Councillor Leanne Piper asks an important question on her Ward 5 Internet site. She posted a couple of conceptual photos of the downtown condo tower and wonders if this is the best we can do? My initial response was, I hope not. Our downtown deserves better.
There is a place for buildings of this height in Guelph, but not right downtown. An 18-storey building already exists in Guelph, out Woolwich at the Evergreen Seniors Centre. It fits in well, possibly because there are no other architecturally significant buildings there. It doesn’t have the over-powering presence it would have downtown.
Even if this is not the best we can do, it is the best we can expect. We are getting this tower, and four or five more. Council voted to approve the Downtown Secondary Plan a couple of weeks ago, and overwhelmingly approved this particular project on Monday. Only councillors Piper, Bob Bell, and Andy Van Hellemond said no.
The secondary plan, Piper says, “calls for preservation of the heritage core, enhanced public realm and parkland, commercial and residential intensification, and demands a high degree of urban design for new buildings. It calls for us to build beautifully.”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If the beholders are looking from a balcony on the upper condo floors, the view will be spectacular. Much less so if they are walking out of the River Run Centre across the road. Let’s not kid ourselves about “building beautifully.” Highrise apartment buildings are functional. They are not beautiful.
For the most part, the downtown plan is a good and progressive document. If there is a weakness it is that the beautification component, the riverfront parkland, is still many years out. It will take a long time for the city to save up the money to buy the two strip malls.
Will future generations drive by this tower and point to it as an example of greatness? I doubt it.
I have never heard anyone point to the banks on St. George’s Square and say how much nicer they are than the ugly old Customs House.
The nervous bits of this plan have all the makings of a huge mistake waiting to be made. When and if it is, there will be no turning back. It will not be fixable, any more than the mistakes of the 1960s could be. We need people in the city’s planning and site approvals chain with the foresight, strength and authority to tell the developers when they are not “building beautifully.”
Much of our downtown was destroyed in the ’60s. Not by fire, flood or other disaster, but by planners without a plan.
“We must accept these changes if we are to keep up our place in the modern world,” someone said in the Mercury.
Forty years later we are still being told we must change or perish.
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Clarification: Last Thursday’s column ruffled more than the usual amount of feathers. As I said in it, the opinions expressed in this column are mine alone.
However, there was a procedural error in the column. I said at one point that people intending to raise money for the library should check with the development officer. A few sentences later I said the approval of the chief librarian should be secured. An editing lapse on my part failed to correct this inconsistency. The development officer works for the chief librarian. All contact with library staff should be directed through the chief librarian.
The library is grateful for all expressions of support and welcomes contributions from everyone who shares the goal of strengthening this important public institution.