Edmonton Construction 12 (December 2013)

[Albicaulis]

Originally Posted by cdnklc

yes, photos please...

and if it's not imposing, could you include photos of hillsboro and gresham and oregon city and salmon creek and note the time - and how and how far - it took you to get them from your boutique downtown hotel?

and maybe some photos of interstate 405 as it soars over and through the pearl district or where it connects with highway 22 or with interstate 5 at the other end of downtown...

as ue said, portland - sans suburbs - is a good american model and their civic advertising and promotion is about as good a model as it gets in actively and aggressively promoting their position as a good american model. we could take a good leaf or two from their promotion book but as a city i will take edmonton over portland in a heartbeat today and given another 30 years so will most others (except for the winters and the weather that will always make some things impossible here there that are taken for granted there).

Driving from Hilsboro to PIA in rush hour is my vision of Hell.

[GreenSPACE]

Reza apparently told one attendee that it is the City's fault they need to close the sidewalk because they have to build to the property line... LOL

[ue]

Originally Posted by Albicaulis

Driving from Hilsboro to PIA in rush hour is my vision of Hell.

Why would you drive that? Take the Red line downtown and then transfer to the Blue line. I agree that driving that would be brutal.

Originally Posted by cdnklc

yes, photos please...

and if it's not imposing, could you include photos of hillsboro and gresham and oregon city and salmon creek and note the time - and how and how far - it took you to get them from your boutique downtown hotel?

and maybe some photos of interstate 405 as it soars over and through the pearl district or where it connects with highway 22 or with interstate 5 at the other end of downtown...

as ue said, portland - sans suburbs - is a good american model and their civic advertising and promotion is about as good a model as it gets in actively and aggressively promoting their position as a good american model. we could take a good leaf or two from their promotion book but as a city i will take edmonton over portland in a heartbeat today and given another 30 years so will most others (except for the winters and the weather that will always make some things impossible here there that are taken for granted there).

Portland's sprawl is...mediocre. It could be a lot worse, but it's nowhere near as good as touted. Vancouver and Toronto's suburban planning schemes are vastly superior but nowhere near as hyped because Vancouver and Toronto are irrelevant to a larger American audience. So like I said, Portland is a fantastic model for Americans who are used to Metroplex and New Jersey style sprawl.

Of course there are things cities elsewhere can learn from and we are. We're introducing bike lanes and our food truck scene is blossoming. Our civic pride is on the rise, our arts scene is expanding, though neither are really Portland-level at this point. Portland has the advantage of being an older city as well as a larger city so it has an array of interesting, vibrant neighbourhoods that we just don't have in Edmonton. We lack something like the NW District because Edmonton was a little outpost when such styles were in vogue.

[Shodan]

Emotional pleas fail to halt rezoning bylaw
McConachie condo development to go ahead despite privacy fears

Tyler Dawson
Edmonton Journal

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

One resident was clearly upset Monday at a public hearing where city council passed a bylaw approving rezoning for development in the McConachie area, despite the objections of residents.

"I'm devastated, this was our place where we wanted to raise our children. This was it, this was our home," said Marianne Butler, her voice breaking as she addressed councillors.

Concerns revolved around issues including the density of the neighbourhood, a potential increase in crime, privacy and traffic issues. However, the central issue is the destruction of a grove of tall trees to make way for a condo development just east of 66th Street and north of 167th Avenue...

tdawson@edmontonjournal. com Twitter.com/tylerrdawson
© Edmonton Journal 2014

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[kcantor]

i know this is a cross post from the blatchford thread but with the renaming etc. i'm not sure it's readership is up where it once was:

Dear Mayor and Council,

It has been both interesting and frustrating to follow many of the discussions and directions this project has taken since the City – correctly and belatedly – chose to close the City Centre Airport.

During those airport discussions, I was – and remain – convinced that closing the airport was the right thing to do for our city as a city, not as a potential revenue generating project for the city. I believe I am on record as saying that closing the airport would be a good investment for the city even if we did nothing but turn the site into the world’s largest off-leash dog park. I will go on record today as saying that the world’s largest off-leash dog park remains a better alternative than simply approving another typical subdivision plan albeit one that is brown-field and not green-field. Preserving the opportunity for future generations to do the right thing instead of squandering the opportunity to see the right thing done based on expedient short-term financial decisions would be a better choice.

Much has been made of a 2008 report to council that showed one of the development options providing a potential $517 million dollar development profit to the city of Edmonton. That figure received a great deal of exposure at the time and many used it as a reason to proceed with the closure and redevelopment of the lands. We are hearing the same thing today but listening to that rationale completely ignores the other two options in that same report, one of which projected a net loss of $9 million dollars on the redevelopment of those lands. For additional perspective, even at the high end of that -9 to 500 million dollar range, if amortized over the next 30 - 50 years, that revenue stream, whether received or forgone, would have no substantive effect on the kind of city we are trying to build when our current gross budget is 2.25 billion a year (67.5 billion over 30 years and112.5 billion over 50) and that’s ignoring the fact that ongoing property tax revenues to the city aren’t much different for any of the options (70 – 90 million a year, the equivalent of a complete recover of the maximum in that range in the first 5.5 to 7.5 years)

Closure of the airport and the redevelopment of the lands was never about maximizing the financial return. On two fronts it was about doing what is best for the city in terms of city building and there were two pieces to that. First was closure of the airport. Second was to do the right thing on those lands not just as a neighborhood – albeit a large neighborhood – but for the city. In determining the right thing, we should not default to the most expedient financial option. We should not be foolish with our limited tax revenues but foregoing windfall income if need be in order to build the right thing is the right choice.

I have always been saddened to see plaques and awards in the various board rooms and public space for “Best Non-Implemented Plan”. If we don’t implement them, that is the true waste of both tax revenues and potential. Please don’t let the master planning for Blatchford slip into that same rabbit hole.

We can probably do without the pneumatic garbage collection and the district energy and we can make provisions for site and neighborhood “net zero” achievability without negatively affecting the planned and built form of Blatchford.

What we cannot do without are the site features and amenities that were an integral part of what was both chosen and sold (and bought by a majority of Edmontonians) for Blatchford. Those things that were presented (like Hawrelak Park) as city amenities, not just neighborhood amenities. The excavation of a recreational lake and use of that material to create an accessible landmark of height at the centre of the city that would be open to the public as opposed to the only current comparables – our downtown buildings and a dump site at 170th Street and the Yellowhead Trail. We were offered more and we agreed to pay for it. Those things need to remain sacrosanct.

It’s not enough to say “it will still have more park space than a conventional suburban subdivision”. Conventional suburban subdivisions are not expected to provide city parks and amenities with the possible exception of their rec centres which are paid for by the city overall, not charged back to that neighborhood’s development. The removal of the recreational lake and the scaling down the height components at Blatchford have been presented in some forums as “challenging” because the lake would have to deal with a potential two meter change in the water level during the occasional storm event. Horrors – think of the children. How do they ever manage to create recreational opportunities in BC or the Maritimes where the change in water levels can be more than twice that twice a day? These things aren’t challenges to be avoided, they are opportunities that need to be met and addressed if Blatchford is to be successful. Might some of those choices be expensive? Possibly, but they will probably be no more expensive that recreating those urban and recreational possibilities elsewhere in the city so there are no real savings by not creating and maintaining them here.

I would hope at the end of your discussions today you will have the courage to hold administration’s feet to the fire and insist that they deliver what was promised to the citizens of Edmonton and that you will acknowledge that doing so will require your support politically and financially in order for them to do so.

Blatchford should never be the recipient of one of those “Best Non-implemented Plan” awards and now is the time to ensure it never qualifies for one of those awards.

Sincerely,

Ken

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by cdnklc

yes, photos please...

and if it's not imposing, could you include photos of hillsboro and gresham and oregon city and salmon creek and note the time - and how and how far - it took you to get them from your boutique downtown hotel?

and maybe some photos of interstate 405 as it soars over and through the pearl district or where it connects with highway 22 or with interstate 5 at the other end of downtown...

as ue said, portland - sans suburbs - is a good american model and their civic advertising and promotion is about as good a model as it gets in actively and aggressively promoting their position as a good american model. we could take a good leaf or two from their promotion book but as a city i will take edmonton over portland in a heartbeat today and given another 30 years so will most others (except for the winters and the weather that will always make some things impossible here there that are taken for granted there).

Hahaha... and this is why I love your replies Ken.

Portland has A LOT of lessons for us, that said, there might be 3 cranes in all of central Portland right now...

Heading to East and SE Portland tonight.

The Pearl District is a much better version of Yaletown. The scale, streetscape, green spaces, parks, mixed use and is so well done generally speaking. Incredible how many kids and families were there last night around 7-8pm.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Hahaha... and this is why I love your replies Ken.

Portland has A LOT of lessons for us, that said, there might be 3 cranes in all of central Portland right now...

Heading to East and SE Portland tonight.

The Pearl District is a much better version of Yaletown. The scale, streetscape, green spaces, parks, mixed use and is so well done generally speaking. Incredible how many kids and families were there last night around 7-8pm.

One issue with Portland is that it is extremely high-rise adverse, which is why a lot of the newer high-rise construction is concentrated in the South Waterfront neighbourhood, far from the NIMBY population. The South Waterfront is no Pearl District, but to continue with the Vancouver analogy, it is a better version of Coal Harbour.

The Pearl District is I think one of the few areas in the City of Portland seeing a huge increase in the population of children, so much so that a new public school was being built in the neighbourhood, first one within the city proper in years.

Enjoy the SE. It's cliche hipster Portland.

P.S. I forgot to mention this in my response yesterday to you Ken, but I thought you might find it interesting that taking the MAX from Hillsboro to Gresham takes ~2hrs.

[s13]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

Hahaha... and this is why I love your replies Ken.

Portland has A LOT of lessons for us, that said, there might be 3 cranes in all of central Portland right now...

Heading to East and SE Portland tonight.

The Pearl District is a much better version of Yaletown. The scale, streetscape, green spaces, parks, mixed use and is so well done generally speaking. Incredible how many kids and families were there last night around 7-8pm.

Stop by Deschutes brewery for a couple flights! There is a few good craft locations near pearl, but that is my favourite!

[Coldrsx]

Ken, RE: Blatchford, thank you

[Coldrsx]

Originally Posted by s13

Stop by Deschutes brewery for a couple flights! There is a few good craft locations near pearl, but that is my favourite!

Hit it last night, beer very good, restaurant a bit too brewsters in some ways.

[kcantor]

Originally Posted by ue

One issue with Portland is that it is extremely high-rise adverse, which is why a lot of the newer high-rise construction is concentrated in the South Waterfront neighbourhood, far from the NIMBY population. The South Waterfront is no Pearl District, but to continue with the Vancouver analogy, it is a better version of Coal Harbour.

The Pearl District is I think one of the few areas in the City of Portland seeing a huge increase in the population of children, so much so that a new public school was being built in the neighbourhood, first one within the city proper in years.

Enjoy the SE. It's cliche hipster Portland.

P.S. I forgot to mention this in my response yesterday to you Ken, but I thought you might find it interesting that taking the MAX from Hillsboro to Gresham takes like 2hrs.

i figured as much but thanks for the confirmation...

it's been 5 or 6 years since we were there last but we have been regular visitors to portland for more decades than i really want to disclose. i like the city a lot and some of the things they do well we should be doing as well.

what i find both insulting and frustrating is the blind love affair with "everything portland" that so happily ignores the real world both there and here to the detriment of both.

[Hallsy's Toupee]

Hoarding is slowly going up around the City tower site

[Black Star]

@ Ken

Blatchford email to council.

Well worded and u nailed it.

Thanks for putting into words what most of us think.


Regards.

[GreenSPACE]

Can see Fox tower forms from the north now:

[Coldrsx]

For those interested, Marmot's long range plan.

https://www.skimarmot.com/mountain/long-...%20Basin%20Long%20Range%20Plan%20website

[EdmTrekker]

Originally Posted by BLACK STAR

@ Ken

Blatchford email to council.

Well worded and u nailed it.

Thanks for putting into words what most of us think.


Regards.

ditto

[s13]

Blatchford could be worse.. Procura could be developing it...

[SHOFEAR]

Originally Posted by GreenSPACE

Reza apparently told one attendee that it is the City's fault they need to close the sidewalk because they have to build to the property line... LOL

to be fair, I think he doesn't fully grasp the situation. The city does require the property to be fully built out to the property lines. This is why the construction elevator from the ground level to the top of the podium extends into the sidewalk. If there was some sort of building articulation on one of the sides that had the room to place the elevator this whole mess could be potentially avoided. Either way, it was a great turnout and plenty of local stakeholders expressed their frustrations. Unfortunately, I think transportation is going to allow the proposed closures to happen and will not force graham to find a creative solution.

[Shodan]

Single family zoning inhibits infill: Walters
Issue stirs debate in evolving neighbourhoods

Alexandra Zabjek
Edmonton Journal

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

There's a statistic that Coun. Michael Walters likes to mention as he talks about the need for more housing units in core neighbourhoods.

"Since 1971, our mature neighbourhoods have lost 114,000 people under the age of 40," he said. "If we think about the kinds of population and density we need in older neighbourhoods for them to be sustainable, then we have to start looking at ways of making it easier for the development community, builders, and buyers to be successful in mature neighbourhoods."...

azabjek@edmontonjournal. com twitter.com/a_zabjek
© Edmonton Journal 2014

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[Coldrsx]

Katz tower groundbreaking on the 17th.