As new subdivisions are planned for the largest remaining parcel of undeveloped land in the city, a veteran councillor does not want the mistakes of the past repeated on Fischer Hallman Road.
Coun. Berry Vrbanovic, who chairs the city’s planning committee, does not want to see Fischer Hallman turned into another arterial road choked with traffic and flanked by big-box-store parking lots where pedestrians and cyclists fear to go.
People want something different than what they get on the commercial strips of Victoria Street in Kitchener or Hespeler Road in Cambridge, he said.
“I think you can have arterial roads that still are entrances to a community and more people-friendly than perhaps some of the arterials in our region are today,” Vrbanovic said.
Vrbanovic supports the plans made public last week for the development of 430 hectares of land south of Bleams Road, and along Fischer-Hallman Road south to Huron Road.
“This community is based on a focal point along Fischer-Hallman,” said Julieane von Westerholt, a city planner. “Fischer-Hallman Road will act as the spine to this community.”
Compact, multi-storey buildings along Fischer-Hallman, with a mixture of office, residential and commercial uses, will provide the density of people to support frequent transit service.
West of Fischer-Hallman Road, the six communities that will be built are planned around what can be reached in a five-minute walk.
“In each area we will have a community amenity feature, such as a park or a school or a community centre, and all of those facilities will be within a five-minute walk of the individual neighbourhoods,” von Westerholt said.
Connecting the communities with trails and paths was a challenge because there is a wetland surrounded by farm fields just west of Fischer-Hallman, about midway between Bleams and Huron. The future of this block of land is not known at this time because further approvals by the Ministry of Natural Resources are needed.
Several developers took the City of Kitchener to a provincial tribunal that rules on land-use disputes — the Ontario Municipal Board — to speed up planning the subdivisions. For more than 18 months, city planners and developers met behind closed doors.
The big-picture plans are now done and can be viewed on the city’s website at www.kitchener.ca. The city wants to collect comments until July 15. On the website’s main page, go to Public Notices and under Public Consultations click on Southwest Urban Area Planning.
The plans are scheduled to be adopted by city council on Aug. 15.
The city wants these new neighbourhoods to be walkable, supported by transit, criss-crossed with trails and pathways and offering a mixture of commercial, residential, entertainment and personal services.
Fischer-Hallman Road is to be transformed into a high-density, mixed-use entranceway to the city, with bicycle lanes on both sides, sidewalks, safe routes for crossing, roundabouts and a transit hub just south of Huron Road.
Subdivision planning in the past tended to be based on arterial roads and cul-de-sacs — a design that poses problems for public transit and snow-clearing.
They were planned with the convenience of driving in mind. Services could be a long walk away.
But in an era of higher energy costs and greater environmental awareness, subdivision planning has changed.
The city’s plans for this area, known as the Rosenberg Neighbourhood, call for a density of 60 people or jobs per hectare. That is higher than called for in the provincial Places to Grow Act of 2005, which aims to curb urban sprawl.
It is also a higher than the density targets in both the city’s and region’s growth-management plans.
Brandon Sloan, a city planner, said Rosenberg must have a higher density if the city is to meet overall targets in the Places to Grow Act.
The higher density in Rosenberg will compensate for the lower densities in many existing subdivisions, Sloan said.
Unlike traditional suburbs, Rosenberg will have several roadways going in and out of the area. Instead of winding arterial roads and cul-de-sacs, streets will be laid out on a grid-like pattern.
Paul Britton, a partner in the planning firm MHBC, was generally supportive of the plans for Rosenberg.
“We are in substantial agreement,” said Britton, who represents several developers who own land there. “We are down to the nitty-gritty matters.”
by Terry Pender, The Record