I’m a little disturbed by the new downtown plan you’ve posted on the Guelph city website. Mostly disturbed by plans to repeat some of the grievous mistakes that have ruined neighbourhoods and areas in previous plans. My foremost concern is the former Woods site. The plans for huge towers will ruin one of our best and most community-oriented neighbourhoods, the Ward. We’ve had so much of our river stolen from the public over the years by development, that it is an extremely rare circumstance that we get any back. But we aren’t getting barely any back in the plan’s narrow trail, that edges the river, and is surrounded by massive towers; this plan is completely inadequate and will only create a dark, and potentially dangerous space. All one has to do is look at the south side of the river between Neeve and Lower Wyndham and see how much potential public space was ruined by the enclosure created by the towers on Howitt and Neeve. The setback from the river, combined with the excessive height of the building creates an almost perpetually dark area, that is unfriendly and not publically utilisable. Would you walk there at night? The setbacks from the river for development need to be at least doubled in order to make this space a workable public way to enjoy our river.
Look at the river from behind the towers on Cardigan street. While our trail is scheduled to go through there, the space is claustrophobic and is filled with grafitti and litter – mostly due to the fact that the towers practically enclose it and thwart use by the public. In addition, these towers cast a massive shadow over the Arthur street neighbourhood – lowering property values, and inviting absentee landlord issues. This is what you are currently planning to do to the South Arthur street neighbourhood. Do you want to recreate these same problems, and permanently destroy the west end of the Ward further? Becauser I can ensure you that is what will happen. Can’t we get some area of our river reclaimed for an actual utilisable space? And not just token ‘strips’ of land along the river’s edge?
Study after study has shown that three to four story medium density housing provides the best combination of sense of community, while offering sensible, environmentally-sensitive land use. Whose decision was it to install massive high rises? Was the public consulted on this? Your website’s ‘ Provide your comments on the directions of the Downtown Secondary Plan’ currently says ‘survey is disabled’. Furthermore, I also find it somewhat disturbing that a massive part of the Ward is now considered “downtown”? By whose caprice did this happen? Was there a referendum? Were every resident in your ‘ten minute walkable radius’ consulted? I certainly wasn’t, so I’m presuming others weren’t
This current plan fails the downtown citizens of Guelph in very real, and dramatic ways. Please readdress these issues and allow us to have our voices heard. TB~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We are still in the process of receiving comments as we start to draft the Secondary Plan. We are at the directions stage and have not finalized the plan.
The survey on the website should be working now. I am sorry that it was down. Residents are also more than welcome to mail or email comments directly to myself.
Additional public meetings on the Secondary Plan are planned for the in the upcoming months as we work towards establishing the Secondary Plan. The next meeting is planned for on April 27th is meant to focus specifically on the portion of the Ward neighbourhood within the Downtown Secondary Plan Area. I have attached the notice to this email.
The area of the Downtown Urban Growth Centre were established by the Province through its Places to Grow plan (https://www.placestogrow.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=111&Itemid=15). Staff