Quote:
Originally Posted by Dundasguy
I can't believe how much time and energy is being wasted on this. I am really starting to see why this city is going nowhere in a hurry.
Would building cladding be such an issue anywhere else? The building is too small and obsolete, they could clad it in 24K gold or dog shit and it won't change this fact. It's become impossible to get things done in the core. Every project now gets mired in controversy and endless debates from interest groups, politicians and the media.
I can see why the business community has given up on downtown and moved on to the big box burbs instead. It's become too much brain damage to try anything downtown.
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I could start to list the logical fallacies in this post, but it would take too much time.
This certainly isn't a case of being "impossible to get things done in the core," or your claim the "big box burbs" are the place to be because of timelines. That assertion alone is a very simple breakdown of a complex situation. Anyways, the case of City Hall may have some parallels to businesses, but its a very unique situation and certainly not a clearcut parallel to any of them.
If you're looking for a new City Hall, that ship has sailed. Saying that nothing matters now is a bit far-fetched, isn't it?
It is what it is: working with what we have: preserving the style of the building, preserving its heritage features including the cladding.
The core problem with the cladding is that cost should not be the only determining factor. It's not about just covering it in "dog *** or 24k gold" without it mattering. It matters.
Right now the choice that the city has made turns this government-owned building in the center of our city a beacon to
cost-effectiveness alone. Above aesthetics, above history, above heritage, above what it communicates to the entire city about the worth of downtown and the worth of investing the city's money in the core.
And
that is a problem, because the rest of the story matters as well as costs. Limestone would have considered all sides... concrete considers one.
It's now a case of professionals backing out because of the poor choice that has been made, and concerned citizens attempting to bring another solution to the situation and minimize the damage that's been done by these decisions, and find a way to move a better solution forward.
Is this situation entirely unique? Of course not. But this building represents, in one way or another,
the entire city and every citizen in it. Right now the plan is for that to be a grey concrete box: testament to penny-pinching, pound-foolishness, and an inherent devaluing of the downtown. And that is not what I want in the center of my city, my Hamilton.
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