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Seniors housing have different treatment
Submitted by Cezary on Mon, 23/11/2020 - 5:06pm
I applied for rezoning to build a 40 unit condo for seniors. One of the requirements from the city was that I complete a traffic study. My question is, why am I required to do a traffic study for my proposed senior housing project when there was no traffic study required for the 38 unit affordable housing project for young people plus city hall on the Emcon lot? Why are the requirements different for senior housing and affordable housing/city hall? From my understanding, traffic will be more dense for a 38 unit apartment building without underground parking plus city hall than senior housing. The project on the Emcon lot has already received a development permit without a traffic study.My question to the mayor and the rest of city council is why are you discriminating against seniors who have paid taxes in Rossland for most of their lives? And what is going to be the next requirement you give me to delay my request for a rezoning application? Town: Rossland, BC Photos:
 
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I'm just gonna toss this out there.... but did you ask mayor and council?
i think you have a cool project in the works, but if you want make it a reality then you will have to play by the city's rules to get it done. Some of the rules might not make sense but I'd wager they exist for a reason.
In my experience mayor and council are happy to explain things if you approach them in a civil manor!
when I'm old and decrepit I hope to some day look out my window over cook ave and shake my fist at the clouds as they listlessly float by.
Sounds like you could use the assistance of a land development consultant.
I have stayed off Bhubble for the obvious reasons, it's not a particularly civil place. However, since Cezary had sent me this same email this morning, and I responded to him via email at 10:30am but despite that, he posted it here this evening, I think it does the community a disservice not to see my response. So here it is:
Hi Cezary, thanks for your question.
There are several differences between your project and the Mid town development which is why a traffic study is required for your project. As you have probably read from the material posted on our website for the Midtown lot development: CTS the transportation consultant wrote: “the maximum volume of traffic forecast for both land use scenarios is Option B (medical offices and apartments), is 53 vehicles during the weekday afternoon peak hour (i.e. 21 vehicles inbound and 32 vehicles outbound). This is equivalent to an average vehicle demand of less than 1 vehicle per minute, which from a traffic engineering point of view is considered minor. Of note, the Ministry of Transportation & Infrastructure’s warrant for requiring a traffic impact study for a proposed development is 100 or more new vehicle trips. Therefore, the proposed development does not meet this warrant”. That is one reason a traffic study was not done but there are other factors too.
In the Midtown example, the surrounding area is a mix of Light Industrial, Public and Institutional and Residential zoning and the majority of concerns expressed from neighbours were around parking so the City undertook a parking study but did not require a traffic study. For the Cook Ave site, the surrounding area is all zoned Residential and many concerns have been expressed about increased traffic (and parking) so the City has required a traffic study. This is also because the zoning is not only for 40 units on the south side of the property, it will also include 12 additional units on the north side as, from what I understand, you have asked to retain the existing zoning on that lot.
The City can require a traffic study regardless of whether it meets the requirements of one under MOTI. As an example, we also required one for the initial Evergreen proposal which was for 21 single family homes (although the traffic study did explore other higher densities too). In general, the City has asked for a traffic study both when the density increases and when the majority of concerns expressed by the surrounding residential neighbourhood is about traffic. This is the case with the Cook Ave project.
It is also important to note that this request has nothing to do with the fact that your proposal for seniors housing. I agree that seniors housing is a real need in our community and I hope your project is a success. The traffic study is to provide input regarding neighbourhood impact and address concerns that have been voiced. I hope this provides some clarity.
Thanks for getting in touch.
km
Everybody knows that this was an elementary school site, right? Lots of traffic. Half of the seniors here won’t have vehicles. Really, a traffic impact study??
The City's Transportation Study was done in mid-June to assess winter impacts. The City also approved receipt of a parking study that included privately held land the Shovel uses for parking. Who is reviewing these documents?
The first comment at the Public Hearing surrounding EMUD was a request for a Traffic study to assess the impacts on that neighbourhood prior to approving the rezoning and it was ignored. Now the City is going to require an actual developer to do a $10,000 study that isn't required because it can?
While the cost is trivial in relation to the overall value of the developments, certainly the voices of both neighbourhoods are equally important. Good governance comes from administrative fairness, not deciding subjectively when to ask questions, and when to listen.
Wouldn't everyone have arrived at the elementary school in horse and buggy?
Sorry, I meant the old cook ave school Lot where the proposed seniors building. That was an elementary school with lots of traffic. I question the need for a traffic impact study here at this location.
Sorry, I meant the old cook ave school Lot where the proposed seniors building. That was an elementary school with lots of traffic. I question the need for a traffic impact study here at this location.
The answer is there in the Mayor's reply:
"In general, the City has asked for a traffic study both when the density increases and when the majority of concerns expressed by the surrounding residential neighbourhood is about traffic. This is the case with the Cook Ave project."
KD, to live at that Senior's housing complex, one would really need access to a car for grocery shopping. Most seniors aren't going to be walking up that hill to get to Ferraro's to shop. And for those who do not drive, they will need visitors (e.g. family, support workers, etc.) to be picking them up for appointments, shopping, delivering groceries, etc. And as people age in place, and require personal home support services, there could be several visitors per day - so adequate visitor parking is needed too. The gradients to access downtown could be too steep to be managed with a powered mobility device such as a scooter or electric wheelchair, certainly during the winter months.
Schools have predictable peak traffic patterns, so one can't accurately compare the impact of school traffic to that of a residential housing complex.
Truly, the best location for seniors housing is in the downtown area, e.g. like Esling Park Lodge, with an easy flat walk to the shops. But it would still be great to see more options like this in Rossland, so I hope that it can be done properly and the community concerns adequately addressed.
And I hope the developer has also considered the location and how to address the needs of the residents who cannot drive.
Kathy, I agree with you that it does the community a disservice to not see your response. It does raise flags for me that despite receiving a response, the post made it to bhubble under the pretense of complaining about not getting questions answered by the city.
There are no age restrictions for residents in this building, so while there may be some seniors, there will also be singles, couples and families with children who may have more than one vehicle. The requirement for a traffic study for a multi-generational condo building, with 1, 2 & 3 bedroom units, in the middle of a single family residential area seems reasonable.
http://www.rossland.ca/sites/default/files/city-hall_public-notice_trans...
I agree with KD, the traffic study makes no sense. I'd pick up our boy after school, 25+ years ago, and it was always busy. Whats changed???
I'd say plenty has changed in 25 yrs.
to me it's pretty simple. If you want to go forward with a project like this, (or any building project for that matter) you have to play by the rules that have been put in place. Weather you think they make sense or not, these rules are not made up for no reason.
> I'd pick up our boy after school, 25+ years ago, and it was always busy. Whats changed???
LOL
Like, ... school has been closed for 18 years demolished 13 years ago?
Also my question about this being an age restricted building hasn't been answered. So I'm assuming this is a regular apartment building. In a low density residential neighbourhood. A traffic study seems reasonable. As it's at least 100 extra cars driving and parking
On the surface this proposal seems rosy. My skeptical brain has a hard time getting past the dangling of the "senior's housing" carrot on the brochure when market housing is what it is. That and the approach to complain via bhubble on the process doesn't seem like a winning move.
If seniors housing is the objective, perhaps partnering with a player in that industry is the answer. For example, Vendure who have their ducks in a row with the proposed seniors complex in downtown Nelson. Or if "affordable" seniors housing is the goal, then BC Housing subsidies via a not-for-profit is the way to go like Esling, Golden City Manor, LCAHS.
Personally I'm still sour about the past council that turned down aquiring this property for nothing when surplusses by SD20.
I agree, Dipper. I also hope they have at least consulted an Occupational Therapist on the design of the bathrooms and other key features that will allow for aging in place and adapting/modifying for wheelchair and walker access for people of all sizes.
My comment above was a cut and paste from Rossland Talks. (Feels a little like ground hogs' day!). Also important to note that the partnership between the City and the Lower Columbia Affordable Housing Soicety (who is building the housing and paying taxes) is an important one. Both organizations save money by working together. Without the City the housing would not happen. There cannot be housing on the first floor and the City would not be giving away land. We are providing space above City Hall for the housing to be built. Please, look at the material on the City's website. Thanks. We are paying for our share (City Hall, NOT housing) through selling the old city hall property on Columbia, selling surplus lands elsewhere (3rd Ave), and using reserves. We will benefit by getting both sales proceeds and tax revenue on the properties we sell as well as on the housing project on the Emcon lot in perpetuity. Yes, initially, Council will consider giving the Lower Columbia Affordable Housing Society a break on their taxes for the first 5 years. This will be a council decision and it has not been made yet.
Couple other myth buster notes, while I'm here: the City outgrew our existing building on Columbia a number of years ago and had been planning to make a move anyway (before the ceiling collapsed). The ceiling collapse was not because the City did not shovel, the City has done its due diligence with both sites. (Emcon and Columbia). The City is required to get elector assent for any project if we were incurring a long term debt, (we are not). We are not required to do so because any number of people signed a petition alledging factually incorrect statements. The project could still fail once it goes to tender if the bids come in too high. We could then go to the public and see if we all wanted to borrow money, or cancel it. I'm trying to think of some of the other false things that have been said, but I can't think of them at the moment. BTW, and this I found very interesting, according to the Province, as of 2018 our population is now 3,909. In 2016 we were 3,729. Rossland is a very attractive and wonderful community for lots of people. :) We need housing.
And Dipper, I agree, the City missed a huge opportunity to get the Cook Ave site when it had the chance. However, from my position of having been on city council for 12 years (and as a 20 year resident, looking at it from the outside and the inside) it's hard to get a clear picture of what the Council of the day was thinking, what the concerns they were considering and what other challenges were on their plates. I will cut them some slack.
I never set out to be the bhubble terrorist that some (rightly) perceive me to be.
I offer short words of apology to all that feel like I have ever invalidated them or their work. I believe when I first began writing here, I was intent to allocate blame to anyone I could fathom responsible for inarguably upholding a devolved society; or better, I seeked to actualize the blame in any way possible. The reality is that there is no one person or human concept that can be blamed for the issues facing today's society and its govt. The govt of today has the same problem as the long-gone govts of the past, simply put: they dismiss and crucify philosophers thereby subsequently disregarding and devaluing philosophy; this is not perceived to be intentional but simply a by-product of many other considerations; simplification aside, the idea of a crucified philosopher is an accurate visualization of why societies have been failing since their inception. (One reflects upon the devolution of God that humans are upholding: the purest ideal is now actualized as an arm of states.) No philosopher ever has ever claimed to know every answer to the world's problems, but many have tried to reach such a point; the general consensus among philosophers is that the answers to humanity's issues require far more thought than is being given. A philosopher can be anyone. The state will always be the enemy of philosophers until it starts spending more time solving the all-encompassing problems that philosophers have been reducing and placing infront of them for thousands of years. The state will be the enemy of all sensible modern humans until it protects its citizens against the organized group of states and corporations that are seeking to seize all land and life production on Earth; - for the will of the pen is much mightier than the will of the atomic bomb for the pen rests in the hands of the righteous.
Advanced technology presents either the doom of mankind or its transcendence. Crucifying people that speak this truth will not change the fact that advanced technology requires deep and far-reaching analysis and that for that to happen, some form of speedbump is needed. What kind of speedbump and what kind of analysis? It should be up to the state to figure that out.
Humans, those in today's society especially, are susceptible to become mostly-thoughtless pawns of society and state; while their exceptionality may remain after the transition to their fabricated reality, it is difficult to discuss politics and the guiding concept of philosophy with these people; the main reason for this difficulty is because these unfortunate humans solve cognitive dissonance with fabricated and completely-irrelevant reasoning; "carbon emissions" are a great example of this; "trickle-down economics" another. I argue that this perpetual shoring of cognitive dissonance with more cognitive dissonance is causing a negative paradoxical effect upon emotional intelligence on Earth - a considerable issue in of itself. Ideally, I would respect these shackled humans as much as I would anyhuman that seeks to crucify philosophers, but instead I work to recognize that they are my fellow humans and that I wish them enlightenment.
The issue being debated in this post is: the implementation of city planning ideals. The main underlying consideration is: what worth, if any, does today's aimless bureaucracy present. The ideal behind a traffic report is that of city/society planning and so everyone in agreement with developped society should be in agreement with the idea of a traffic report. The issues found in the implementation of this particular traffic report are parts of issues that span our entire society. As Fletcher stated: "we need to uphold administrative fairness": this society is so deeply disorganized and aimless that any govt official can easily be dominated in a debate, and rightly so; by all available indicators, govt officials in Canada uphold a logic and values system that they (1) cannot define and (2) that if they could define, they would never impose upon their own family. Fletcher presents an opportunity, or at the very least a symbolic concession, to begin the subverision of our poorly managed country that no one is taking accountability for nor confronting its core issues.
The standards our mayor is being held to are simply not reasonable. Virtually all of the issues that have ever been debated by govt officials have and are based in fabricated realities and this thread is a particularly poignant example; in this case, the mayor/concil/whatever fragmented representation of the state- made a decision seemingly dictated by their books; of course not in any books worth reading, not that anyone has the time required to read and understand them, but presumably from the same books that cover regulating people's existences (as long as its easy), imposing the scam of globalization upon the masses, and just making boring modern societies that are doomed in general. Rossland's state faction is being targetted by some in this thread like I had apologized for earlier: people who recognize the underlying issues of our warped bureacracy are seeking to actualize their disposition; in this case, and as usual, they are being opposed by other people who haven't found a strong enough reason not to uphold the things they see and hear. In my opinion (which aims to represent the opinion of all of humanity) the mayor has made questionable decisions, some regarding drinking water, but there is simply only so much that the mayor can be held accountable for in regards to (1) the things that they are simply in the middle of and (2) the systemic issues that have likely caused a fabricated reality around them. Nothing in Rossland as of yet warrants sabotaging state property and/or carrying out assassinations - in fact the complete opposite, I submit that at face value, Rossland is a pedestal upon which 2000 kings queens and others reside; if we started acting accordingly, our town could be an entire chapter in the history books, and that's reality.
My opinion on traffic reports under consumer-cycle society is: traffic is just another component of fabricated classism. Either we need places for 20 billion people to live or we don't. If you're gonna do limitless profit, at least do it right; either humans are uncaring pawns that don't deserve choice and consideration or they are not: as of now, it seems like this is to be decided over the next 100 years by the state (who seemingly plans on utilizing devices like carelessness and chance to make their decision). Traffic reports would be easily solved under a properly engineered society. (And I promote engineered societies because I am assuming advanced technology will never be entirely rejected and so it is best that us humans get out in front of the robots before the state carries out their decision-making process for us. Ideally and contrary to engineered societies, humans would simply recognize that the best things in life are free [at least for now] and act accordingly; a very difficult realization to make though.) My opinion on the particular traffic report of this post is that the situation is clear enough to easily concieve the traffic implications the development presents and so the traffic report is a formality, and formalities have value, so it is up to the state as to what seems reasonable; if the state is making bad decisions, isn't being transparent, and/or they are referencing a book that is 2-1/2 miles thick that contradicts itself from one page to another, then we cannot expect the state to be reasonable. Moving forward, to avoid situations in the future identical to this one and wasting our time, we should aim to start thinking, can we do that? (no disrespect intended [and no trash talking please]).
I had a lengthly conversation about mistakes today, essentially: mistakes exist on the spectrum of purposeful to accidental. The extreme on one side is the direct commision of evil and on the other side are mistakes that are forced because of circumstances given from the past. If "the majority" in "our democracy", a group that definitely "isn't brainwashed", wants to be reduced to engineered products and they never want to see the natural world ever again then what power do I have over these "decisions"? Some philosophers promote the encouragement of the aimless traffic reports in the hopes that the system will simply just collapse; leaving humans unchained once again to again build more terribly designed societies
- as long as there's fruit trees and sex and free thought, I'm in.
Best Regards
Cezary,
My issue with this is you are pushing this as seniors housing. It is not, so please stop being misleading and call it what it is. An apartment building, just like the Nickleplate ones. Seniors can buy those apartments too but they are not seniors housing, just like this isn't. Please stop misleading people so they think it's affordable seniors housing. Which this is neither of
NotRude/Howser
You should consider taking your talents to Twitter. Being a philosopher yourself, you must be familiar with Marx' Law of transformation of Quantity into Quality.
The leap ain't gonna be easy, but hey, it can be done. Your post was 9,000+ characters. Let's round it down to 8,192. For the month of December you can limit yourself to 4,096, in January, to 2,048 and so on. Come spring, you will be below 280 character limit, but there is no reason to stop the challenge.
I have an idea. Please send all questions to the Rossland Telegraph. Sarah Golling will interview me and everyone will be happy. Sarah has my phone number.
Cezary, it seems that there is only one question, why can't you just answer it here? It seems pretty simple. Will there be an age restriction on the building? If not, then please stop calling it Seniors housing.
I have not read through all these comments but my feeling is that the traffic will not be an issue. Thompason Ave is probably the bussiest street in lower Rossland and no issues there as speed signs are obsevered. Also anyone who thinks the Senios in Rossland won't want to walk up to town does not know how active the senior population in Rossland is....take a walk out Centennal or up to KC and you will see many seniors. This apartment building is for independent living residents and there isnothing like a good walk to keep you healthy. I am all for this development as more and more senions are moving elsewhere for lack of places to downsize to.
Sam V or Cesary? Will there be an age restriction on your building?
It's a good PR idea to generate (free) interest in your project by suggesting people send their questions to rossland news. I trust the savings genarated from avoiding a traffic impact study will be forwarded on to seniors but why not jump through the administrative hoops even if it's solely to gain the trust and collaboration of your future neighbours? I'm not sure why but there is a general sense of distrust around your project.
I'm not a neighbour- but we are all connected;)
Good points by SamV. Rossland has a tremdous shortage of accomodations for Seniors to down size to or for almost seniors who for reasons, can not maintain a yard to the point of making it look repectable. So most move out of town.