The Thunder Bay That Never Was

 

For all sad words of tongue and pen.

The saddest are these, “It might have been.”

John Greenleaf Whittier

 

As a result of its historic evolution from the twin cities of Fort William and Port Arthur, Thunder Bay has always had two former downtown cores that have been the focus of constant attempts at revitalization as well as a third commercial retail core in the former intercity area.  Three downtowns for a city of 125,000 is a lot of downtowns and yet the process of revitalization continues unabated.  The latest iterations are the recent local media stories dealing first with the downtown north core which being adjacent to the waterfront has emerged as the “entertainment” and “tourist” district.  A planned reconstruction of the downtown street here to emphasize walkability at a total of $13.2 million is now considerably above the original estimates.  And on the other side of town, there is another major streetscape project that is even more involved as it requires the complicated dismantling of the Victoriaville Mall which was placed on top of the major downtown intersection at Victoria and Syndicate.  This too will require many millions of dollars – about $11 million in one estimate - and is likely to see cost increases before we are done. 

 

The evolution of both downtowns has marked a return to more open street and pedestrian spaces that were blocked by the erection in the 1970s and early 80s by downtown street enclosing and blocking malls – Keskus on the north side and Victoriaville on the south. Keskus was finally demolished in 1999 to make way for downtown development centered on the arrival of the OLG Thunder Bay Charity Casino.  The result has been a more vibrant downtown area of shops and restaurants.  There is a similar expectation of this happening in the south side after the removal of Victoriaville Mall.  In the end, both downtowns along with the intercity area have evolved to some extent in a manner remarkably similar to the paths outlined in several Chronicle Journal newspaper articles and opeds authored in the late 1980s and early 1990s (CJ “Assign each city core its own specializations, Weds. July 26, 1989; CJ City at a Crossroads Series, November 16, 17 & 24, 1990).  That is “core specialization” with the north side downtown a “tourism-commercial” area given the presence of the harbour and waterfront, the south side downtown an “administrative-commercial” area given the concentration of city government there and intercity area as “commercial-industrial”. 

 

With some exceptions this is somewhat what has happened.  The former Port Arthur Downtown has a waterfront park and the arrival of the new Art Gallery will be an important addition to a critical mass of activities and functions making it a tourism and entertainment core.  The former Fort William downtown has City of Thunder Bay offices making it the administrative core.  Meanwhile, intercity has become the choice for new retail development.  At the same time, there is a lot of inconsistency given that the community auditorium is in the intercity area rather than in a spectacular waterfront setting, there is still a substantial city office and utility presence in the Whelan building in the north core and the main arena complex – the Fort William Gardens – remains in Fort William.  And then, a plethora of public buildings – Mini Queen’s Park, a new federal building, and the public health unit as well as assorted offices – went outside the Fort William Core to off of Arthur Street, the Balmoral Area and intercity.  However, given the long-established urban pattern and historical rivalry between the two twin cities, such is the weight of history and adjustment, and change takes a long time in Thunder Bay.  And there is the reality that private developers will develop land they own to realize a return and not necessarily to implement an urban planning vision.

 

Still, change has occurred but all of this change and development pales somewhat with the anticipated urban renewal and development plans of the 1960s.  Urban renewal gripped Ontario municipalities in the 1960s and the former cities of Port Arthur and Fort William commissioned consultants coordinated by engineering firm Proctor and Redfern to put together comprehensive studies and recommendations on their downtown cores.  They were comprehensive plans for renewal of the aging cores that included general land use, streets and traffic analysis, parking, pedestrian circulation, and transit that assumed that both downtowns would retain their comparative size and strength and remain centers of activity.  The Port Arthur Report was delivered in February of 1968 and the Fort William Report in April of 1969.  

 

 

 

The before and after illustrations are quite dramatic.  Port Arthur has plans for a dramatic waterfront park and civic centre and plaza, plans for streetscaping and a new senior complex.  Fort William’s downtown plan was even more ambitious with apartment blocks along Vickers Street, a new civic complex and riverfront park adjacent to the current city hall. The removal of the tracks along the Kam River was shown with a new thoroughfare and a set of high-rise riverfront dwellings along a park and boardwalk.  As for shopping, a new retail mall on land off of May Street to be called the Kam Center was proposed. As the accompanying illustrations show, the downtowns especially in Fort William were to be higher density areas and pedestrian intensive.  In many respects, the downtown areas would be “15 minute” cities with many services within walking distance of where people lived.

 

 

 

 

 

Alas, the reports presented an urban downtown picture that did not come to pass for a variety of reasons.  First, they of course were made immediately obsolete by the Amalgamation that fused the two cities together and the resulting politics created new initiatives that included two downtown malls as part of core revitalization.  Second, the plans failed to anticipate and realize the rise of the intercity area which after Amalgamation meant it was poised to be readily developed as the choice location given it was between the two population clusters.  Third, the 1970s much like the rest of the country saw a suburban housing boom that led to car intensive sprawl rather than infill in the downtown cores.  And finally, there was a massive overestimate of where Thunder Bay’s population was going given that the proposals assumed rather robust population growth for the Lakehead area that by 1986 was forecast under various assumptions to range anywhere from about 150,000 to 175,000.  Indeed, under such assumptions, Thunder Bay today would be well over 200,000 but such growth was not supported by the future evolution of either the city’s economy or its demographics

 

 

 

 

 

At the same time, the Port Arthur waterfront park envisioned in 1968 has in many respects come to pass though without the massive civic plaza.  And the rehabilitation of Arthur Street (now Red River Road) has occurred as well as the senior’s complex on Cumberland.  As for Fort William, the results are more disappointing in that there is no William McGillivray Boulevard skirting the Kam River and a riverfront park and boardwalk, or density high-rise housing along the riverfront or a new Civic centre adjacent to the current City Hall.  As for retail, the street blocking Victoriaville emerged in the late 1970s but not the proposed Kam Centre.  The urban reality that evolved reflected the needs and wants of the times as well as the political environment.  Still, it is fun to look back and wonder what might have been under different circumstances.  There may even be some ideas in those old plans worth exploring further.

Urban Density, Rules, and Thunder Bay

 

The big rage in urban policy these days is the 15-minute city – that is, living in an urban area where everything is 15 minutes away.  One could argue that Thunder Bay has been a 15-minute city for decades – no part of town is more than 15 minutes away by car.  However, the modern incarnation of the 15-minute city is one where most things one needs in the process of daily life – medical services, schools, retail, services, etc…- are within a 15-minute walk from where you live.  This used to be a feature of early cities that persisted well into the 19^th century but with urban growth and the advent of the automobile and suburbanization, we have moved away from that.

 

Nonetheless, Thunder Bay is also trying to move into the new age and part of that process involved its new Zoning By-law that passed in April of 2022.  While not ostensibly part of an official plan to build the 15-minute city, it is designed to encourage urban density.  Among other things, the plan levels “residential zoning across the city, opening the door for homeowners to subdivide any detached house, build new homes on smaller lots, and even allow for residential housing in backyards”.  In part this is expected to expand the rental housing market by allowing for more basement apartments – many of which already exist – to come out into the housing stock fully and legally and expand affordable housing.  Even the Chamber of Commerce has got into the act by supporting this policy as a return to mixed use neighborhoods and the creation of “walkable neighborhoods” where you can walk down the street and get groceries or a cup of coffee.

 

Of course, the problem is that in Thunder Bay, as is often the case, the left municipal hand does not always move in accord with what the right municipal hand is doing.  There is a degree of policy inconsistency.  On the one hand, April 2022 saw a new zoning bylaw designed to encourage urban density through a process of infill while September of 2022 sees the same municipal entity initiating planning to expand the Parkdale suburban subdivision that also requires a substantial extension to the city’s sewer infrastructure.   On the one hand we want more density in existing residential neighborhoods, but we also want new suburban residential developments.

 

However, such inconsistency is minor given it is traditional not only in Thunder Bay but across municipalities in Ontario.  It is rare to find a municipality – especially in today’s era of “housing shortages” that would not jump at the prospect of new development and associated tax revenues and development charges.  The more serious issue for Thunder Bay is that despite being a city with a CMA population of 130,000, it really feels like a much smaller and spread-out place because of its historic development as two cities.  What is actually required is more density buildings in the four to eight storey range just off of existing commercial and retail areas – including the old downtown cores.  Simply allowing for more basement apartments in existing suburban neighborhoods does nothing for “walkable communities” as they all need cars to get anywhere anyway.  If anything, this makes a car-centric city worse. Pretending that more basement apartments in areas remote from shops and services will create walkability is simply aspirational urban planning.

 

What is starting to happen especially in some of the older “modern suburbs” built circa 1960 and going forward is basement apartments being allowed without consideration for the spillover effects of more residents and especially more vehicles.  The new zoning bylaw allows 1.5 vehicles per home but some of these rental homes now have 3 and 4 vehicles most of which end up being parked on the street.  The amount of traffic on some residential streets is noticeably higher – and one should note faster.  And if the new units happen to be close to the university or college, there are invariably a lot of overnight guests adding to the urban street scene.

 

Even all this could be worked around if the City of Thunder Bay actually followed up its plans with some type of concerted implementation.  Case in point. Snow removal. The city has calendar parking in residential neighborhoods to facilitate snow clearing.  That is on even calendar days you park on the even address side of the streets and on odd calendar days you park on the odd side.  This allows for easier and efficient snow clearing as one side of the street is always clear after a storm. 

 

The problem is there are now too many cars on some streets for the parking available at the homes, so they invariably need to be parked on the road and in the winter rotated from side to side.  That has become too bothersome for the average Thunder Bay resident who prefers to park willy-nilly wherever they feel like  and so there are always cars on both sides no matter what day it is.  And if snow is in the forecast, no one cares because facilitating snow removal is a community benefit and the constant turnover of new rental residents with weaker ties to the neighborhood means they do not care as much.  Moreover, the city rarely, if ever, tries to go down streets and ticket violators as part of a program of regular enforcement – no doubt because they are “short-staffed”.  On days when it does snow, the snow plough operator has difficulty getting through the street resulting in an uneven job.  And to make it worse, more often than not even the city plough operator does not follow the rules ploughing the even side on an even day when parking there is allowed and vice versa.

 

Thunder Bay has in many respects again become the wild west. Rules? They appear to have become voluntary unless someone decides they are not.  Try following the speed limit in a school zone with two large F-150s behind you and see what its like.  If you want rules, you follow them if you like, it is your choice, seems to be the mantra.  Yet, with increased density and more people living in closer proximity, following the rules should be more and not less important.  Thunder Bay has always been a place full of independently minded people doing whatever they want when they want and that appears to extend to the city government itself which makes plans and rules and does not enforce them or even try to implement them properly.  To be fair, some of this behaviour is continued fallout from the pandemic and a reaction to the rules and restrictions that were imposed.  There is a process of social and behavioural adjustment under way in cities across Canada, and it is not over yet.  Still, it remains that the long-term outcome here is not going to be some type of urbanite planning fantasy of happy renters and homeowners co-existing in walkable suburban communities strolling hand in hand to save the environment while the city wins urban planning awards.  Rather, it is going to result in a deterioration of urban quality and community life for many residents of Thunder Bay as a result of aspirational planning with no follow through.

 

 

The Rancor of Vrancor

 

I was briefly in Hamilton, Ontario last week and the spillover from the GTA is starting to have an impact on Hamilton’s skyline downtown as new residential construction begins with many more proposed.   Along with some picturesque and redeveloped older buildings that retain their charm, there are entirely new projects on old sites such as the old Kresge building site downtown.

 

 

 

Some of them are indeed quite large with proposals for building ranging from a few to as many as 45 stories.  Many have attracted the rancor of residents in downtown residential neighborhoods as some of the proposed buildings are so large and dense, they effectively will more than double the population of some downtown neighborhoods and cast large dark shadows across leafy neighborhoods.

 

What is more interesting is that given the shortage of housing and the need for urban infill combined with the desire of many not to see valuable farmland filled up with subdivisions, the opposition is actually not anti-development or anti infill.  There is an acceptance that taller or more dense buildings with family sized housing units need to be built.  What is causing concern is that the proposed units violate height restrictions already in place – the scale and intensity of the development – as well as create units that really in the end are not family sized units but tiny condos destined for investors - domestic or otherwise.

 

Now there is a lot going on here and the issue is quite complicated but here is what seems to be going on with respect to several projects at the corner of Queen Street and King being both built and proposed by a company known as Vrancor which along with being a hospitality company is also property management and development company. First there a residence and hotel at the corner of Queen and King currently under construction which appears to have stalled because Vrancor now wants one of the buildings to exceed the height it had originally proposed.  The original proposal was for a 10-storey hotel and six storey apartment building. However, Vrancor has modified that to 12 storey hotel and now wants the six-storey apartment to increase in height from six to 25 storeys. The City of Hamilton has apparently approved the increase for the hotel but the other one is now at the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) and construction has been stalled since and now stands at a 12 storey hotel and a flat base with a construction crane.

 But then, as much as there is a building boom in Hamilton there are also some curiously stalled projects and empty lots with pictures of buildings that will probably never exist.

 

 

 

 

What is even more interesting is the proposal for the parcel of land immediately north of the Vrancor development under construction which is currently a parking lot.  Here the proposal for Vrancor Towers II is for four towers – two of 15 storeys and two of 27 storeys for a total of 762 dwelling units along with 1003 metres of commercial space and 369 parking spaces on top of a three to seven storey base.  Needless to say, this development will dwarf the adjacent residential area of single homes in the Strathcona neighborhood, effectively double its population, add to the infrastructure needs of sewer and water, cast large shadows, and generally create a spate of negative externalities.   

 

So the full scale of the development of four mega towers has attracted protest and debate. The City of Hamilton is apparently instructing its legal counsel to oppose these proposed developments at least at the scale they are intended because they do not comply with their own guidelines regarding transition, height, scale, massing, shadow, and density.  This will inevitably also end up at the OLT.

 

 

 

Given the sudden rush to add to housing stock, these types of situations will become more common across the country.  The need to intensify urban development to accommodate a larger population and preserve green space makes a lot of sense but the scale of what is being proposed seems to be a lot all at once that will overwhelm rather than complement existing uses.  Even politicians who are trying to rapidly “solve” the housing crisis after years of neglect must admit that development needs to increase density and be forward looking but it also needs to recognize the needs of existing residents who have already made investments in the area based on expectations of a certain style and quality of life.  And the residents of the area themselves are not opposed to apartment units but probably wonder why something more European in scope rather than modeled on 1950s Toronto might not be a better fit.

 

In the end, these buildings are not really family sized units but merely stacked little boxes for investors to buy and sell irregardless.  The only good thing is that for the next two years, foreign buyers are facing more restrictions and interest rates are going up.  Never mind pinning your hopes on the OLT to stop the project.  Higher interest rates alone may put an end to some of the more oversized development proposals that have been popping up in Hamilton.