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Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn
I guess good quotes are subjective ������
Why is it a bad choice for high rises? It’s one of the nicest coastal viewpoints in the city, and there’s not that many houses around it. The neighbours aren’t going to like this development whether it’s 3, 6, or 10+ storeys, so wouldn’t they rather it be a more value added development for the neighbourhood, that retained a huge amount of green space and added value to the neighbourhood?
10+ storey developments might be unlikely, but with a big enough grant from the province and federal government to build affordable housing, they could have built a lot more than 200 units across this site… and that type of affordable housing (high rise apartments) would be a lot more desirable than these triple stacked rowhouses are going to be.
The city’s plans for this site, starting with closing down the arena in the first place, followed by the homeless shelter, then Brent Harris’s proposal, and now this, all seem to sell the property incredibly short.
I don’t think it’s at all ridiculous to want to see a proposal that doesn’t destroy so much green space, or takes better advantage of the views, when just as much housing or more could be built across this site by building up 6 storeys or higher.
This is one of the biggest parcels of land in the core of the West Side, and this proposal is really disappointing given how much more impactful developments could be built here. I’d rather see 500+ apartments go up across 3 towers than 200 rowhouses of seemingly ultra low income housing. Is ocean view real estate really the best place to build deeply affordable housing?
The city should have been pushing for a bigger development across this large site, or at least one that built a similar housing but destroyed far less green space and provided larger, more desirable units.
As a resident of the West Side, I feel like the city has gone out of there way to make the former site of the Belyea Arena and soccer field a place to dump externalities of the housing and homelessness crisis, when it used to be an important third place for this community that never should have been shut down until they at least started ground on building a new rink elsewhere.
Would it have killed them to try and pitch a grand vision for this site to Build Canada Homes and/or former Ward 3 councilor, now NB Housing Minister, David Hickey? 200 units is good, but 600 is even better. There’s all kinds of places around Saint John where we could stuff hundreds of rowhouses, but not so many places with ocean views like the Belyea site has potential for. This proposal just seems like a poor utilization of this large, costal adjacent property.
I’m not sure how likely it is we will see any changes to this proposal. However , if there’s any chance to get some decent looking 6 storey apartments up instead of these grim rowhouses, it’s worth pushing for… but I’m not holding my breath.
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I'm not sure where to start, so bear with me if my response seems a bit disjointed.
First of all, let's consider the city's intent in its RFP. A significant weighting is given to housing outcomes and affordability (including diversity of housing form and number of bedrooms), overall housing supply/maximizing density, and alignment with the municipal plan (including the affordable housing strategy). So we can surmise that the city wants a bunch of housing on this site, including some geared towards lower incomes and to families.
The RFP also says that it needs to do this while being "sensitive to the built context of the surrounding neighbourhood". The site is surrounded by approximately 35 low-rise residential structures, ranging from single family homes to small apartment buildings. I'm not familiar with Saint John's municipal plans but in Fredericton that context would likely limit you to four storeys for most of the site, because the municipal plans calls for appropriate transitions from adjacent low rise housing. What makes things complicated for this site is that the low rise housing existing around most of the perimeter of the site. If it was just along one side such a transition would be a lot easier. You said that neighbours would be against this regardless of height, and while that is no doubt true, it's certainly more impactful to have a 10-storey building next door than it is to have a 3-storey building, especially when there is no existing precedent for such height in the area.
Regardless of that, even if building taller was appropriate in the context of the neighbourhood, there are issues with that as well. First of all, we've known for 50 years that the
towers in the park style of development doesn't work, and that's effectively what you're proposing here (and in the past you've proposed that for others sites as well). Density for the sake of density doesn't work well when the site offers very few amenities. People are willing to live in high-rises when have amenities nearby but this site offers nothing but your beloved ocean views.
Building taller is also ultimately more expensive, especially if you also want to incorporate underground parking – that increases the cost to build significantly. The other challenge is that it is much more difficult to delivery a significant number of family-size (3+ bedroom) units this way. Our building codes do not give a lot of flexibility in how those kind of layouts are designed.
You've cited building taller as a way to conserve the existing green space but you haven't articulated why that is desirable, or how that green space would be activated. We tend to overestimate the value of urban green space, particularly unmaintained space. I would argue that the value of a thoughtfully designed one acre park is much higher than 10 contiguous acres of mostly unmaintained grass and trees. And again, this is an area that is not lacking in green space to begin with.
So given the context of the site and how the RFP is written, what is being proposed seems appropriate for the site. The stacked townhouse form allows for a cost-effective way to deliver a mix of unit sizes (smaller single storey on the bottom, larger two storey on top). The project is easily phased and new homes can be delivered much more quickly than building mid or high rise buildings.
At the same time, I agree that this is a completely unambitious project, and I would place the blame for that on the city. The opportunities to provide significant residential developments on city-owned land generally don't come along often, and the goals for such developments should be to deliver a housing product to an underserved market – that generally means some combination of price point and housing topology.
Rather than putting out a fairly open-ended RFP the city could have created a master plan for the entire property and then subdivided lots off of it that could be sold to developers with pre-approved development plans in place. As adamuptownsj mentioned in the other thread, there's definitely an opportunity for mid-rise buildings along the Lowell Street frontage. A small, fully activated, centrally located park could be built somewhere in the middle of the property, alongside the trail that is in the current proposal. That could have been surrounded by stacked townhouses (rentals) and perhaps row houses (owner occupied).
There could still be an affordable component to this plan by partnering with perhaps the province, nonprofit community groups, creating a co-op building, etc. That would have resulted in a lot more diversity in terms of housing topologies, incomes, etc. You could have even reserved a lot along Lowell for a mixed-used building as a final phase of the project in case the population growth of the area supports that.
Such a project could be a catalyst for the entire neighborhood, spurring development of the land on the other side of Woodville. I'm sure there are other opportunities for gently density redevelopments in that area as well.
I would just add that regardless of how such a project is funded, there needs to be an emphasis on affordability, and delivering that in a cost effective manner. You're effectively advocating for a luxury product on city-owned land and I don't think that is fair to taxpayers. We can have high quality yet relatively modest housing instead that fits a real need in the community. Your point about being happier in a high-rise building with ocean views than in a stacked townhouse is moot if you can't afford the high-rise, or if that form factor doesn't work for you and your family.
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