“What no pic of city hall?” Not this week. Thought I’d change it up and if you’re wondering what’s with that rendering of a condo tower you’ll have to hang on until the RPC blurb.
Monday, March 8
CITY COUNCIL (5:30 pm): A representative from In-Pipe Technology will be making a presentation to council this week in an attempt to encourage the city to get on board with their sewage treatment system. In-Pipe is promising to reduce our carbon footprint and lower the costs of sewage processing. Yay. I think. I’d like to tell you what In-Pipe’s technology is that they’re so proud of but based on their submission, I’m none the wiser about it. This could get the award for the worst written, most vague submission to council that I’ve ever read. Looks like In-Pipe has a history with council so maybe if you’ve been following things for years you’d know what’s going on. Still, until I hear more, I’m staying skeptical of this technology.
Also up for consideration this week, the Water and Sewer Utility Budget will be presented for review and council will finally be deciding if it will keeping $42.4 million it borrowed for the Global Transportation Hub (and didn’t need) and reallocating those funds for capital projects.
Council will also receive a report from the mayor about the goings on at the Big City Mayor’s Caucus.
Wednesday, March 10
REGINA PLANNING COMMISSION (4:00 pm): The committee will be looking at a request to build the high-rise apartment building that’s in that picture at the top of the post. It’s slated to go up at 2055 Rose Street and if built it’ll replace a swath of surface parking. (Good riddance, I say.) The building looks pretty nifty — not really my cup of tea architecture-wise but I’ve seen worse — and according to the report it’s been built to conform (for the most part) to the Downtown Neighbourhood Plan even though that has yet to be incorporated into the Official Community Plan.
Looks like it’ll be condo units which isn’t a bad thing. But rental and especially affordable rental is what the city is really desperate for right now. Regardless, I’m glad to see some more residential slated for downtown — makes the place more lively — and I’ll be glad to see some surface parking disappear.
Natch, one of the concerns expressed to the Planning Department was over what this new tower would do to on-street parking in the neighbourhood because, of course, we must have copious amounts of parking or the world stops turning, but the building will have more than two stalls per unit built right into (ie, not splayed out over city blocks) the development, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
Anyway, looks like the Downtown Neighbourhood Plan is doing its job by encouraging developers to build better buildings. So, at present, I’m hopeful this is a good sign of things to come. What do you think? Am I crackers? Naive? Tell me, tell me.
As usual, you can download agendas and schedules on the city’s website.