[Saint John] Uptown Thread

[adamuptownsj]

There's no opposition to tall buildings, of course. Don't know where he's getting that from. He just seems to think Trudeau is going to build affordable skyscrapers in the middle of a working, growing port in 16 months if we get out of his way and let the feds help us. No sense of realism or practicality. Gets offended when people shoot down his random ideas with reason. Probably close to calling us NIMBYs lol.

Should Saint John try to develop the unused parts of the Garrison lands? Yes. Should we develop a medium term plan to do something on Long Wharf and/or Lower Cove? Yes. Should the city/province raise taxes (in a revenue-neutral way) on vacant land in the PDA? Yes.

We aren't Singapore, we don't need to shove housing onto every plot of federal land in the city. There's plenty of Saint John to go around without selling the farm. The housing shortage, while acute, is not related to a shortage of land to build on. It's construction and labour costs combined with population growth, overlaid on a ~50 year period when very little non-SFH housing was built, which is what's really compounding affordability issues.

If not having our heads in the clouds about fantasy projects makes us as grim and negative as CBC commenters to this guy, so be it, I guess. There's plenty of 'we should improve/extend/build [XYZ]' discussion on here, but it's pretty refreshingly grounded, and usually doesn't feature needless partisan sniping. Smythe St lots, Harbour Passage, Long Wharf and Lower Cove, the Millidge Ave corridor, Main St, and more get a lot of constructive discussion... because they're actual, viable concepts that we can chew on. "We need a decommissioned Navy ship in the old privately owned drydock beside the wallboard plant because taxpayers will likely pay for maintenance" isn't.