Highrises, ugly architecture and gridlock a symptom of poor growth strategies

LIKE MANY PEOPLE I know, I’ve been giving the downtown cores of both Kitchener and Waterloo a wide berth due to the relentlessly annoying and completely useless LRT construction. Roads are generally closed and occasionally reopened on a schedule known only to ... well, nobody, it seems.

Waterloo’s core is likely to recover once that construction is over, though the train will make getting around perpetually more difficult and frustrating. Downtown Kitchener will be an interesting case study: already possessing little appeal, it will suffer from the light rail system making it less accessible to vehicles – the train itself will be lightly used, as even the region knows.

Other construction is also an impediment, and an incentive to take one’s trade elsewhere.

Having poured hundreds of millions into its core, Kitchener has little to show for it. There has been some additional residential and office construction, all of it unattractive – some of it an eyesore – which is problematic in an already aesthetically challenged downtown (you can count the number of “keepable” buildings on one hand).

Still, the region continues to grow, though not really in any way related to how municipal planners were trying to engineer. (The court decision clearing the way for massive development on the west side of K-W essentially nullified any plans, including the remaining poor rationale for the LRT.) There will be growth in the city cores. With provincially-mandated-but-not-locally-relevant density rules in place, that growth will be upwards.

It’s with that in mind that Kitchener has been trying to hash out guidelines for highrise buildings. That includes making sure the tall buildings fit in with the neighbourhood, without boxing in the area and taking away from streetlevel living. Generating public spaces, green included, is on the wish list.

It’s an admirable goal, though not as admirable as limiting height to, say, five stories in order to minimize the dehumanizing scale of development – not just ugly, it’s not really a fit for human beings in the long run.

And it’s unlikely the guidelines will include anything about not making the buildings unsightly – an issue apparent almost everywhere in North America for many years now.

That’s a reality noted by Kitchener councillor Coun. Frank Etherington.

“I think it’s overdue,” he said of the tall building guidelines discussed this week by city council. “Get it done as soon as possible so that we’re not caught short with … ugly, poorly constructed highrises. We’ve already got our share of those around the city.”

Well, more than their share, which is also true next door in Waterloo, where rapid construction of highrises has beset the neighbourhood around King and Columbia streets in particular, the universities being nearby.

Much worse atrocities can be found in Toronto, of course, where the glassand-steel wall blights the skyline and cuts residents off from the lake.

But Waterloo Region is not immune, as highrise buildings are set to become less novel than was the case. None of the existing stock qualify as pleasant to behold. None of the new stuff improves the situation. None of the planned developments is likely to change that.

Of course, that’s a completely subjective view. I’m not alone in that opinion, however. There’s lots of ugly architecture, but the problem is compounded when the eyesore is writ large, making it difficult to avoid. We all pay the price for the follies of others.

Which brings me to the issue of increased density and reurbanization that is at the core of both provincial planning policy and the sole surviving rationale – however dubious – for Waterloo Region’s light rail transit scheme. In short, we’re told to expect more highrise buildings, like it or not.

Proponents say increased density is needed to deal with a growing population. The alternative is more sprawl and loss of farmland. Those are two things to avoid. A better alternative – a shrinking population that would eliminate such pressures entirely – is never discussed. It goes against the Ponzi scheme that is our economic system. Instead of falling housing prices due to decreased demand, which is beyond-the-pale thinking in official circles, we’re supposed to shrink the supply of land even as we pump in more people to increase demand.

That’s a fairly widespread economic stance, one that planners want to apply to the LRT. The results will largely be negative. As I’ve pointed out before, property values have increased along transit lines established in other cities, though the density issue has met with mixed results. What has happened, however, is that gentrification of previously low-income neighbourhoods, the kind of core areas sliced through by rail lines, drives up prices and drives out those with lower incomes, precisely those who might actually use public transit.

Those with money to invest in such properties do well. Those displaced, well, they don’t fare so well. And everybody else pays for the over-budget and underused transit system courtesy of their taxes.

The approach adopted by the region won’t provide better transit or be costeffective. It will, we’re told, reshape land-use patterns. That’s necessary due to the aforementioned sprawl.

In order to curb it, municipalities need policies to limit land use. They need to make developers pay 100 per cent of the costs of expanding: all the roads, all the infrastructure, all the soft costs. That’s not going to happen, so we get sprawl and we all pay for it. By going along their current route, municipalities end up sending mixed signals: encouraging sprawl, and then punishing those who live in those newly-developed areas.

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Compact, mixed-use communities modelled on the best of European examples would be ideal outcomes, countering the North American suburban expanse that’s been the norm for several decades. There’s a big if, however, as the gamble – let’s be clear, they’re planning to spend a great deal of your money on this bet – remains something of a long shot.

Fewer people, degrowth and human/humane living conditions should be the goal. But it’s all about the money (pyramid scheme economics) so we’ll continue along the current path, frogs in a pot until something pops.