Comment 108300

By Shawn Selway (anonymous) | Posted January 23, 2015 at 14:02:23

Yup. Great overview of where we are. Land use and transportation issues are thoroughly intertwined. On Wednesday night Council gave the go-ahead to the Connolly - thirty stories at James and Jackson which the Shadow Mayor thinks will be worth 750K in increased assessment. Why is that building going on the market? Because prospective tenants can expect to find most services and amenities quite near, and save themselves a bundle by using Car Share or SOBI for the rest. We hope. (On a worrying note, the Councillor also said that the Connolly Project " Has gone from almost a heritage disaster to poster child for adaptive re-use." Uh-oh. Demolition of the greater part of a building does not constitute "adaptive resuse".)

Meanwhile, the Red Hill is being extended to Rymal and acres and acres of cornfield between Stone Church and Rymal are signed for townhouses and single detached, just as mountain councillors grumble about getting more transit on the hill. The densities Council permits at the boundaries will not sustain affordable transit. Yet Council will not sustain transit in the lower city corridor where it actually makes money. Boing! As Rob points out, the nine can pound on that round peg as long as they want, it isn't going in that square hole.

However, ease in getting from here to there is kind of pointless if there's no there there anymore, so to speak. To my knowledge, Council has not even begun to grapple with the housing affordability problem. All boats do not rise on the same tide and new pressures need new policies. This is a very large topic but we really need to get going on it.


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