Finding balance in a growing region
Election challenge: Choosing mayors, councillors who’ll shape future
WATERLOO REGION — Growth is inevitable in Waterloo Region, changing cities and skylines, suburbs and small towns.
By the end of 2017, the Region of Waterloo estimated that the area’s population had climbed above 594,000.
And while forecasts differ, that number is expected to approach 700,000 by 2041.
Development can revitalize struggling areas and spur further investment. But it can also pit competing interests against each other, and prompt concerns over the potential loss of heritage and green space, or the displacement of vulnerable residents.
And as we head into another municipal election, choosing mayors and councillors who play key roles in shaping their communities’ futures, “it’s not too late to think,” said Brian Doucet, Canada Research Chair in the School of Planning at the University of Waterloo.
With developments popping up along the soon-to-launch LRT line, and former manufacturing sites transforming into trendy brick-and-beam offices and condos, it’s clear that many decisions have already been made.
But there’s still much more to come — the number of surface parking lots dotting the cores gives one hint at where future
development could occur.
“We’re in that transition now where the choices we make … will determine a lot of the longterm trajectory,” Doucet said.
Intensification focuses on city cores and pushes much of the new development up, not out.
“The skyline will change drastically,” said Karl Innanen, managing director of real estate services firm Colliers International Waterloo Region.
“I don’t think anybody really understands what it’s going to be like to have 30-storey buildings.”
Those projects — many of them condos, with some rental accommodations and office space — are projected to introduce more than 5,200 new residents to downtown Kitchener alone in just a few years.
“That whole ‘live, work, play’ has been a vision, a dream for people. Now it’s going to become a reality,” Innanen said.
Politicians who fought for the LRT — often touting it more as a driver of development than a transportation tool — and worked to encourage density along the line will see their efforts pay off for generations to come, Innanen said.
“We see it every day, in the kinds of businesses that are attracted to the community,” he said. “They’re seeing in us what we often don’t see in ourselves.”
Doucet is a proponent of denser development, but worries that incoming residential projects will be dominated by small, owner-occupied units that effectively shut families or those with lower incomes out of the market.
“We have a lot of housing challenges in this region and I don’t know if they’re being adequately addressed,” he said.
“Is it the best strategy for inclusive growth if we just leave it up to the market to build what’s most profitable?”
Planning discussions often revolve around what a building will look like on the outside — aspects like its design and height.
“I would like to see much more conversation about what’s actually going on inside the building,” Doucet said.
“If a region is shrinking or not growing, it may have to sprinkle more incentives to get developers to build,” he said.
But that’s not the case here. “I think our cities and our governments can be a little more insistent in getting the types of things that we’d like to see,” whether that’s green space or a diversity in types of housing.
Kitchener-based architect Michael Brisson said the region lacks housing for the “missing middle,” bridging the gap between small highrise condos and pricey single-family homes.
As described by Ryerson University’s City Building Institute, missing middle housing includes low to medium-density multiunit housing such as row houses, stacked townhomes and walkups, usually at prices that are more affordable for a wider range of family sizes and incomes.
“Zoning for the missing middle would bring families and small developers into the mix, providing much-needed housing and lowering rents and house prices,” Brisson said in an email.
“(Kitchener and Waterloo) do not have enough mid-density residential zoning categories, and have very, very small areas on the new zoning maps to which the mid-zones they do have are applied.”
Brisson also laments the lack of new lanes or mews streets as part of new developments that can dominate a block.
“The need to extend existing lanes and create new city streets and lanes is always stated and drawn, only to disappear as projects are approved and built as gated superblocks creating all of the well-known problems for now and especially for the future,” he said.
“Projects that are part of a block are being approved in isolation without co-ordinating how future density will be built and serviced on the remaining properties on the block.”
The issue of growth inevitably raises concerns about what may shrink in the process — opportunities for affordable housing, the inventory of heritage stock, the presence of green space and parks.
In advance of the election, the Cambridge & North Dumfries branch of Architectural Conservancy Ontario prepared a list of questions for politicians asking whether they’re aware of Ontario Heritage Act provisions and local bylaws governing heritage properties.
“How do you prioritize the competing interests of the preservation of the community’s significant and unique architectural, historical and cultural assets with intensification and development?” the group asks.
A recent discussion in Waterloo focused on the preservation of trees and green space, especially in easily-accessible core areas, in the face of development.
“If you look at it from the climate change and general amenities point of view, we could do a lot better,” said Gordon Nelson, a member of the Waterloo Citizens Forum.
“For better or for worse, some people believe there’s much more green space than there is,” he said.
“There may very well be a lot of green space or park space but it’s not downtown.”
Nelson pointed to the loss of mature trees along King Street as LRT and streetscaping work was undertaken. “That’s pretty well all been turned into a concrete laneway.”
At last month’s Hold the Line festival, supporters of the invisible countryside line protecting rural lands from urban sprawl celebrated those protections — and urged politicians to maintain them in the future.
“It’s important to remember that the countryside line protects our cities but also our rural towns and rural lands as well,” one of the event’s organizers, Sean Campbell, said in subsequent interview.
It’s not about pitting one against the other. “For most of us at Hold the Line, we live in the cities,” Campbell said. “We see that connection between urban and rural.”
The primary line surrounds the cities of Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo; five smaller boundaries encircle built-up areas in the townships. The policies protect drinking water sources and agricultural lands, and encourage development in cities and towns, making them more livable and vibrant in the process, Campbell said.
Finding the solutions that strike a balance between competing interests, needs and visions isn’t easy, but it’s also not impossible, maintained Colliers International’s Innanen.
“I think that balance can be found,” he said. “There’s always going to be creative tension in getting to that balance … and I think everyone will have a different perspective of what balance looks like.”
Engaging different voices and different perspectives early on is key to finding solutions that work, said Loren King, associate professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University.
“I think we sometimes miss the opportunities that are there to quietly bring together everyone at the outset,” he said.
“We need to do more than just consult. We need to have people really thinking through the spaces they want to live in.”
Development is going to happen, King said. “You never want to treat cities as if they’re these static museum exhibits,” he said. “On the other hand, you don’t want free rein.”