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  #41  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2012, 3:30 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cormiermax View Post
The bottom half of that Toronto condo is pretty ugly.
Not to mention the interior pics...talk about gaudy and overpowering
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  #42  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2012, 4:54 PM
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Originally Posted by Empire View Post
There are many areas of the city where bland architecture is being accepted, the north end is rife with bad "modern architecture". If this is to change it will likely have to be done in high profile areas like Spring Garden Rd. This is one of the most prime commercial lots in HRM so to expect a bit more is not unreasonable. However, to build something that falls short of the goal of enhancing the Spring Garden Rd. area is shortsighted. There is the largest building boom in a generation underway in Halifax at the moment so there is no need to accept poor building design. IMO

The list is endless for poor design:

http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=halifax...85.09,,0,-22.5
That. is. hideous.

When was that built? Who allowed that design to get pushed out the door?
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  #43  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2012, 5:21 PM
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Originally Posted by CdnEh View Post
That. is. hideous.

When was that built? Who allowed that design to get pushed out the door?
Looks quite a lot like the planned Drum Condos doesn't it?

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=188807

Imagine if this gets built at the base of the Citadel... urgh...
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  #44  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2012, 5:45 PM
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Originally Posted by CdnEh View Post
That. is. hideous.

When was that built? Who allowed that design to get pushed out the door?
A few years ago--the quality of new designs seems to be head distinctly upward, at least.

But this is why it irks me to no end that developers are allowed to tear down perfectly good old buildings on the one hand, and put up new construction at this incredibly unacceptable level on the other. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the city's built environment, but I'm completely okay with citizen activists and City Hall demanding better from the development community, when so many of its members are developing so irresponsibly and poorly.

And sure, people will moan and complain about NIMBYism and Halifax's "anti-business" or "anti-development" atmosphere, or whatever, but aside from the viewplanes, Halifax has far fewer constraints on developers than most Canadian centres. It wouldn't have been NIMBYism for North Enders to tell the developers of those Falkland condos to go back to the drawing board and try harder.
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  #45  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2012, 6:02 PM
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Originally Posted by Nifta View Post
Looks quite a lot like the planned Drum Condos doesn't it?

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=188807

Imagine if this gets built at the base of the Citadel... urgh...
I really hope Drum never gets built, what an awful building.
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  #46  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2012, 6:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Drybrain View Post
A few years ago--the quality of new designs seems to be head distinctly upward, at least.

But this is why it irks me to no end that developers are allowed to tear down perfectly good old buildings on the one hand, and put up new construction at this incredibly unacceptable level on the other. There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about the city's built environment, but I'm completely okay with citizen activists and City Hall demanding better from the development community, when so many of its members are developing so irresponsibly and poorly.

And sure, people will moan and complain about NIMBYism and Halifax's "anti-business" or "anti-development" atmosphere, or whatever, but aside from the viewplanes, Halifax has far fewer constraints on developers than most Canadian centres. It wouldn't have been NIMBYism for North Enders to tell the developers of those Falkland condos to go back to the drawing board and try harder.
I think there should be a Design Review Committee that addresses the design specifically. Once setbacks, height and all requirements for a DA or plan amendments are addressed the actual design would be reviewed. Materials, quality, shape, built form, relationship with surroundings etc. would be considered. The public could have input through a website or a public meeting. A report would be prepared and delivered to the developer. Any changes to the design in the report would be in the form of a recommendation only. This way really poor designs that meet all requirements for a building permit may get design improvements through some base recommendations. This in a way is what happened with the Convention Centre.

This forum could no doubt provide all of the design review most developments would need.
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  #47  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2012, 6:22 PM
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Hrm's problem is that they are only now truely starting to get into looking into building design as a constraint/issue. So as they do, there are going to be mistakes, things slip through, etc. But HbD doesn't allow vinyl siding from what I remember and I would hope that would be continued in the Regional Centre plan as well.
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  #48  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2012, 6:26 PM
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Originally Posted by CdnEh View Post
That. is. hideous.

When was that built? Who allowed that design to get pushed out the door?
Early 2000's and pre-design review committee. Regardless, it wouldn't have gone to them because it was outside of the HbD area. My hope with the regional centre plan is that the design review committee will become even more important and that any multi-residential development over a certain threshold (say 40 units and 3 stories) has to be reviewed by them.

Also keep in mind folks that the zoning along Gottingen Street was essentially anything goes. It was designed to encourage as much development as possible and it wasn't until those townhouses on Cornwallis went up that all of a sudden people saw an interest in this street.
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  #49  
Old Posted Dec 23, 2012, 11:43 PM
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I don't like that building but I don't think it is that bad. It's a lot better than the parking lot that was there. The worst development, I think, is the auto-oriented suburban stuff. The Superstore on Barrington is one example. A more recent example is the Shoppers on Robie Street; it should have been built into a mixed-use development similar to Gladstone and Almon. As far as I know, HRM by Design does not allow that at all.

The biggest problem in the city at this point isn't the downtown stuff or even the centre plan, it's areas like Clayton Park that are still basically under 1970's style planning rules. Thankfully exurban areas (Hammonds Plains or Fall River) seem to have slowed down a bit. The suburbs are generally designed by developers themselves to make a quick buck, with little or no regard for the future, and city rules (setback and parking requirements) often make the plans even worse. It will be very difficult and expensive to repair these problems in the future. We've already seen it with Washmill; $16M or so just to improve car traffic somewhat in one area. A lot of scale-related problems won't really be solvable at all with car-oriented infrastructure.
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  #50  
Old Posted Apr 5, 2013, 12:16 AM
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5504-5510 Spring Garden Road has its preliminary plans ready;

http://www.halifax.ca/boardscom/drc/...2130411drc.PDF

The official height is 22m. There will be 19 apartments and a bank (likely a relocated BMO), along with 1st and 2nd floor general retail.
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  #51  
Old Posted Apr 5, 2013, 12:56 AM
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Winsby's still has a lease for this property, and so far it sounds like they don't want to move, but that could change I guess. The shot of Birmingham Street with the dumpy 2-storey vinyl-clad building behind Winsby's makes me hope this one is built soon.

I guess I sound like a broken record, but it is kind of amazing to look at the aerial in the report and consider how much is changing in the SGR area. It was somewhat vibrant back in the 90's but it used to be half parking lots and there were only a couple of decent buildings. It's starting to look like actual city now.
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  #52  
Old Posted May 10, 2013, 10:19 AM
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Design Review Committee approved last night.
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  #53  
Old Posted May 10, 2013, 8:43 PM
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Nice, I like this one a lot.
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  #54  
Old Posted May 10, 2013, 9:56 PM
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Heavy criticism of the Design Review Committee process and HRM by Design by Danny Chedrawe, the developer of this project, in allNovaScotia today. He called HRMxD "an out of control monster" with far too much bureaucracy and that its open space requirements are stifling downtown development. He said he would not be proceeding with his Drum condo project as a result and thinks "we are on a road to catastrophe".
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  #55  
Old Posted May 10, 2013, 10:11 PM
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Originally Posted by Keith P. View Post
Heavy criticism of the Design Review Committee process and HRM by Design by Danny Chedrawe, the developer of this project, in allNovaScotia today. He called HRMxD "an out of control monster" with far too much bureaucracy and that its open space requirements are stifling downtown development. He said he would not be proceeding with his Drum condo project as a result and thinks "we are on a road to catastrophe".


Good. That was one ugly excuse for a building.

And perhaps Waye could weigh (waye? heh) in on this one, but it doesn't seem to me that HRMxD has had this effect at all.
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  #56  
Old Posted May 10, 2013, 11:12 PM
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I'm not sure about the open-space requirements myself (need to read HRMxD) but thank the lord. Drum was horrific. I'd rather have a so-so building than an empty lot, but I'd rather have an empty lot than a truly atrocious building. At least the former has potential.

If Chedrawe thinks development is being stifled, I don't know what planet he's living on (or city he's living in). It's definitely unbecoming when developers take exception to honest attempts to plan and build better cities and neighbourhoods.

Hopefully this doesn't mean he's going to shift his attention to his blockbusting horror-show for Spring Garden Road. (SGR heritage conservation district, ASAP please?)
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  #57  
Old Posted May 10, 2013, 11:22 PM
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Honest to god, I have not had a chance to talk to Danny, but I do not understand why he is upset. If this was under a development agreement process 5 years ago it would have taken 2-3 years to get approval. From announcement to approval was mid-December to May 9. Not even six months.
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  #58  
Old Posted May 11, 2013, 3:55 AM
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One good point he made is that all of these requirements for open space and the like come at the cost of competitiveness with the suburbs.

I think it makes sense to have high standards downtown, but this means that the city also has to put its money where its mouth is. If all HRM does is lean on developers to pay for stuff (including questionable green space right next to existing public parks***), more development will be pushed out to the suburbs and the net result for downtown will be negative.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Drybrain View Post
I'd rather have an empty lot than a truly atrocious building. At least the former has potential.
I understand your dislike for some of these buildings but I think this attitude is somewhat counter-productive. Sometimes cities need the mediocre buildings to absorb all the empty lots and push up land values so that nicer buildings become economically viable.

The Drum condo site history is much, much worse than Winsby's and I wouldn't be surprised if it contributed to Danny Chedrawe's negative outlook. If I remember correctly, the zoning for that site went up to 6-10 floors but was institutional-only. That took years for one owner to change, then when HbD came in there was another bureaucratic delay related to some open space requirements. I don't know how it can be considered reasonable that medium-sized residential building could be mired in so much red tape for so long.


*** As far as I can tell, one DRC argument in the Winsby's case went something like "you should pay $X,000 extra per unit for rooftop green space because if you don't then other sites not near parks might try to get us to grant the same exception".

Last edited by someone123; May 11, 2013 at 4:06 AM.
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  #59  
Old Posted May 11, 2013, 4:37 AM
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Originally Posted by someone123 View Post

I think it makes sense to have high standards downtown, but this means that the city also has to put its money where its mouth is. If all HRM does is lean on developers to pay for stuff (including questionable green space right next to existing public parks***), more development will be pushed out to the suburbs and the net result for downtown will be negative.
I fully admit I'm just not a fan of Chedrawe as a developer, given the mediocre quality of his developments and the unfortunate long-term plans for SGR. So that probably taints my perspective.

But yeah, I need to educate myself a bit on the green space/open space requirements. The provision to include a certain amount of landscaped open space for each resident in inner-city projects strikes me as odd--is that the norm in other cities? Indeed, why would a developer need to provide any open space at all next door to a park? (Cornwallis, the Commons, Public Gardens, etc.) If anyone can direct me to the relevant portion of the HRM by Deisgn documents, I'd be grateful.
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  #60  
Old Posted May 11, 2013, 6:54 AM
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The landscaping requirements typically stem from multi-residential districts and the age old idea that you don't want a giant building on a parcel without some sort of green space (for recreation, beauty and so you have some permeable surfaces rather than nothing but concrete). The problem with this idea in many of the urban mixed use areas is that it doesn't always work. I've said this before and it comes from writing zoning bylaws - zoning or land use control paints every parcel with the same 'broad brush'. So a zoning bylaw assumes every parcel that's R-1 is the same (typically a rectangle with at least 30' wide frontage and flat). That's why you get into the need for variances (we call them relaxations out here in Calgary). These are not bad things - because we have to understand the circumstances are different on each parcel.

One of the things that we have been trying is with some of our mixed use/transit oriented areas out here in Calgary is landscaping at or above grade. The problem is that the percentages still favor landscaping at grade versus above, to create a pleasant interface. I don't always agree with that, specially when you have active edges like storefronts or townhouses.

I'm working on a project right now called Bridgeland Crossings which is in the Bridgeland Transit Oriented Development Area here in Calgary (I'm the planner doing the permit). It's had 2 different rezonings on it and was previously approved - but the permit lapsed, so we are in the process of re-approving it. Problem is that the landscaping requirements are one of the big deficiencies because someone had the 'bright idea' to put into the site specific zoning a provision for landscaping at or within 1m of grade. Well, most of their landscaping is actually above the parkade which puts it greater than 1m from grade on the second level in the centre (you can see it here) - so that's created a huge list of deficiencies.

I don't think people need to rush for pitchforks when the idea of a variance (or relaxation comes up) - planners just need to approach it better. I always see it as an opportunity for negotiation. If a developer wants a relaxation for say height (if it's not governed by something like a viewplane or a 'non relaxable height limit') then - what do I get for the City? You want height - I want more trees, or a better design of the facade and interface with the street. It's all about how you approach it - facilitation versus confrontation.
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