due to high costs of land. ​We have a great deal of under-utilized land in Kitchener with one storey warehouses and huge parking lots. ​We also allow building in ways that require cars rather than building where you can get transit or walk for your groceries and essentials.

So, can we think about a more fundamental change?  The alternative is to have developers decide that they want to build on a property.  I can think of only a couple of applications in recent years where the city or the community asked for serious adjustments (242 Queen and Mill Street). Also, whereas previous builds have been in the 20-storey range, we now have applications for 30- to 40- storeys.  Is the only solution to build up higher and higher? Is this what we really want to happen? As I said, there are other options. What we need is to re-imagine our community and re-think how to create a community where living can be maintained on a human scale.

Having said that, I have specific comments to make.

1.     I'm in favour of a broader spread of medium density builds on areas that are non-residential such as old factories, which have large unused parking lots (see "5 Ways to Add Density Without Building High-Rises").

2.     It has been argued by Anthony Paletta that High Rises Are Not High Density. Planners staff have said in the past that high rise density in the core will actually save the low- rise neighbourhoods.

3.     The city has been inundated with inappropriate housing.  Three quarters of the proposal at 30 Francis are one-bedroom units.  What about the missing middle?  Affordability? There is a lack of variety in development proposals with almost no 2- or 3-bedroom condo units that might house a family. This leads to a uniformity in income with little lifestyle variety. I have been told by planning staff that the city cannot address the type of units that are planned.  A proposed rental building can later be changed to condos.

4.     Do the demographics show that there is a need for one-bedroom units? The region undertook a study of demographic trends and found that there is less need for single detached builds. Fine. But one-bedroom units of 600sf may not meet the need either. The report also stated that 50% of the in-migrants are in the 15-24 age group (Region of Waterloo Long-Term Population and Housing Growth Analysis, December 2020).  Will this age group buy one-bedroom condos?  

5.     Where will all these people go for recreation and natural landscapes?  

6.     What are the social consequences of living in high rises?  There are studies that suggest that it is not good and can lead to urban anomie and social conflict (See Robin Mazumder). I could cite several academic studies which show how dense building will actually harm the social fabric.

7.     What obligations does the city have for providing amenities for food, entertainment and the necessities of life? While the nearby hardware will serve some needs, the closest supermarket is 15- to 20-minute walk or transit ride.  Transit is deemed an attractive part of this development, but will people use it?

8.     If density targets are being met already, then why are we being pressured into building more inappropriate and high-cost housing? The city does not track whether condo units are owner-occupied and so are we just serving investors and our tax base?   We really have no idea how many condos are owner-occupied since we do not keep track.  A resident of Kaufman Lofts estimated that a quarter of the condos are not occupied by owners.

9.     Covid also shows that as people work from home, they now realize that there is not enough space in their one-bedroom, 600 sf condos.  I’ve been told that people work on their beds or in a corner of their bedrooms.  The amenities and desire to avoid commuting that drew people to the centre are no longer a factor, so they move anywhere they can have a bigger space. 

10.  Will condos be only an investment?  A recent report in Ontario shows that a quarter of all property purchases were from investors who are also buying houses and driving up the cost of housing.  Do we need a municipal non-occupancy tax? Shortly after 30 Francis was being proposed an investment site popped up advertising units for $300,000.  Are we building for need or investors?  What about a non-resident tax? Is the amount of non-resident ownership being studied?

11.  Finally, will low-income residents be displaced? Can we do something about it? I would like to offer that we cannot do so if we continue to allow few conditions on the rental units and prices.  Can low- or even medium-income people afford these units?  Clearly not and we do have a plan in place to increase affordable housing.  Or do we? They do not meet the housing needs of our city: affordability and size of units, housing for the missing middle, displacing low-cost housing, all leading to gentrification.

You may think that I have many criticisms and few solutions.  I am not an expert but I do live in the downtown area and I have been increasingly concerned about the way we are going.  So, I can offer some suggestions that planning staff can work on.

·       We need to address what high rise development does to people. World famous Gehl Architects focus on how architecture connects people and puts health and well-being as the focus.  A local expert which the City of Kitchener has consulted, Robin Mazumder could help develop planning with the ecology and mental well- being integrated into future developments.

·       How you can build attractive low rise high density and still meet targets and hold the line.  The article “The Future of Social Housing: 7 Low-Rise, High-Density Developments shows how we can achieve density without building up.

·       We can limit developments to the zoning that is set for the area.  Zoning is not something that can just be put in place after years of planning and community input and then set aside.  Zoning regulations are made to be followed. If nothing else, the plan needs to be altered to conform with the law as set out in 85-1 regulations as amended.

·       I have observed over the past 5 years that many builds have been proposed and built around Victoria Park.  These developers advertise “overlooking Victoria Park”.  The problem is that the people who use Victoria Park will find that they could have a tall building border rather than a tree border when the visit it.  Even New York City has height limits around the long arms of Central Park (about 12 storeys). In 2019, the heights of buildings around Victoria Park did not rise above the trees. Now, we can see several developments which rise above the trees surrounding the Park.

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As far as I can tell, there will be about 10,000 new residents within a 10-minute walk of Victoria Park.  They will use this space because there is less than 1 square metre per resident right now in the areas around downtown Kitchener where these new residents will be living. So, stop building around the Park.

·       The proposal by Polocorp for a 12-storey condo tower on Mill street was changed because it was not suitable for the neighbourhood. In that case, heritage was involved because it bordered on the Victoria Park Heritage Conservation District and was next to a Part IV designated house. After many discussions with residents, the developer decided to build a complex of 1 and 2 bedroom stacked townhouses of 500 to 1300 sf. The proposal at Victoria and Park is inappropriate for the neighbourhood. A 40-storey building at 30 Francis is very tall but there will be less impact on the low-rise neighbourhood around it.  While heritage can be a low priority in planning, the VPHCD is also set out in a bylaw and the heritage provisions should be considered. The zoning on the West side of Joseph between Francis and Water has a lower height limit so there is less impact on the HCD across the street.  Why is this not the case with the Victoria and Park development?  The current zoning should be retained rather than allowing the requested FSR of 14.2.  Current FSRs are less than 1.0 FSR (I calculated the property at 106 Park at .7 FSR.  In other words, the proposed development is over 20 times as high!

·       So, can we develop high density at this lot with adequate protection for the lowrise residential neighbourhood?  Yes.  If we do something different with the land.  Below is an example of how to change the shape and liveability of a development (Cloe Logan “The hidden carbon footprint of highrises”).  We can do more and also reduce the carbon impact. In the development alternative (see photo) we can see that the streetscape is retained and the build is setback and is lower.  The carbon retained by old buildings can never be recovered and by various means, new buildings can reduce the carbon deficit by as much a 40%. This development asks for zero setbacks on the East, West and South borders.  Will there be any sidewalk left?  Will it harm the social and visual fabric of the community? Yes. It is not up to me to re-design this development; it is up to the developer to come up with a plan that is acceptable to the neighbourhood and to the City of Kitchener. Does anybody have a vision of what should happen with this property?  Can we encourage the city to negotiate with the developer and come up with a plan that would fit in with the local area?