Ambitious
Ambitious
is the best way to describe the plan for the new Transit Hub, or the ‘Gateway
to Downtown Kitchener’, as it was described. This original rendering is WAY
beyond what I had anticipated, and the vision is exciting!
Last
night the School of Pharmacy hosted an open house and presentation for the
Transit Hub. Kevin Eby warmed the
crowd up with a great explanation of The region’s vision for the area. Glenn Scheels, gave us the meat of the
whole thing. He talked about some
of the important changes regarding zoning for the site. Then John Hill took over to cap off all
the things that we were thinking of, but never thought the planner would think
of.
I
have to say, after listening to each of them speak, I was inspired by their
vision. You can tell that these
people are invested in this project.
They are not looking for this to be a ‘building’, they genuinely seem to
view this as a Landmark. The vision
is for ‘DESIGN EXCELLENCE”. It’s
exciting!
One
of the residents asking a question, referred to taking his great grandkids to
the site. That thought is
exciting. They are not looking for
today, or tomorrow, or even 50 years from now, this will be a landmark in our
city.
While
I could drone on about the specific plan laid before us, I won’t. I felt while listening to the questions
from the residents that they were debating the final plan. It is not. It is the seed, the DNA, of what will be grown in this
community, and indeed in our neighbourhood. You can see the plan here, TRANSIT
HUB PRESENTATION BOARDS
I
could sense a real fear from some of the questions, that there is some
skepticism as to whether the Region, City, and Province can pull this off. I suppose I understand (remember the
Kitchener Market), but there seemed to be sense of responsibility for this
project. Like they (Planners) know
they can’t screw this one up.
The
important parts of this process that will make or break it are this.
- We must have
our best people working on this.
We need to have people that deeply understand our region as well as
regions around the world that have taken on this kind of ambitious
Landmark/Transit/Downtown projects.
We need to use local workers and materials wherever possible, and
we need to have a spectacular design.
- We need buy in
from the residents. We need
everyone that was at the open house, to submit his or her comments. We need all of our residents, and
especially those in our neighbourhood, to take the time and look at the
plans, and tell them what you think.
Good, bad or indifferent.
Sometimes a little kernel of a comment can pop into something
brilliant.
- We need to
understand that this is not the final plan, nor is there a price tag
attached to it. We need to
remember that this is a public space, and it will cost us money. There are no two ways about it. But remember this is a Landmark,
not a building.
I’m
excited, and I hope you are too.
This is a great boost for our community. We need to all participate in this process. The planners
seem to be listening, and in my past experience in these kinds of processes,
they do listen. Would you want to
build something that the residents don’t want?
So
please come out to all the meetings, answer the questionnaires and have your
say! You’ll be paying for it, so
might as well get a hand in the process.
Most of all, keep an open mind.
I heard a lot of negativity last night, and a lot of questions that no
one could possibly answer. We must
remember, this is the step after the City told us they have assembled the land
for a Transit Hub.
Lane
Burman
