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HomeMy WebLinkAboutEDAC - 2017-08-23 ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES August 23, 2017 City of Kitchener The Economic Development Advisory Committee met on this date with the following members present: Mark Bingeman, Andrew Head, Jason Malfara, Sandra O’Hagan, Anthony Zammitt, David Billedeau, Johanna Classon- Romero, Danielle Deveau, Jeremy Auger Staff in attendance: Tracey Murray, Brian Bennett, Cory Bluhm, Valerie Bradford, Kim Feere, Dayna Edwards Business Items 1. Queen Street Placemaking Cory Bluhm provided the committee with an overview of the options for the redevelopment of Queen Street. He advised that Council has endorsed the plan and staff are looking at funding options. Council and the BIA will discuss over the next few months to determine exactly how much money should be spent. The committee provided the following feedback: - Support the extra million to improve the aesthetics - Murals – could we do a public engagement competition for the public to get involved? – Cost of the murals is not high in relation the overall cost. Getting the community involved and having an artist do the work may be an idea – making sure it’s a local artist. Green wall half way up the walls then the mural will help deter vandals. - More places to sit and encourage positive atmosphere. Redoing the green is very important - Construction in the area and the impact of the businesses on queen street needs to be taken into consideration - Providing the community and arts / culture community with a nicer place to come to may encourage use of the space outside of any programming - The high end look will be great for festivals but it may just make the current users happy - Queen Street is a main road to the hospital so it can never be closed so some of the aesthetics may be a waste of money - Historically Canadian government decisions are based on making everyone happy but the American approach picks winners. It might be a good idea to push the envelope and pick a winner. - We are concerned about things that have a low economic cost in the project but a high value of return on investment. - The LRT activity is important to consider at this location as well. - Take into consideration on what the other streets look like so that it is consistent - Ensure that if there is extra money being spent that this is actually the right location to do that - Keep in mind the potential redevelopment potential of the larger parcels of land in proximity of the location - Take the opportuntiy now to do it right - There have been substantial investment already from building owners and the space needs to catch up - Maybe it’s not spending too much but just doing what needs to be done and nothing fancy - Considering the laneways is important and it’s a fairly simple fix to hanging the lights and encouraging a more welcoming feeling - Having a phased approach to improvements may make more sense 2. Tall Buildings Fall of 2014 council asked staff to provide tall building guidelines. Staff wanted a policy that worked well within the region and made sense overall. They held stakeholder and public engagement sessions. These sessions identified the importance of design. Developed a statement of expectations for tall buildings. Overview of the milestones with the guideline expected to be approved by council in December 2017. Brief overview of what has been done - Study looked at building across north America in municipalities that are similar to Kitchener - Input from the market industry experts to ensure there is no potential impacts Feedback – are you hoping the region adopts these guidelines too – we currently have an urban design manual and this will be incorporated into that manual and that provides staff with the tools to approve the designs and the industry has a knowledge of what is expected Any idea of how many tall buildings are planned projections – planning wouldn’t have that information. With the closure of the dc exemption in the next 18 months this document will be very important looking past that it is hard to say. Flexibility built into this document is a good thing, The doc is designed in a way to look at site by site approval ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE MINUTES August 23, 2017 City of Kitchener 3. Shape DTK 2020: Cory Bluhm advised the committee that Shape DTK 2020 was approved by Council and the next steps are to develop implementation of the plan. 4. An update on the Creative Hub was provided, noting that staff did not receive a proposal that met all of the criteria set out in the RFP. Staff will now work directly with the community and partners to develop a collaborative model. 5. The committee was asked to provide input on their satisfaction with the Economic Development Advisory Committee so far. Members suggested identifying agenda items as information or recommendation items, ongoing updates on CroZby and including planning staff to gain a more solid connection on developments. 6. Multi-Modal Trail Link and Station John Hill, Region of Waterloo, provided an overview and background presentation on the hub. Committee members provided the following feedback:  Have you built any mechanisms in the process to safeguard to protect who the successful proponent is? There are safeguards in place, scoring system will be developed well  What type of building design is the Region looking for? The region has been looking at the project as a phased improvement project and they are focusing on the podium level and the towers will be the private sector. There will also be a district energy audit done On motion, the meeting adjourned at 1:00 p.m. Tracey Murray Committee Administrator