West Garneau | 27m | 6s | Westrich Pacific | J+S Architect

What do you think of this proposal?


  • Total voters
    26
I really like the ground floor amenity area facing the laneway on the Southside of the property, also the ground floor units are not the typical below-grade units. It should make for nice street-level interaction. I'm leaning towards liking this project.
 

I'm going to leave a bit of feedback on this; mainly section 7.4. of the draft DC2 states:

Vertical racks may be used to satisfy Bicycle Parking requirements. The minimum size of vertical bike parking spaces shall be a minimum of 0.60 m wide, 2.3 m high, and 1.1 m deep, with a minimum 1.5 m wide aisle.

This would exclude a number of types of bicycles including cargo bikes and trailers, and vertical racks are not inclusive as not everyone has the capacity to lift a bicycle into a vertical rack.

I'm also going to suggest that even though the city no longer has parking minimums, that the zoning puts a cap on the number of parking stalls at a ratio of 0.5 per unit, as a way to manage the traffic impacts of this development. Being so close to major transit corridors, the University, a major grocery store and other amenities, that it can easily get away with a low number of stalls.
 
Sad to see the redesign. I actually think this area needs more height and density. I recently graduated from the UofA and there's a need for more units in walking distance to the campus. More high rises. A lot of my friends and I lived in grandin (we rented in hendrix) and took the train across. But more students want to be walking distance and have access to whyte ave too.

A big change also is where students' parents live. I'm a 1996 who grew up in Riverbend, then moved to windermere in first year. Most of my friends were those types of neighborhoods too. But in 5 years, most of the "wave" will start being neighbourhoods outside the henday like Lewis, windermere, Ellerslie, st albert, etc. My guess is the commute will start being too much. It was already 50mins on a good day, 1hr30 if I missed a bus connection by a few mins. Unless people are right on the train, the bus transfers make it too long.

All that to say, I could see an influx of people wanting to move out and live close to campus. Right now, the options are pretty limited to crappier old builds or more high end/mature style buildings. More stuff like ultima, hendrix, Macleran is needed in that area.
 
Rezoning goes to Council on November 3:
(Items 3.7 & 3.8)

Rezoning was referred back:

On November 3, 2020, City Council passed the following motion with regard to this application:

That Bylaw 19462 and Charter Bylaw 19463 be referred to Administration to facilitate additional community engagement regarding proposed built form changes to address:
  • Potential setbacks and stepbacks in the front, rear and side
  • Potential privacy screening to improve overlook conditions
  • Potential additional articulation and breaks in the long facade facing 86 Avenue NW
  • and to eliminate additional Area Redevelopment Plan amendments unrelated to the associated rezoning brought forward by Charter Bylaw 19463
Administration is working with the applicant to determine how they want to address this motion through revisions to the application and when something has been received, the City will carry out consultation on the proposed changes.

 
Demo and site prep underway
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