I've said it before, but this type of infill works against the City's goals of higher density/TOD in the City. It becomes something people can point to and say "well, we don't want that in our neighbourhood", and it's hard to disagree.

Why?

What's it called when you value engineer a building that was already value engineered?

New and improved, now with 80% less window, 100% less glazing, and 50% percent more stucco!

For comparison. Initially I was going to say that they managed to cut down the size of the parkade at least, but honestly the parkade is a pretty similar size. Still baffling that the parkade is bigger than the building itself:

You can do duplexes, but if I remember correctly, that actually reduces the number of units per lot, as you can't have secondary suites in duplex units. The mayor has proposed a few different policies on 6 units per lot, but the last time it went to council in 2020 it was rejected. It will...

The Vancouver map is pretty misleading tbh. The "single family" zone that's in most of the yellow area is comparable to Edmontons, with up to two secondary units allowed on a lot. It's still not enough, but if the mature areas of Edmonton don't count as single family zoning, neither does Vancouvers.

I passed earlier this week and I can confirm that yes they did. The colour pallet isn't quite as bad as the renders because they're a little more muted, but it's still just a stucco box that will age poorly.

Just because it's student housing doesn't mean it has to look like cheap student housing. The londonderry social housing project looks much better than this. Should thet have made a point to make it look worse just because it was social housing? I'm tired for this apologetics for cheap design...

At this point, in future lines the engineers just need to copy whatever design they used in Vancouver for the raised skytrain sections. I don't recall any of the newer lines running into these types of issues, and with the seizmic issues need to account for a lot more. It should be easier and...

I'll be honest, I never really dug into the agreement itself much so I'm unfamiliar with the details. Other than money, what responsibilities are in the City's jurisdiction? The put stipulations for delays/overruns into the agreement, but is there actually anything else that can be done at this...

And what is the City supposed to do in this situation? City staff are not involved in design and construction, how can they take responsibility? Would you like them to somehow void the p3 agreement and take over the project? People wanted P3 because "the government can't be trusted, and isn't...

Hmmm seems like nowhere is well suited for a parking ramp. I guess the only solution is zero parking.

1. It's splitting hairs because in Vancouver, as in Edmonton, even if there's technically separate arms that work on land development vs. home building, they are still highly interconnected. Even if Coventry homes for example could go develop in Blatchford, they likely never would, unless the...

Not the best satellite image, but its great to see 4 holes within 5 blocks in this March Google update:

Maybe it's just because I work in Vancouver where the distinction between land development and building development is less obvious, but this seems to be splitting hairs. You seem to be suggesting that because development arms of a company specialize in different areas, that the fact that...

Not the most interesting building, but it's a good scale

Isn't it also a case of Edmonton developers not being willing to change the type of product they are selling? Many of the suburban developers have a system that works for them when it comes to greenfield development. Why would they take a risk on a new type of development? Until fairly recently...

Off topic, but from what I understand, the reason castles in places like France and Scotland are (relatively) cheap is due to the high upkeep costs, and the large amount of upgrades usually needed to make them liveable. They're extremely hard to heat/cool, they probably don't have running water...

....wow such an efficient use of land