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Old Posted Feb 23, 2014, 11:57 PM
Hali87 Hali87 is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Calgary
Posts: 4,465
I think I've made it pretty clear that I'm by no means a "build for the sake of building" or even "density for the sake of density" kind of guy, but I struggle to see how this particular proposal is a bad idea. Coburg has plenty of buildings of a similar scale to this - not just the Campbell building, but Howe Hall (set back), Alex Hall (barely set back), the red brick apartments across the street (no setback) and the two ~10 storey multi-units.

Waye, I kind of understand your argument about limiting how much the university can encroach on the surrounding neighbourhood, but Coburg has always seemed like the de facto northern edge of Studley Campus. More fundamentally, this is not even a "university" building, it's a mixed-use res/retail building available to anyone who wants to live/shop there. I understand that the local neighbourhood plan (which I'm not really familiar with) doesn't designate Coburg for high density, but pedestrian-friendly infill here seems very much in line with the spirit of the Regional Plan and also makes sense simply based on the reality of how this street and this neighbourhood function. I also understand that the Centre Plan designates certain corridors for intensification, and that this is not one of them, but the Centre Plan hasn't been adopted yet (and I've heard that it won't be for several more years... any idea what the actual timeline is?)

I guess I am wondering what you are worried the impacts of this project will be. Bringing the streetwall up to the sidewalk? This is almost universally accepted as good urban design for this type of project on this type of street (I struggle to understand how you could consider Coburg Road "suburban"). Are you worried more about the project itself or the precedents it will set? If you are worried about the character homes in the area being knocked down for midrises (which is not what's going on with this particular proposal) then I think there would be better mechanisms for protecting them than preventing this from going forward. If you're dedicated to keeping the neighbourhood exclusively low-rise, single family, then it's too late, because the area between Coburg and Quinpool is already peppered with multi-res buildings of a similar scale to this one. If you're dedicated to reverting the neighbourhood to low-rise, single family (which is sort of the impression that I got from that video) then I would say this absolutely flies in the face of what HRM has been trying to accomplish.

Ultimately, I feel like this is a product of the disconnect between zoning and urban design. More broadly, it seems to basically be pure NIMBYism (another concept I try not to throw around lightly). Even if this specific site was not identified by staff as a target for intensification, the proposal itself makes perfect sense to me and I can't see the project (in and of itself) having a negative impact on the neighbourhood - you can talk about the intent of U-2 and U-1 and R-2 zoning in theory, but in practice this proposal seems perfectly in character with its surroundings.

Waye, I'd be interested in hearing a bit more about your rationale for opposing. Could you elaborate a bit on the things you brought up in council? Could you explain how the current "Needs" building is better for the neighbourhood than the proposed development would be?
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