By Pepper Parr
March 26th, 2021
BURLINGTON, ON
If Burlington is going to have high rise residential towers – and they are planned for properties around the GO stations – could they at least be interesting, inviting and innovative?
Vaughan is scheduled to get a three tower development that will involve several developers.
This is what they have in mind.
To Steve: Glass & stucco are both the cheapest. Some of these glass structures with soon look like 3rd world property’s. No disrespect to those people living in these nations.
Agree with C.Ariens on the futility of high-rise “skins”.
If you’d like to see an enlightened Canadian’s perspective on the design of liveable cities, check out Not Just Bikes on youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC0intLFzLaudFG-xAvUEO-A
It’s a very eye-opening analysis of the Netherlands vs North America when it comes to urban infrastructure.
At the rate we’re going, Burlington is poised to become another Mississauga.
I echo the need for Shopping without cars in Chris A. above-these condos do nothing to minimize traffic, encourage neighborhood shopping, Burlington was developed as a ‘Commuter town’. in the 60’s and neighborhoods were created to support the houses-Schools, shopping plazas etc.. Now tax dollars, Provincial directives are forcing OUR communities to fight the loss of Local supportive service ..Is this ‘City Planning’ OR just another tax grab? Or another ” well the Province says”. When will we the residents have a say about the sustainable future of our communities beyond Downtown and the Toronto builders? Note even in To they left a grocery store and they fixed the flood for paving after Hurricane Hazel 1950. .We have not learned that either Still paving the parking lot on a Flood plane.
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High rises today look like goldfish bowls. Talk about major heat loss and just wait 20 years when the seals in all those glass panels fail. I guess glass is cheaper to build with.
Not something I would move into.
I wouldn’t say the pictured development is either interesting or innovative. It’s the same glass box as what’s being built everywhere, with balconies arranged like an outer skin to create a design.
What’s more important is the design elements on the ground. Are their retail shops where the people living in these development can buy their necessities? Is it an interesting place for pedestrians to walk by and shop? Can the people who live here access services and recreation safely and conveniently without having to get in their cars and congest traffic even more than it is already? Are there street trees to provide shade and comfort?
I’ve visited the Vaughan Metro Centre a couple of times, the main drawback is everything’s so massive, buildings are still quite far apart and surrounded by busy roads, bus depots and surface parking lots (which presumably will be developed later). While it touts itself as ‘walkable’, everything’s being built to make it much more convenient to drive, and therefore I don’t see a lot of people walking. Even once you get in the subway station, it’s so big that you’re still a few minutes away from the platform to get on the train. There’s green painted bicycle lanes all over, but few people using them. There’s really nothing to make it worthwhile at ground level as far as a reason for people to be there. Either they’re going to the subway station to go Downtown, or they’re getting in their cars. Hopefully that’s not the model the developers looking to build around our GO stations are following, because it really needs to be more human-scaled.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder Pepper!