Growing Together

Let's take a look at Kitchener's Growth Plan for the ion corridor

The City of Kitchener has been working on many housing-related policies and plans over the last year. One such document is the Growing Together Plan, a planning framework focused on Major Transit Station Areas (essentially, in and around the ion corridor).

Image from the Community Brief, pg 9.

Over the past year, city staff have hosted numerous community engagement opportunities on this plan, and have provided periodic updates to Kitchener Council during this time as well, including at the January 29th, 2024 council meeting. At that meeting, staff noted that community engagement included 13 unique engagements totaling over 72 hours and involving more than 1,100 members of the community, through in-person workshops, pop-ups and walk-ins as well as regular updates and virtual engagement methods on the Engage page. At the same meeting, Council deferred (to the March 18th meeting) any decisions on this plan in order to address some questions and issues that arose in that discussion.

So, what exactly is the Growing Together Plan and why does it matter?

The best place to find information on the Growing Together Plan is on the Engage Kitchener site. Scroll through the main section for updates (with the most recent updates appearing first) and take a look to the right for supporting documents which can be downloaded.

Several of those documents have hundreds of pages in them - likely not something the average resident is interested in reading through. Perhaps with that in mind, staff created a short video that provides some helpful information about this plan and how to navigate some of the documents you’ll find on the Engage site.

Two documents worth highlighting are the Community Brief (39 pages) and a similar, but more-detailed document called the Community Guide (105 pages). These documents outline the Growing Together Plan in detail. A few items of note in the Community Brief…

• Why are we creating a growth plan now? “Most development in Kitchener’s MTSAs over the last decade has happened outside of the existing, in-effect land use and zoning framework, through Official Plan and Zoning By-law Amendments (OPAs & ZBAs). This is because those policies and regulations have been in place for a long time and aren’t tailored to the current needs of our community. It’s time for an update!”

• Growing Together identifies four Strategic Growth Areas, each outlining the types of buildings permitted in those zones (see pages 18-25 in the Community Brief for details about each zone).

• It is important that all areas of PMTSAs allow for non-residential uses that will lead to more complete communities, where most of a person’s daily needs can be met with a short walk, ride, roll or transit ride. Therefore, Growing Together allows a broader range of uses for all building types.

• Required parking rates add significant, usually unnecessary expense to new development. Kitchener’s Missing Middle and Affordable Housing report notes that requiring parking is one of the major reasons why low-rise and mid-rise developments are challenging to build. PMTSAs are also walkable, cyclable and rollable, and serviced by transit, and simply don’t need that much parking to meet the needs of the community. Therefore, Growing Together no longer requires development to provide a certain amount of vehicle parking.

For those wanting to dig into the plan even more, here’s a twitter thread on the January 29th council meeting where staff provided an update, and delegates shared both their praise and concerns about the plan. Much of the information shared by staff can also be accessed via the links found in the agenda, including the staff report.

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If you missed out on those earlier community engagement opportunities, don’t fear! Since Council deferred any decisions on this plan until March, staff are offering an additional opportunity:

Growing Together Plan - Drop-in Session

Thursday February 29^th from 3:30pm to 6:30pm in the Rotunda on the first floor of City Hall. Staff from the Growing Together team as well as additional planning staff with expertise in land use policies, zoning regulations, and cultural heritage will be available. The councilors for wards 9 and 10, Cllr. Debbie Chapman and Cllr. Stephanie Stretch, will also be in attendance.

This additional engagement opportunity has been created to have further dialogue with the community on the following themes:

• How Growing Together works with Heritage Conservation District policies;

• How built-form transition works where a low-rise zone abuts a mid-rise or high-rise zone;

• The permissions and regulations in the SGA-1 zone; and

• Lands outside of the Major Transit Station Areas within existing Secondary Plan Areas that are proposed to be zoned through this process.

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The Community Brief concludes by highlighting some things most respondents agreed on - take a look.

Image from the Community Brief, pg 33.

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Were you one of the 1100+ residents involved in Growing Together community engagement? Or, is this the first you’re hearing of this plan? What are your priorities for growing our downtown community? As always, feel free to comment below!