What's the most offensive use of space in your city?

[SignalHillHiker]

What's the most offensive use of space in your city?

There are two things here I'm curious to see examples of - but, of course, feel free to share others as well.

1. What single property is the most offensive use of space, to you, in your city?

2. What's something your city does regularly, across multiple properties, that is an offensive use of space?

I suspect the second is going to be more interesting.

For St. John's, I'm not really sure what to choose for the most offensive single property. There's a huge parking lot that is part of the docks just outside downtown. It's where they store cars shipped here until they can be transported to dealerships around the island. There are lots of individual buildings that could've been much taller in that they were in the perfect locations to not be constrained by height restrictions. But I think probably the most offensive is downtown Ultramar:



And for the second... outside of the heritage area, which includes most of the core but not the lower-class neighbourhoods, there are no restrictions on what people can do with their properties. This colour corresponds with the weakest heritage protections, and even those are applied only in the very best parts of lower-class neighbourhoods like mine:



The city has for decades allowed properties previously against the sidewalk to be set back. Homeowners give up their backyards to instead have off-street parking in front. It's adding up and some streets already feel twice as wide as they should be. You could land a small plane on many of them. Sometimes it's not too bad:



But usually it's awful:

[esquire]

For Winnipeg, the answer to the first question is easy, the site of the former McIntyre Block at Portage and Main. It was demolished in the late 70s in anticipation of development that never materialized, and it has been used as a surface parking lot ever since.

This thing is just an absolute scar on the most important intersection in the city... I mean, at least the Ultramar station has a building and serves a commercial purpose. This is just the worst kind of semi-illegal gravel parking lot.

[TorontoDrew]

This does it for me. The old parking garage was better looking by a long shot.

Ryerson University by Steve Harris, on Flickr


it reminds me of this as well.

Pepsi Forum(formerly Montreal Forum) by Dan, on Flickr

[esquire]

^ It's maddening how they really didn't change the Forum in any way other than bolting just enough crap on it to make it look ugly.

[TorontoDrew]

Yup, I'm always amazed that was allowed to happen. Too bad it didn't get the same treatment that the Gardens got.

source: wikimedia.org

[harryc]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

What's the most offensive use of space in your city?

The city has for decades allowed properties previously against the sidewalk to be set back. Homeowners give up their backyards to instead have off-street parking in front. It's adding up and some streets already feel twice as wide as they should be. You could land a small plane on many of them. Sometimes it's not too bad:

But usually it's awful:

That is insanely bad - Florida ? [Edit I see Canada - which province ? ]

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by harryc

That is insanely bad - Florida ? [Edit I see Canada - which province ? ]

Sorry, I need to change my profile location. It's St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. But, yes, Canada's Florida.

[misher]

Downtown East Side, a few short blocks away from an area where condos are worth an average of a million each.
It looks like a warzone. I find it very offensive that the city has centered its social services on an area that should be incredibly prosperous and have let it run to crap. Its basically an outdoor homeless/mental illness hospital.

[acottawa]

The Ottawa Trainyards big box complex. Adjacent to a mass transit line, close to downtown, all one level big box stores with surface parking.

[SpongeG]

I don't know if this qualifies but its recently been sold. But it is an old rental site with only 200 units spread across 19 buildings on 23 acres...


tricitynews.com

[hipster duck]

Toronto has these idiotic parking pads right on the sidewalk in front of some commercial buildings. These are usually in front of pre-war, formerly-industrial buildings that have been gentrified into offices or mixed use residential/offices:

These things accommodate only one or two cars, but ruin what could have been a wide, grand sidewalk.

In this scene, note the mixed-up priorities of putting the parking on the sidewalk and the bike rack on the road. At left, a cafe - that generates far more revenue for the city while animating the street and lifting property values - shows what could have been installed in the same space instead.

[CivicBlues]

This empty lot (no, it's not a park) in what is supposed to be one of Canada's most dense and vibrant neighborhoods:
https://goo.gl/maps/eHVb7PzHyL6swVpu7

The property has been owned since, it looks like, 1973 by some consortium of people from Hong Kong. I don’t recognize any of their names, but I have appended the HK corporate search information below. Maybe some of you can do your own searching on the names or perhaps you know them.

The lot, which is 132 by 131, was assessed at $7,349,000 and there is no record of the property changing owners on the file, which means it’s been owned a long time by the same people. It is owned by a company called Melford Estates. When I checked B.C. corporate records, all I could see was that Melford Estates, with an office at 2900-550 Burrard, was registered as an extraprovincial company from Hong Kong.

http://www.francesbula.com/questions...g-undeveloped/

[SpongeG]

Its been that way since I was a kid. they used to sell christmas trees on it a number of years back. Strange.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by CivicBlues

This empty lot (no, it's not a park) in what is supposed to be one of Canada's most dense and vibrant neighborhoods:
https://goo.gl/maps/eHVb7PzHyL6swVpu7

http://www.francesbula.com/questions...g-undeveloped/

There should be a way to Tax the Hell out of vacant, underused property like that. Or just expropriate it.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by whatnext

There should be a way to Tax the Hell out of vacant, underused property like that. Or just expropriate it.

There is. Several cities have a higher taxation category for any undeveloped land within the urban area. Sherbrooke started doing it a few years ago, to my slight annoyance (I have pretty "prime" real estate - in the relative context of that city! - which is currently undeveloped, and taxes on it went up quite a bit, precisely to try to light a fire under the ass of people like me and those owners of the Robson/Broughton lot).

[Architype]

"What's the most offensive use of space in your city?" - probably Walmart, and anything that looks like a big box, also empty parking lots (as opposed to ones that are actually used).

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by hipster duck

Toronto has these idiotic parking pads right on the sidewalk in front of some commercial buildings. These are usually in front of pre-war, formerly-industrial buildings that have been gentrified into offices or mixed use residential/offices:

These things accommodate only one or two cars, but ruin what could have been a wide, grand sidewalk.

In this scene, note the mixed-up priorities of putting the parking on the sidewalk and the bike rack on the road. At left, a cafe - that generates far more revenue for the city while animating the street and lifting property values - shows what could have been installed in the same space instead.

Great post. Post industrial areas like Liberty Village and Carlaw Avenue would be 1000 times better without those.

[WhipperSnapper]

80%. That's what drives me crazy about Toronto. Projects end but look only 80% complete.

[vid]

All of it, if we're being truly honest.

[LakeLocker]

Anything between Richmond and Dundas going eastward. London got some weird social concept where they unionize all the addicts and the crazy's. It's pretty much the only part of town that has any character and it's completely overrun, as if the film unions are trying to turn it into some proxy of Detroit.