Winnipeg Free Press,
Monday, January 20, 2003
By Leah Hendry
Attached garages and cul-de-sacs are out. Front porches, back lanes and talking to your neighbour are in.
The City of Winnipeg wants to promote a new way of thinking about neighbourhood planning.
With major developments being considered at two sites -- the Kapyong Barracks, and land west of Waverley Street and south of Bishop Grandin Boulevard -- the city wants to ensure they're done right.
Officials plan new guidelines that would create a sense of community, make it easier to cycle and walk, and plan for future demographic shifts.
While the guidelines would not be mandatory, a source said the city could steer developers with tax incentives, grants, better deals on the cost of land and financial breaks on services such as sewer and water.
"The sooner we can get these in place, the better," said Harry Finnigan, director of the city's property and development department. Finnigan will set up an advisory group to consider aspects such as zoning, environmental improvements and transit. Details of the group, such as its composition and timelines, haven't been decided.
Many of the guidelines are expected to encourage alternative forms of transportation such as bicycling and carpooling. Instead of revving up the car to go to work or the grocery store, retail and office development would be built nearby to encourage people to take the bus, cycle or walk.
Known as "smart growth" communities, areas such as River Heights embody many of the concepts the city wants elsewhere. The streets are narrow, the houses front onto streets lined with huge trees, the garages are tucked into backlanes and there are nearby parks and bike paths. These houses are snapped up as soon as they go onto the market.
In newer subdivisions such as Lindenwoods, the streets are wide enough to land a plane, said an expert in the development industry. Not only is it a huge waste of cement and space, but it creates an environment where the focus is on the garage, not the house.
"The houses are hidden behind private fences and there is nowhere to walk to grab the paper or a coffee," said the expert, who did not want his name used.
Public transit is also inefficient because the development weaves through a mish-mash of cul-de-sacs, dead-end roads and bays. "Most of the subdivisions are designed to move a car through to their house as fast as possible," said Andrew Cowan, the city's environmental co-ordinator.
In a perfect world, bike routes and walking paths could be linked up with transit stations. And planners would plan for the locations of video stores, gas stations, libraries and corner stores.
If a southwest transit corridor is built down Pembina Highway, the city will try to persuade developers to build a mix of apartments, infill houses and retail stores around major transit stations, said Cowan.
In anticipation of future development, the city could plant trees so that, by the time the subdivision is complete, the trees are mature. Retention ponds can also be landscaped to be urban skating rinks or canoeing ponds.
In cities such as Banff, developers are creating communities that are focused on technology, landscaping and houses that fit into a natural, mountain setting.
There are communities that can be built around recreation, with interrelated streams and waterways for fishing, swimming or canoeing or low-density communities that use wind or solar power to save energy.
Houses can also be oriented toward the sun on a south-southwest angle to take advantage of solar panels and heat-sensitive windows.
When Mike Scatliff grew up in Fort Garry, he remembers huge trees and kids playing out in the front street. Now most subdivisions look like a picture out of "Suburbia Magazine," he says. "You could shoot a cannon through and not hit anyone," said Scatliff, who is with Scatliff Miller Murray landscape architects. "The only thing you can hear is the air-conditioning blaring."
Scatliff said it's time for Winnipeg to start thinking outside the box. There are proven concepts for housing in cities such as Portland, Ore., which have helped turn them into one of the most beautiful places to visit in the inland northwest.
"If you are investing in the planning and designing of a neighbourhood, you can't nickel-and-dime it or leave it up to the developer to come up with a plan," said Scatliff. "We need to start building healthy communities instead of worrying how easy it will be to mow the lawn along the boulevard or clear the snow."
The city also needs to look at creating stable neighbourhoods, said Coun. Mark Lubosch, who sits on the city's environment committee.
The strongest neighbourhoods are a mix of housing, ages and incomes. With an aging population, properly planned communities become even more important.
"We don't want to have old people living in one area of the city and young people in the other," said Lubosch. "We need to have housing that not only appeals to young people, but to our seniors. If we don't, we'll continue to lose them to Kelowna."
So why has it taken Winnipeg so long to jump on the bandwagon? "It's almost like visiting a small town and hearing them play Twisted Sister at the bar," said one development expert. "You want to tell them that there are new bands out there, but it seems to have passed them by. In Winnipeg, most developers seem to be locked into doing things the same way they've always done them."
Ladco Co. Ltd. has the chance to break the mould.
Ladco is the developer in preliminary talks with the province and the city about a huge chunk of land in Fort Garry near the University of Manitoba. The development could include a series of parks connected by paths and bikeways, based on the natural coulee, and it could be landscaped to provide a natural link to the Fort Whyte Centre and the Canada Trail system.
The land west of Waverley could be the test case for the workability of environmental, modern neighbourhoods in Winnipeg.
Other ideas include setting aside 30 to 50 acres of land for a dedicated recreation area complete with bike and walking trails, soccer fields and possibly a future arena.
"We're willing to look at what the city wants to do and then pick and choose from the best ones," said Ladco president Alan Borger.
Ladco worked with the province earlier this year to develop the second phase of Royalwood. The company built around the natural forest and called in a division of Ducks Unlimited to figure out how to naturalize the shoreline and use native plants to attract ducks and dragonflies.
leah.hendry@freepress.mb.ca