Raise the Hammer

I realize this isn't a popular viewpoint, but imho most of Chedoke should be developed. Think of all the discussions about intensification and then think about Chedoke.

There absolutely should be a park there. A nice park with a sledding/tubing hill and a play-structure and picnic tables and maybe a little disc golf or something. But Chedoke is like three times the size of the massive Gage Park. That's huge. You could probably fit Gage Park, Churchill Park, and Bayfront Park inside of it. You could develop most of Chedoke and still have a respectable great park.

Even if we paved all of Chedoke, it would still have greenspace being nestled under the Escarpment and two trails running through it.

I love Westdale. I love Westdale so much I want everybody to be able to live here, but unfortunately we've only got so many houses. The amenitites of Chedoke housing would be absolutely staggering:

1. Close to the planned LRT stop at Main/Longwood
2. Two trails and whatever hypothetical park is put in.
3. 403 access.
4. A stone's throw from Locke Street village.
5. Some of the best schools in the city.
6. A stone's throw from McMaster and MIP.
7. The beautiful escarpment backdrop.

Look at all the posts we have discussing the importance of intensification. This is a real opportunity for intensification - build this thing right on Studholme:

complete with the shops underneath. Put it next to our hypothetical park so nobody argues about shadows cast over existing homes. Then fill up the rest of Chedoke with those tall dense duplexes and upscale townhouses they build in places like Oakville.

Use the tremendous money from the sale to build the park and to upgrade Longwood (off-street cycle track right to King, widen intersection if necessary, etc) to handle the new traffic.

The problem is the folks in Kirkendall would rightly fight against this, because they get all the downside of increased densification and none of the upside of the money. I mean, you could offer increased bus-service (more density = more buses) and that new park, but something tells me that wouldn't exactly allay their concerns. Traffic on Aberdeen would be a mess.

Although paving greenspace doesn't sound green, this is the green thing to do. High density homes in a transit/bike-friendly area instead of sprawling out over farmlands in car-country.

Of course, I live in Westdale and not Kirkendall, and I don't golf, so it's easy for me to post this. The worst downside I'd be facing would be the construction time of whatever upgrades were done to Longwood. I'd be singing a different tune if somebody, for example, suggested doing this to the Churchill Park soccer fields.

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2015-06-18 10:55:32