[Moncton] Downtown Developments

[PEI highway guy]

Originally Posted by josh_cat_eyes

The crazy thing about all this is in PEI it happens all the time due to the Island Regulatory Appeals commission. Any single person can object to a proposal and the IRAC will hear it. This development is a good example of why NIMBYism is often outlandish. I could understand if this building was being built on Evergreen dr. or highlandview road, but it’s not. It’s at a major intersection at the entrance to downtown.

Perhaps the city could consider rezoning more areas on the edge of downtown. Currently everything south of Gordon and Queen street is zoned as central business district which has not height restrictions for new buildings. Most of the rest of downtown up to St. George is urban residential zone or secondary business district, which has a maximum height of 19m. The area around west street is urban dwelling zone and has a maximum of 11m.

I propose creating a new zoning district bound that would include the areas bound by Givan, Wellington, Pacific, Millennium, John, Mountain, University, and Wheeler, up to the edge of the current secondary zone. This new area would have max heights of 20 meters which would be a 6 storey residential building. The secondary zone from would expand north to Park, Archibald, Mountain/King to St George and be reworked to allow for buildings of 30 metres, or 10 storeys. The existing Central zone would be expanded from Gordon/Queen north to St. George. Perhaps these changes would entice new developers to build higher density in the downtown core, rather than on millennium or twin oaks. Moncton is the fastest growing city in the country, some changes will be needed if we want that growth to continue for a longer period of time.

This appeared in the PEI project thread a while ago. I would hate to see this occur in Moncton.
It's been years since a tower crane was sighted in the downtown core in Charlottetown and I doubt there will be for the next 25 years. The block against development due to the Lot 500 zoning bylaws is crushing development and density in the downtown. I doubt we'll have any in the coming years ....(I edited the comment slightly to delete a comment on local politicians)