Quote:
Originally Posted by windypeg
So there's the fake potemkin facade designed to look somewhat walkable, and the giant sea of parking around back where 95% of customers will actually access the stores. Due to Lag the "town centre" is completely cut off from surrounding areas whereas good urban design would emphasize connectivity. The higher-density condo units are located across fields and parking lots from the stores instead of above them in multi-story buildings. 80% of the surface area in the commercial parts is parking. It's a car-dominated island. No one from outside Sage Creek will ever walk or bike through there for any reason and even people in the development, I have a hard time believing they're going to walk a kilometer through a desolate suburb to get to Tim's instead of just stopping in their car on the way home. Look at the layout from Google maps and compare it to Kenaston or Regent - it's the exact same big box garbage, but it's trying, VERY superficially, to pretend it's something different.
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I mean, Lagimodiere has been a high speed corridor through that area for 50 years. I'm not sure what could have been done to make Sage Creek more integrated with Island Lakes.
I don't know where the idea comes from that for an area to be mixed use, the buildings all need to be mixed use and multi-storey. Look at Osborne, Corydon, Sherbrook. Our favourite mixed-use neighbourhoods are lined 95% by one and two storey buildings, very few with apartments on top of them. I mean, very few people want to live on top of a bar or pizza restaurant on a busy street. The density and residential don't need to be on the high street, and rarely are.
As for the potemkin facade, how is this any different than large stretches of Osborne Village? Have you ever been to Stella's or Little Pizza Heaven? There are large parking lots directly behind these businesses all along the east side. North of River Ave, there is a sea of parking on the west side of Osborne for the Evergreen Towers and the Safeway. Is the Liquor Mart development or the Starbucks at River and Osborne a potemkin facade as well because there is parking behind?