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: