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Originally Posted by Telegraph Journal
SAINT JOHN - A proposed set of land-use policies for the city would encourage the development of attractive streetscapes in urban neighbourhoods with more trees and grass, alluring façades and preserved heritage buildings.
Matthew Sherwood/Telegraph-Journ
Donnie Snook Photo: Telegraph-Journal Archive
There would be a mix of housing types uptown and on the waterfront that would be appealing to people of all ages and incomes. Commuters would have convenient access to transit stops and bicycle parking stalls to promote green modes of transportation.
And affordable housing would be built in close proximity to shops and public transit routes, recognizing that low-income earners can't afford vehicles for long commutes.
These are among a long list of proposed policies that would guide development in the city over the next 25 to 30 years. They are featured in a draft municipal plan, a 200-page document that will soon be up for public review.
"This plan is focused on the revitalization of our urban core, which is the heart of our community," said city councillor Donnie Snook.
The city's current municipal plan is outdated and hasn't been overhauled for decades. City planners, consultants, a citizen advisory committee and other concerned Saint Johners are in the final stages of drafting a new document, dubbed PlanSJ.
It will lay out where new homes and businesses would be built, the types of buildings that would be permitted and how neighbourhoods would look in the coming decades.
Common council has already endorsed a growth strategy for the city, which puts a cap on urban sprawl, allowing new homes to be built in select urban and suburban neighbourhoods.
What's different about the municipal plan is that it lays out policies that would guide growth in those areas. For instance, the south-central peninsula, old north end and the Catherwood Street area on the west side would feature more apartments, condominiums and townhouses.
On the lower west side and along the University Avenue corridor, the plan would emphasize lower density housing types, including semi-detached, duplexes and single detached dwellings.
The plan would also feature a range of policies aimed at improving the quality of life for Saint Johners. It would call for greater investments in streetscapes and parks, new cycling routes and stronger heritage protections where appropriate, among others.
City staffers are expected to present the proposed municipal plan to council tonight, with plans to hold an open house at Saint John High School on Wednesday. The public will then have 30 days to review the document and respond.
The final plan will be developed over the summer months and presented to council in the fall. The public will again be able to comment on the document, appear before the planning advisory committee and participate in a public hearing in the council chambers, where the politicians will vote on early and, later, final approvals.
Snook said there is much at stake, especially where the plan focuses on revitalizing urban neighbourhoods. The city, he said, must work hard to encourage new housing construction in vacant lots with financial incentives and other programs.
"We're going to have vacant lots littering the landscape for decades to come if we don't have a plan and get our act together to revitalize and see good infill housing projects, the right ones, in our urban core neighbourhoods.
http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/city/article/1414587 |
If you're wealthy, why would you want to live with/next/near to someone who isn't wealthy? If you go to places like St. Andrews or Chester or anywhere where there is valuable property on the water, it's all wealthy families. Do you think they'd want to live with people of a lower standard, at least in their eyes? It boggles my mind that Saint John and area can have so much waterfront property and yet
none of it is utilized like it is in other places.
I still don't comprehend this fascination with mixed-income. Maybe i'm too cynical or too much of a realist, but I can't see it actually happening. Find me a point in history where a society strived and in which everyone lived in mixed-income areas.
Example: I drove out to Rothesay & Quispamsis a few evenings ago. When out there, I stopped at the Marr Road Irving. Whilst I was inside, the cars that parked around my car all exceeded roughly 50/75K each. So we'll say one of them was a Jaguar. A nice one. So when I drive back into Saint John, and drive back into the north end, I don't see 50K cars, or Jaguars, I see people
beating each other with titanium baseball bats.
Home Sweet Home, I say, but this does nothing to help mixed-income fantasies.
Why should these people move into town, or anybody else with any sort of income whatsoever? They need to be given some sort of incentive to move into town. We're raising our taxes higher
again? We already have one of the highest tax rates in the country. Again, why would people move here? Cut taxes drastically in the city. And I mean
drastically. Every derelict building the city tears down? That's lessening the tax base for the city. Because once that building is removed from the property the taxes lessen greatly. So we're raising taxes for existing properties and nullifying them on derelict and otherwise unused properties.
I agree that the municipal plan should be updated, and I think PlanSJ has done a reasonably good job. There's a lot of stuff in there, however, that I just don't think is feasible at this time. Retail needs to stop being built over east, for starters, unless you want to start throwing money at never-ending plumbing and digging costs because your building sinks multiple inches a year. Oh, and the flood plain, too. Can't forget about that.
The Uptown can work if it's done correctly. I think more people need to actually live in the uptown, because on some nights there's a stark contrast between the amount of people Uptown at 4PM and again at 6PM. Where do you think all of these people go?
I really appreciate people getting together and putting out flower pots and painting telephone polls in the North End for community involvement and whatever else, but it's going to take more than that to get things rolling, and onto a better path.
It always seems that i'm in a really ranty mood in the mornings. I'll try my best to curb that.
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