Winnipeg Construction IX

[optimusREIM]

Originally Posted by emeraldeyes

and speaking of parking lots...downtown Winnipeg's hottest and newest surface lot will soon be open...

How is this stuff even allowed

[CoryB]

^^ If you don't link Calvary Temple's new parking lot be sure to call your MLA, not your City Councillor. It was Hydro's crown land powers that helped facilitate this deal. The other piece to keep in mind is that lot is a direct result of all the growth in the downtown and Exchange forcing Hydro to build the new substation. Growth comes with infrastructure costs that need to be paid. Power substations, sewage treatment plants and garbage/recycling processing centers aren't as sexy as a 40 story residential tower but all those pieces are needed to allow the tower to happen.

[bomberjet]

There's so many surface lots, including others in that photo. Why demolish buildings for this? They could've figured it out, but Hydro did the Hydro thing. Nonsensical.

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

There's so many surface lots, including others in that photo. Why demolish buildings for this? They could've figured it out, but Hydro did the Hydro thing. Nonsensical.

For literally 2 hours a week.

If your love of God is so shallow that it really depends on convenient parking...

[Urban recluse]

Such an atrocity.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

There's so many surface lots, including others in that photo. Why demolish buildings for this? They could've figured it out, but Hydro did the Hydro thing. Nonsensical.

Exactly. A bit of creativity could have led to a solution to the parking dilemma without requiring the purchase and demolition of existing buildings... downtown parking is not exactly hard to come by on Sunday mornings.

But Hydro decided to do the easy thing and just threw money at the problem.

[Tacheguy]

Pardon my ignorance, but are church properties exempt from property tax? If not it would seem like an excessive financial burden for such limited benefit.

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by Tacheguy

Pardon my ignorance, but are church properties exempt from property tax? If not it would seem like an excessive financial burden for such limited benefit.

I think religious venues are tax exempt, yes. Probably why they tend to hold on to the sometimes very large extra lots, usually owned next door to or part of the church property.

[scryer]

I think that the parking lot minutely demonstrates my feelings that Winnipeg is still developing to be more car-centric...

[bomberjet]

It can be difficult to judge from the religious type establishments. They tend to have a much older audience. Not a blanket statement by any means. But young people nowadays don't really go to church as much. So when you have Grandma and family coming to church on Sunday, they're driving.

People also will attend church at their historical parishes. So may have to drive across town, like me. I live in EK, church is down Corydon. Well as we know, transit service on Sunday's is almost non-existent. But Calvary being a central locale, should have okay service.

Flip side, the couple churches down the street from my house draw heavily from the surrounding area. People are walking there from quite close, like my neighbours on both sides.

[Tacheguy]

[QUOTE=bomberjet;7481540]I think religious venues are tax exempt, yes. Probably why they tend to hold on to the sometimes very large extra lots, usually owned next door to or part of the church property.

thanks. I wonder if there would be political support for taxing the parking components only for the downtown area. the church leaders might not like it but the general public would. the churches would still be getting a large exemption related to the built components. I am sure it has been thought of before and discarded as a non starter. times are changing though..

[esquire]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

It can be difficult to judge from the religious type establishments. They tend to have a much older audience. Not a blanket statement by any means. But young people nowadays don't really go to church as much. So when you have Grandma and family coming to church on Sunday, they're driving.

People also will attend church at their historical parishes. So may have to drive across town, like me. I live in EK, church is down Corydon. Well as we know, transit service on Sunday's is almost non-existent. But Calvary being a central locale, should have okay service.

Flip side, the couple churches down the street from my house draw heavily from the surrounding area. People are walking there from quite close, like my neighbours on both sides.

Parking is an issue at practically every church other than the rare Springs-type big box churches that are surrounded by huge lots. There's no question that it's exacerbated by the often older demographics among regular attendees... older folks generally aren't crazy about long walks to their car (often but not always because of declining health) and the older boomers are definitely part of the most car-centric generation... to them, if you can't get a free empty spot next to the entrance, then there is effectively no parking.

I attend a church in an urban location and this is an issue for us. The point I've made when the subject has come up in meetings is that people probably walk as long a distance from their car in the Superstore parking lot to the store entrance as they do from their car to the church. The formula that tends to work at most urban churches is one where older people who need prime parking show up a bit early, everyone else comes closer to the start of the service and has to walk a bit.

There are probably hundreds if not thousands of parking spots (when you factor in parkades) within 300 metres or so of Calvary Temple. I realize that grandpa might not walk from the Centrepoint parkade in January, but maybe the lot nearest to the church could have been made a handicapped/elderly person parking area, while younger able bodied people could have been asked to walk the 3 minutes to their car. It would have been a far preferable solution compared to what ended up happening.

[bomberjet]

^I'll second that with my observations as well. Also, a good drop off bay could do the trick for people who can not walk far.

[CoryB]

Believe me when I tell you it is not as simple as "there is a giant parking lot across the street from the church". Not to out anyone for being a bad neighbour but I know of a church in Winnipeg that is across from a large parking lot "free for customer use". Rather than let church people park there without issue security guards are actually hired to patrol the lot and ensure no one parks there and goes to church even when the store is closed.

It has been covered before that while Calvary Temple and the new parking lot are commonly viewed as "being downtown" they actually fall just outside those boundaries. The other reality people are so quick to forget is the hydro substation that caused this issue was originally purposed to take over a prime multi-story block in the Exchange and gut some historic buildings. The trade off is some newer single story buildings were lost to enable downtown to continue to grow and expand. Not ideal but would you rather they Fortress or TNSE "Sorry, your proposal for new buildings downtown is not approved as the hydro substation cannot support that added load. We were going to expand the hydro capacity but the populace wanted to save these buildings on Notre Dame Ave instead."

[esquire]

^ It was not a business vs. substation propositon... the two could have co-existed. Just because Hydro's initial proposal was off the charts crazy doesn't absolve them for how this one went down.

I'm not suggesting Calvary Temple's neighbours should have offered free parking either... they could have worked out a deal with owners of parking lots a block or two away much the same way that they did before with the owners of parking lots on the north side of Notre Dame.

[trueviking]

I blame both the church and hydro (province). 65-35 in hydro's favour.

City shouldn't have allowed it.

[Labroco]

Originally Posted by trueviking

I blame both the church and hydro (province). 65-35 in hydro's favour.

City shouldn't have allowed it.

What's disappointing is its just not necessary nor equatible.

If Hydro needed the church's lot for a substation they just had to expropriate it and be done with it. The church would have found a way to carry on. I can tell you our lot across the street from their front door has been offered to them for free on Sundays for years. That's 45 stalls gratis.

Hydro did not have to get involved in replacing any parking.

I can also tell you when all of our parking was expropriated from a building to accommodate the new freeway a few years back it was just taken and expropriated regardless of the impact. We have only now settled over 4 years latter. No one offered to help us replace our parking by acquiring it for us.

Finally, the fencing utilized on the lot is not a light proof fence required by everyone else downtown today.

I'm just saying have one set of rules for everyone and not make exceptions everyday. It's very difficult to make long term decisions and planning if the rules are not consistent. This is what really holds development back downtown in my opinion.

[Riverman]

Why wasn't the sub station built underground?

http://www.torontohydro.com/sites/electr...pelandstation/Pages/CopelandStation.aspx

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Riverman

Why wasn't the sub station built underground?

http://www.torontohydro.com/sites/electr...pelandstation/Pages/CopelandStation.aspx

$$$

$62M vs $195M would seem to be the likeliest reason.

For what it's worth though, it's not the placement of the substation that's really the issue. An above-grade substation is fine, it's the way parking was handled that's the issue.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ It was not a business vs. substation propositon... the two could have co-existed. Just because Hydro's initial proposal was off the charts crazy doesn't absolve them for how this one went down.

I'm not suggesting Calvary Temple's neighbours should have offered free parking either... they could have worked out a deal with owners of parking lots a block or two away much the same way that they did before with the owners of parking lots on the north side of Notre Dame.

And Hydro could have built their substation on the lots that don't belong to Calvary Temple. There are lots of different things Hydro could have done but this is what they choose.

Originally Posted by Labroco

Finally, the fencing utilized on the lot is not a light proof fence required by everyone else downtown today.

I'm just saying have one set of rules for everyone and not make exceptions everyday. It's very difficult to make long term decisions and planning if the rules are not consistent. This is what really holds development back downtown in my opinion.

First, Calvary Temple and their parking lot are not considered to be downtown so those rules do not apply.

In terms of using other lots that they do not own, even if they are free, Calvary Temple would ultimately not have control over them. They could have done a deal with Hydro based around that and had the lot decide in a year that they are going to do "no parking on Sunday" or that they have sold the lot to a developer that is going to build something there. The end of the day if enough starts happening in that area the lot will eventually gain enough value that it will go away, same as the WCB surface lot. Lots needs to change to reach that point though.