Whoops. Didn’t mean to take quite this long of a hiatus from city hall updates. There was a stretch in the summer where meetings became kind of infrequent and I got lazy. Next thing you know, a few weeks worth of meetings have gone by and I haven’t blogged a word about them.
I’m back at it now though. I promise. And as I ease myself back into the habit, I’m lucky in that there isn’t a lot going on this week….
Wednesday, October 27
REGINA PLANNING COMMISSION (4 pm): First up, RPC will look at an application to build a three-story commercial complex at 3425 Tregarva Dr E. The top two floors will be for offices and the ground floor will most likely be used for retail. I imagine the folk in the apartment block across the street are happy it’s going up because presently all they have to look at is the big blank ass-end of the Vic East Walmart.
Judging by the drawings in the report, I don’t hate the building. Shanghai Chengxiang Architectural has managed to design something that looks modern but has some character and texture. It’s a big improvement over the usual ugly slabs you seem to get out in the big-box boondocks.
After the jump, condos by Central Park and building proposals by me and my daughter….
Next up is a proposed 39-unit condo complex to go up on the 2200 block of Scarth Street. That’d be across the street from Central Park where Jestures Restaurant used to be. Most of the community comments that came in were in support of this development. One complaint was that it’d sure be nice to see more affordable housing going up in this neighbourhood instead of it all being condos and, you know, fair enough… But as the report points out, the city has no power to force affordable development. So basically, all we can do is throw our hands in the air and lament the sorry state of our housing market — alas — because it’s just a hapless thing getting tossed about on the stormy seas of fate.
Third on the agenda is a proposal for a one-story office complex at 2210 2nd Ave that looks to be a shoo-in for next year’s Best Of in the Perfunctory Architecture Category. Wow. Congratulations, gentlemen! That bad boy is so long and flat and featureless it’s practically two dimensional.
Don’t believe me? Have a look…
You know how when you go to an art museum, often there’s one of those guys who’s probably been dragged there by his girlfriend or grandmother and when he comes upon his first piece of abstract expressionism he sniggers and says, “I coulda done that”? Well, obnoxious as that troglodyte is, I’d like to carry his dismissive attitude over to the field of architecture because, after looking at that 2nd Ave project, I have to say I totally could have designed that building.
No. Seriously. I also own a ruler. Here, allow me to demonstrate….
Okay, I only spent about 20 minutes on it so it’s a little rougher than you probably need to start putting shovels into dirt. But you see where I’m going. Towards the awesome.
Anyway. Here’s what my daughter came up with. It’s a little more abstract expressionist. But I think we can all agree it’s still, you know, an improvement.
After all that, the meeting winds up with a request to put up a couple nondescript duplexes at 254 and 258 Dalgliesh Dr.
And that’s it. If you want to marvel at all 52 pages of this week’s RPC report and maybe catch up on all the stuff I didn’t report on last week, or the week before that, or the week before that, etc, go to the city’s website.
