Brent Bellamy

Brent Bellamy

Columnist

Brent Bellamy is senior design architect for Number Ten Architectural Group.

Recent articles of Brent Bellamy

New life breathed into Carnegie Library

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New life breathed into Carnegie Library

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Mar. 20, 2023

The City of Winnipeg Archives is finally getting a new home, after a decade as a nomad in various warehouses across the city. Council is set to approve $12.6 million in funding to transform the Carnegie Library on William Avenue into a state-of-the-art archives facility.

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Monday, Mar. 20, 2023

Brent Bellamy / Winnipeg Free Press

The Carnegie Library on William Avenue was listed in 2018 as one of Canada’s most endangered historic sites.

Walkable cities become grist for conspiracy mill

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Walkable cities become grist for conspiracy mill

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023

Being a city planner might sound like a mundane job, plodding through zoning regulations that read like riddles written by Gollum from Lord of the Rings. But it can be a polarizing profession that evokes high emotions from citizens opposing change in their neighbourhood or reacting to the very mention of the words “bike lane.”

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Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2023

Brent Bellamy photo

The intersection of Lilac Street and Corydon Avenue, an example of a traditional ‘15-minute neighbourhood’ in Winnipeg.

Reclaiming the spirit of the shopping mall

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Reclaiming the spirit of the shopping mall

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Feb. 6, 2023

The origin of the North American shopping mall is a story of irony and frustration that sent an architect back to Europe resenting what his idea had become.

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Monday, Feb. 6, 2023

This artist’s rendering shows the re-envisioned CF Polo Park mall with surrounding residential development. (Supplied / Shindico)

Arts can lead in downtown renewal

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Arts can lead in downtown renewal

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Jan. 16, 2023

Downtown is the cultural and economic engine of our city. It defines Winnipeg’s image and reputation, locally and abroad.

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Monday, Jan. 16, 2023

Winnipeg’s vibrant arts and culture sector could be a major motivating force in revitalizing the city’s downtown. (Supplied / Exhange District BIZ)

A chance to reimagine road safety

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A chance to reimagine road safety

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Dec. 19, 2022

Pedestrian and cyclist fatalities are not inevitable, but the solution requires a cultural shift in the way planners, policy-makers and the public think about streets and how we use them.

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Monday, Dec. 19, 2022

BRENT BELLAMY PHOTO

Traffic-flow-focused thoroughfares such as Osborne Street are designed in a way that makes motor-vehicle collisions with cyclists and pedestrians inevitable.

Board impairs civic decision-making

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Board impairs civic decision-making

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Nov. 28, 2022

When Manitoba’s provincial government passed Bill 37 last year, it was lost in the headlines of a global pandemic, but its potential impact on the city of Winnipeg was not lost on then-mayor Brian Bowman.

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Monday, Nov. 28, 2022

SUPPLIED IMAGE

Aerial image shows the proposed site of an eight-storey, 55-plus apartment building, which received civic zoning approval but was rejected by the provincially appointed municipal board.

Gaboury favoured organic, regionalist style

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Gaboury favoured organic, regionalist style

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Nov. 7, 2022

When Étienne Gaboury died a few weeks ago at the age of 92, Manitoba lost one of its most prominent, most beloved, and arguably its greatest architect.

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Monday, Nov. 7, 2022

Brent Bellamy photo

The Esplanade Riel was Étienne Gaboury’s final prominent commission.

A new mayor and council need visionary city-building policies to fix Winnipeg's challenges

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A new mayor and council need visionary city-building policies to fix Winnipeg's challenges

Brent Bellamy 12 minute read Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022

The approaching election is coming at a time when the world seems filled with uncertainty. The future feels unpredictable and our path forward less defined. In the past, civic elections have often been distilled down to police, pipes and pavement, but today we are facing broader city-building conversations. Issues that have been building for many years are converging with more recent challenges to create obstacles of generational impact. As we vote, now more than ever, we must remember that the decisions we make today will define the city we pass on to our children.

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Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022

MIKE SUDOMA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES.

The pre-COVID momentum of downtown growth and renewal has been set back decades, with major streets, such as Portage Avenue, now lined with hollowed-out buildings and vacant storefronts.

Blank walls diminish pedestrian experience

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Blank walls diminish pedestrian experience

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Sep. 12, 2022

The cannabis shop has quickly replaced the corner store as a symbol of Canadian neighbourhoods. Only four years since legalization, cannabis storefronts have become pervasive fixtures on city streets, with more than 3,200 stores now open across the country, an increase of about 1,400 over last year.

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Monday, Sep. 12, 2022

Brent Bellamy photo

Blanked-out windows on a Winnipeg cannabis shop create a bleak exterior that discourages pedestrian activity.

The time is right for LRT transition

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The time is right for LRT transition

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Aug. 22, 2022

Winnipeg was built on light rail transit. At its peak, 400 streetcars rode 200 kilometres of track, carrying 60 million riders per year. And almost immediately after the streetcars were replaced with buses in 1955, the debate began over bringing back light rail transit (LRT).

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Monday, Aug. 22, 2022

BRENT BELLAMY PHOTO

Riders board the C-train light rail in Calgary. That city, like Edmonton and Kitchener/Waterloo, implemented its first LRT lines with a population of about half a million, significantly less than the 800,000 people in Winnipeg today.

Moving forward requires looking back

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Moving forward requires looking back

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Sunday, Jul. 24, 2022

For its first century, downtown Winnipeg was a vibrant and diverse urban neighbourhood. Streets were lined with elegant red-brick apartment buildings, terrace housing and grand Victorian homes. Canopies of elm trees shaded the sidewalks of a neighbourhood peppered with schools, corner stores, churches and parks.

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Sunday, Jul. 24, 2022

(Stationpoint Photographic) Innovative redevelopment of 433 Main St. turned an underused 1970s office building into a vibrant mixed-use property that combines retail, office space and rental apartments.

Bold thinking created affordable housing

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Bold thinking created affordable housing

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Jun. 13, 2022

In the late 1940s, Canada’s post-war economy was booming, but corresponding global supply-chain disruptions, scarcity of skilled labour and material shortages resulted in skyrocketing inflation. Competition for new housing drove the real-estate market to record highs, leaving low- and middle-income tenants experiencing severe housing need across the country.

These challenges are familiar in our current post-pandemic world, and the bold action taken by the federal government back then provides a provocative point of discussion for today.

As the Second World War began, the country experienced a significant wave of urban migration, with servicemen and war workers moving to cities to be near military bases and industrial employment. This created high demand for affordable urban housing.

The federal government responded to this immediate need by creating Wartime Housing Limited, a Crown corporation that participated directly in the residential construction industry, building thousands of small, wood-framed houses across the country for military and trade workers participating in the war effort.

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Monday, Jun. 13, 2022

BRENT BELLAMY PHOTO
A row of similar structures in Elmwood stands as an example of the ‘strawberry box houses’ constructed by the Crown corporation known as Wartime Housing Limited.

More city than we can pay for

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More city than we can pay for

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, May. 16, 2022

As people in Winnipeg emerged from a long, frigid and snowy winter, they found a city with roads bearing a striking resemblance to the surface of the moon. This, despite the City of Winnipeg having had its highest road renewal budget in history for each of the last three years. With drought followed by flood, freezing followed by thaw, Manitoba gumbo has been having its way with our city’s roads.

We can’t change the weather, or the soil, and significantly raising taxes wouldn’t be popular, so how will we ever manage our worsening pothole problem? There is one straightforward answer — build fewer roads and get more people to live on the ones we already have. The solution to managing potholes is simple math that reads like a Grade 9 pop quiz.

If 10 taxpayers live on a street that is one kilometre long, each one pays to maintain 100 metres of road. If 10 taxpayers live on a street that is one and a half kilometres long, each one pays to maintain 150 meters of road. Every tax dollar being stretched more thinly by lower density means reduced maintenance and more potholes. It’s a simplistic example, but this is precisely what has happened in Winnipeg, and in most sprawling North American cities, over the last 50 years.

Since the 1970s, Winnipeg’s low-density, suburban growth patterns have resulted in the population increasing by 37 per cent while the built area of the city has almost doubled. Each taxpayer today is responsible for about 40 per cent more land area and its corresponding infrastructure. Looking at infrastructure such as water pipes, according to the city, each Winnipegger today is responsible for nearly 2.5 times more length of pipe than they were in the 1940s, 70 per cent more than in the 1970s.

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Monday, May. 16, 2022

Potholes in Wolseley in May (Brent Bellamy photo)
Brent Bellamy photo
The inability to maintain streets properly is the result of low-density suburban growth patterns that require expensive new infrastructure on the edges of the city.

EVs not a ‘silver bullet’ solution

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EVs not a ‘silver bullet’ solution

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Apr. 25, 2022

As governments across the world struggle to meet quickly approaching climate change targets, electric vehicles have begun to find their way into the spotlight. The “Build Back Better” plan in the U.S. and Canada’s 2022 federal budget both focus efforts to decarbonize the transportation sector on incentivizing “zero-emission vehicles” (ZEVs).

Transportation is Canada’s second largest source of GHG emissions, responsible for 25 per cent of the country’s total. In cities such as Winnipeg, vehicle tailpipes are the source of half of all emissions.

It is also clear, however, that electric vehicles are not an “easy button” solution to climate change. A 2,000-kilogram machine transporting an 80-kilogram human cargo for almost every trip made outside of the home is not a sustainable solution, regardless of the machine’s powerplant.

There are many studies that try to quantify ZEVs’ emissions, and the consistent conclusion is that no car is truly a zero-emission vehicle. For a more complete picture, the current focus on tailpipe emissions must be broadened to include the carbon footprint of all facets of a vehicle’s life cycle.

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Monday, Apr. 25, 2022

Sean Gallup / Getty Images / TNS FILES
The transition to electric vehicles is only one step in the necessary shift toward alternative modes of transportation.

Selkirk a model of progressive planning

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Selkirk a model of progressive planning

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Mar. 28, 2022

Just north of Lower Fort Garry, stretching along the banks of the Red River, is Selkirk. A city with about 10,000 residents, the seventh-largest in the province, it has in the past been largely known for its catfish and its steel mill. Today, however, a new image is being crafted. Through several innovative and forward-thinking planning policies, Selkirk is beginning to stake a claim as the most progressive city in Manitoba.

About a decade ago, Selkirk started down its path of city-building focused on social, economic and environmental sustainability when a group of dedicated residents and political leaders identified the need for more accessible and inclusive mobility options in their city. After years of hard work, Selkirk became only the fourth city in Manitoba to introduce a public transit system. Operating as a non-profit community organization, Selkirk Transit today provides equitable and sustainable transportation.

Since conquering the challenge of public transit, the City of Selkirk has never looked back. In recent years, a long list of strategic plans has been introduced in Selkirk, informing everything from climate adaptation to downtown renewal, recreation and economic growth.

Last year, a five-year Active Transportation Strategy was introduced, building on the sustainable mobility that public transit began. The strategy is a comprehensive action plan that will connect neighbourhoods to downtown, recreational facilities, schools, employment and shopping, through walking, biking and accessible transportation like scooters and wheelchairs.

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Monday, Mar. 28, 2022

Scatliff + Miller + Murray main street of the West End Mixed-Use Village. (Supplied)
Graphic by Scatliff + Miller + Murray
Artist’s conception shows plan for Selkirk’s West End Mixed-Use Village, a neighbourhood of 5,000 homes that would double the city’s current population.

Ukrainian influences are everywhere

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Ukrainian influences are everywhere

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Mar. 7, 2022

In the face of unspeakable adversity, the world is currently witnessing the resilient and courageous character of the Ukrainian people.

A century ago, these traits would prove vital for the thousands of hard-working peasant farmers who came to the inhospitable Canadian west in search of a new beginning. As partners in a shared story, we on the Prairies have forged a deep connection with the people of Ukraine.

Today, this legacy shapes our towns and cities, physically manifested most prominently through Ukrainian religious architecture that has become an intrinsic part of many communities. Drive across the Prairies between Winnipeg and Edmonton, and you’ll find the characteristic domes of Ukrainian churches piercing the sky as often as the iconic grain elevators.

When the early settlers arrived in the 1890s, a small chapel that combined local construction techniques with traditional Ukrainian shapes was often one of the first buildings to be constructed. Amazingly, three of these tiny chapels still stand in Manitoba, including St. Michael’s Church at Trembowla, near Dauphin, the oldest remaining Ukrainian church in Canada.

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Monday, Mar. 7, 2022

SUPPLIED
The ‘Tin Can Cathedral’ was constructed in the early 1900s using old lumber and assorted scrap materials.

Old buildings unite neighbourhoods

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Old buildings unite neighbourhoods

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Feb. 7, 2022

At about 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, fire alarms went off at 575 Portage Avenue. A few hours later, the sky over downtown Winnipeg was filled with black smoke as firefighters battled through frigid temperatures to contain a massive blaze.

The familiar little building that stood on the corner of Langside Street for 110 years was lost forever.

Generations of Winnipeggers passed by that building every day, but few people knew its name — the Kirkwood Block. It was a “you’d know it if you saw it” kind of place. A nice little building, with a cornice and some red brick. Older people might recall spending evenings dancing at Club Morocco upstairs. Some might remember the hobby shop at the corner. Maybe it was your neighbourhood convenience store, or your office.

The Kirkwood Block was not a prominent heritage structure. It was just a quaint old building, a little crooked and kind of falling apart, sitting on a block seemingly ready for an urban renewal scheme. A big new building could bring more residents and more jobs — the goal of any downtown plan.

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Monday, Feb. 7, 2022

Firefighters stand outside the ice-encrusted remains of Kirkwood Block, which was destroyed by a fire on Feb. 2. (Brent Bellamy)

Bold steps to redefine downtown

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Bold steps to redefine downtown

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Jan. 17, 2022

The first half of the 20th century brought war, pandemic, drought and depression, and in Winnipeg, a catastrophic flood. As cities emerged from these challenges in the 1950s, they were buoyed by the optimism of a better future and were not hesitant to make bold, forward-thinking moves for the next generation.

In 1955, fueled by the vision of Winnipeg as a modern metropolis, a public transit system that moved more than one hundred million passenger trips per year — twice what Winnipeg Transit currently carries — was completely dismantled. More than 400 streetcars were taken off the road and rails torn up to make room for a future with private automobiles and gasoline buses.

Eleven months later, the city doubled down on this vision, announcing that downtown streets would be converted to one-way circulation, accommodating through-traffic to the growing suburbs. Elm trees lining the downtown streets were cut down, boulevards were removed, sidewalks narrowed, and the streets were made wider to accommodate more cars. In the space of less than a year, downtown Winnipeg was changed forever.

Of course, we now know that the overwhelming prioritization of cars over all other modes of transportation, and the creation of a network of surface highways across downtown, would become a dagger in the heart of our once-bustling city centre. The fearless implementation of such bold and transformative ideas, however, is enviable, and almost unimaginable in today’s Winnipeg.

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Monday, Jan. 17, 2022

Fort Street is an example of a downtown thoroughfare that was widened and converted to one-way traffic to increase vehicle capacity, thereby diminishing the pedestrian experience. (Brent Bellamy photo)

Perfect storm of construction disruption

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Perfect storm of construction disruption

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Dec. 27, 2021

Over the past two years, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced several new expressions into our everyday vocabulary. We are learning the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Delta, Omicron), and terms such as herd immunity, vaccine efficacy and flattening the curve have become part of regular conversation.

And more recently, we have been learning a lot about the global supply chain.

We live in a highly connected world. The homes we live in, the smartphones in our pockets and the cars we drive are the product of labour and materials brought together from around the world, through an interconnected web called the global supply chain.

The global pandemic has exposed the fragility and interdependence of the connections in this web, and the construction industry has been on the leading edge of its challenges.

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Monday, Dec. 27, 2021

(Brent Bellamy photo)
This residential building under construction in St. Boniface is an example of a project that changed from wood studs to steel studs in response to fluctuating material costs caused by supply-chain disruption.

A chance to redefine transportation

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A chance to redefine transportation

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Nov. 29, 2021

Over the next two weeks, the City of Winnipeg is looking for public feedback on Transportation Master Plan: 2050, a 30-year blueprint to guide development of Winnipeg’s transportation network.

In the past, transportation planning has focused primarily on strategies to move cars, but today it’s seen as a central tool for building healthy, sustainable and prosperous communities. Urban mobility is fundamental to economic viability, environmental sustainability and social equity, making Transportation Master Plan: 2050 a key document for the city.

The first step in developing a new transportation strategy will be to learn from the past and accept that current economic challenges, including Winnipeg’s $3 billion infrastructure deficit for roads and bridges, are largely the result of previous planning decisions.

We have spent decades building a city almost singularly focused on automobile transportation, resulting in a sprawling, low-density urban form that has become economically unsustainable. Despite record-breaking road maintenance spending, our current pace of renewal means new roads built today won’t be replaced for more than 100 years.

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Monday, Nov. 29, 2021

Manitoba vehicle owners should be getting a bigger rebate from MPI, says the Consumers' Association of Canada (Manitoba). (Mike Sudoma / Winnipeg Free Press files)

Designing pedestrian promenade

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Designing pedestrian promenade

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Nov. 8, 2021

As we emerge from a global pandemic and move into the headwinds of a global climate crisis, change has become the only certainty for the world’s cities. Civic leadership that embraces bold ideas to overcome these evolving challenges, specifically in highly impacted downtown areas, will find the most success in the future.

Unveiled last year, but somewhat lost in the headlines of the pandemic, the new Winnipeg Transit Master Plan presents the city with an opportunity to lead this urban evolution. By marrying transit planning with creative urban design, we can leverage transit investment to create generational change in downtown Winnipeg.

There are three important downtown placemaking opportunities identified in the new plan. Major rapid transit stations will be built at Portage and Main and in old Union Station, establishing two significant nodes of activity. These can be leveraged through creative planning to create a gravity that attracts retail, housing and cultural amenities to support new and existing downtown residential neighbourhoods.

A third impactful move, the closing of the Graham Avenue Transit Mall, will create a kilometre-long opportunity to dream. With buses gone, and cars having been removed 30 years ago, Graham Avenue will become a blank slate upon which we can draw our vision for the future.

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Monday, Nov. 8, 2021

BRENT BELLAMY PHOTO
Calgary’s Stephen Avenue, closed to vehicles in 1973, abounds with shops and restaurants, creating an important critical mass of activity.

Car co-op a progressive success story

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Car co-op a progressive success story

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021

Your car is likely your second largest household expense, and studies show that it’s probably parked 95 per cent of the time. The typical Canadian vehicle is driven for just over one hour per day on average, and according to the Canadian Automobile Association, the SUV that most people drive for that time costs an average of $33 per day to own, with all expenses included.

Imagine if you could, sharing a car with your neighbours, and only paying for it when you are actually using it. No more loan payments, or trips to the mechanic, and as a bonus you would be doing something good for the environment.

Ten years ago, this was the dream for a small group of people in Winnipeg who saw the growing car-sharing trend in larger cities across the world and wondered if it could work here. The group organized, found 40 people to pay $500 membership deposits and, in June 2011, Peg City Car Co-op was born. The idea started small, with three cars in Osborne Village; keys were stored in lockboxes and transactions recorded on paper.

As Peg City celebrates its 10th anniversary, it has grown to more than 2,000 members with 60 vehicles parked across 11 central neighbourhoods, and has hopes of growing to 100 vehicles in 2023. Members can now conveniently make bookings online up to a year in advance, for as little as an hour at a time, and they are automatically billed for their time and distance.

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Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2021

BRENT BELLAMY PHOTO
Peg City Car Co-op is a Winnipeg success story, growing to 60 vehicles and more than 2,000 members in just 10 years.

Lifestyle expectations influence housing

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Lifestyle expectations influence housing

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Monday, Sep. 20, 2021

With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting global supply chains, and consumer demand rising as the economy rebounds, inflation rates are being pushed to their highest levels in almost 20 years. The federal election campaign has seen affordability emerge as a central issue concerning Canadians, and with home prices skyrocketing across the country, much of the discussion has naturally centred on housing.

Any solution to what is being called Canada’s housing crisis will require close examination of both housing and transportation. These two key drivers of inflation are intrinsically linked, and together represent 50 per cent of Canadian household spending.

Comparisons are often made between the baby-boomer generation and millennials to demonstrate how today’s cost of living has increased. Relative to income growth, average house values, the purchase price of a vehicle and the cost of a litre of gasoline have all more than doubled since the 1970s. These are striking increases, but looking more closely, our lifestyle expectations may be having an even greater impact.

Since 1975, the average size of a new home in Canada has doubled, from 1,050 square feet to 2,100 square feet, despite today’s average household size being one person less. Neighbourhoods in the 1970s were typically 30 per cent more dense than today, with fewer peripheral suburbs requiring long driving distances.

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Monday, Sep. 20, 2021

BRENT BELLAMY PHOTO
Development such as basement suites or laneway housing — sometimes referred to as ‘granny flats’ — gently increases neighbourhood density while creating affordable housing options.

An opportunity to re-imagine downtown

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An opportunity to re-imagine downtown

Brent Bellamy 5 minute read Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021

The pandemic has been devastating for downtown Winnipeg. An abundance of “For Lease” signs in storefront windows has provided an intuitive glimpse, but a new report titled “State of Downtown: The impact of the pandemic to date” has quantified the profound challenges facing the economic, social and cultural heart of our city.

With the exodus of students and office workers, storefront businesses downtown have lost an average of $2 million per week in gross revenue since the pandemic began. This has led to more than 2,000 people losing their jobs and almost 50 storefront businesses permanently closing. The conference, hotel, hospitality, and arts and culture industries saw devastating declines, and more than 1.5 million square feet of office space are now vacant.

The pandemic has also exacerbated long-standing challenges of poverty and homelessness, with social agencies struggling to meet the needs of downtown’s vulnerable population.

The report paints a dire image, but we have been here before. Twenty years ago, downtown Winnipeg was in a similar situation. Population was at an all-time low as people moved to the suburbs, retail shops relocated from Portage Avenue to distant shopping malls, and office space was in decline. In the face of this challenge, government and private industry came together to rebuild downtown.

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Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021

Brent Bellamy PHOTO
The exodus of downtown workers during the pandemic might create longer-term opportunities to re-imagine and redevelop Winnipeg’s commercial and cultural core.