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Originally Posted by NufCed57
I've read the plan, I was hoping to use language from it in my address to the council. They have admirable goals in the plan but they're going about it the wrong way. You don't have an integrated or walkable neighbourhood with six blocks of apartment buildings beside a strip mall. I live in South Devon and I'd drive four minutes to the liquor store instead of the 15 minute walk every time. When I lived in Toronto a 20-30 minute walk to the store was just stepping out, it was natural.
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So you're saying that the issue in Devon is not the distance to the store? Walking along Union is admittedly not the most comfortable walk – is that what you're referring to? Coincidentally I'm a 15 minute walk to the liquor store on York and unless I'm running other errands my default is to walk it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by starburns42
Apartments built last year on union/main/etc don't have retail spaces. They should've made it mixed use eh?
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The ones at the bottom of Douglas have a phase two component that has commercial space. The new building beside A&W, the one being built at the west end of Main Street, and the one being proposed next to New England Pizza are all mixed-use.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NufCed57
That would have been my goal. We don't need more shopping malls or 'retail zones', but you could overhaul the image of the neighbourhood in a hurry if the ground floor of these buildings was pharmacies and grocers and bakeries on the sidewalk, with parking lots behind, instead of more endless blocks of parking lots and corrugated-steel and vinyl siding apartment buildings. It only really bothers me because Devon is one of the last mostly-intact working-class neighbourhoods in the city, and it's going to be transformed into another apartment building suburb like the rest of the North side.
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The city has already prescribed that kind of development along Main/Union. If that's what developers have to build along that corridor there's no way that Devon will resemble places like Brookside Drive or Bishop Heights.
I think the biggest issue here is that these retail operations require a critical mass of people to be successful. And it's easier to add to the population first. The city can't be strong-arming developers into including commercial components in every development because then they simply won't build in Devon.
Interesting piece about this very issue:
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/...?rq=Storefront
I think Devon is on the right track, as long as the city sticks to its plan. I used to own a house in Devon and I really enjoyed living there. It's really the only Fredericton neighbourhood I'd want to live in aside from downtown.