Wateridge Village development [Hemlock Rd, Codd's Rd] | U/C

[OTownandDown]

The way this land is being divvied up with lax rules, resulting in these ridiculous blocks that will end up being a low-income ghetto in 15 years really points out the limitations of the real estate group at the City, the planning office, and all levels of government.

There's a difference between paying an architect $200k for a 'master plan' and implementing that plan. The planning gets dumbed down to the most basic level, and you end up with a group of separate development companies trying to profit as much as possible within the dumbed rules and their single blocks.

The City needs to actually get innovative when it comes to real estate and planning working 'as a team' with the public and developers. Other Cities have actually built Development Corporations with actors from every sector, and managed to design and build to a master plan. You set the parcels, you set their use and design limitations, and you stick to it. If the developer likes the idea for the parcel, they buy it and build. If they don't like what's proposed for that land, they move on.

In the end, it's the ultimate in socialism (or..communism? lol, I'm not sure), having the government design land, but if you have enough sectors on the larger committee setting the design, it sometimes works a bit better than a wide-open market for profiteers.

I'm mostly talking about Rive Gauche in Paris. WestSideAction did a good article about it and several other 'planned' european neighbourhoods a couple years ago.