Waterloo Council moves ahead with Northdale improvement plan
Posted Nov 28, 2011 09:59:58 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Waterloo Council is moving ahead with a plan to reshape the Northdale neighbourhood.
Councillors approved a consultant’s report Monday night that included the Vision and Principles for the Northdale Land Use & Community Improvement Plan Study. The vision talks about revitalizing and reurbanizing Northdale into a diverse, vibrant and sustainable neighbourhood by 2029.
The overall goal of the plan is to create a vision for the neighbourhood, a land use plan, a community improvement plan, and design guidelines.
Chris Peace is chair of the Northdale Special Project Committee, a group of citizens and stakeholders who are providing input on the project. He says the committee unanimously supported the vision statement. “Everybody was really excited about the vision that was being painted by the consultant and the picture that we were given,” he explains.
Peace adds that there needs to be an integrated approach in Northdale that addresses a number of issues, “everything from street lighting, to the land use zoning bylaws, also support structures for the residents that are living there.”
There was concern expressed about the 2029 timeline by property owner Paul Ellingham. He says there’s been little done to improve the neighbourhood in the past decade and he would rather see a ten year timeline. “Let’s do what we can in ten years,” he says. “And then maybe we’ll actually get started.”
A public open house will be held in late January or early February to present the land use and urban design options. The recommended options will be presented at another open house in March and a final report is expected to go before council in May or June.
Read below for the full Vision and Principles contained in the report…
The Vision: “By 2029, Northdale is revitalized and reurbanized into a diverse, vibrant and sustainable neighbourhood, integrated with educational, residential, commercial, cultural, heritage and recreational functions, and improved open space, pedestrian, cycling and transit networks.”
The Principles: Northdale will be:
1. Integrated: Northdale is ideally situated within proximity to the Universities, Uptown, and major employers and will be integrated within the urban fabric of the City and surrounding community through improved transportation, cycling and pedestrian networks.
2. Diverse: Northdale will be a diverse, vibrant, mixed use and urban neighbourhood where residents live, work, learn and play. It will be comprised of a variety of housing types and tenures which provides affordable housing and accommodates a diverse demographic including students, families and professionals, and supportive commercial, employment, institutional and community services.
3. Identifiable: Northdale will have a unique, renowned identity as a place in which residents, students and professionals are inspired by their environment and the energy and creativity of Waterloo’s world-class Universities and employers.
4. Supported: Northdale will be an important opportunity for public and private investment and redevelopment as the neighbourhood evolves and urbanizes, and supported through appropriate infrastructure and services.
5. Memorable: Northdale will celebrate its cultural and built heritage resources through conservation, adaptive reuse and/or through contextual redevelopment which recognizes the community’s heritage resources, including the Veterans’ Green Park and housing, and retention of mature trees.
6. Interactive: Northdale will be enhanced through a network of additional parks, open spaces, walkways and improved streetscaping which provides for recreational, passive and community gathering spaces, which complement the Veterans Green Park.
7. Durable: Northdale will be a sustainable and environmentally progressive neighbourhood, and provide an exemplary level of quality architecture, urban design, public realm and open spaces that are robust and durable.
8. Safe: Northdale will be a safe neighbourhood which incorporates crime prevention through environmental design practices, and provides for street-related, ground floor animation areas, and building heights and setbacks which encourage ‘eyes on the street’, and through building designs and support services which enhance safety.
9. Flexible: Northdale will evolve and transition over time, as such the planning framework, regulations, buildings and land uses will be adaptive to changing market conditions, transportation, and housing needs.
10. Collaborative: Partnerships will be enhanced and forged between the City, Universities, developers, residents and landowners to facilitate synergies to further the redevelopment objectives and enhance the community.
