I’ve walked the waterfront trail in Cornwall most mornings for about twelve years, usually with a coffee and a dog who stops at every bench. Over that time I’ve watched the talk about new housing near the water go from occasional rumour to a steady stream of proposals, open houses and notices taped to lamp posts. And somewhere along the way, I noticed that the way those projects get presented to us has changed completely.
A few years ago, a proposal at a public meeting meant a site plan on an easel and a man in a tie pointing at coloured rectangles. These days it usually means a big screen and a set of images that look like photographs of a building that doesn’t exist yet. A mid-rise with balconies facing the river, sunlight on the brick, people walking dogs on a path out front that looks suspiciously like my morning route.
Who makes these pictures
I got curious and asked a planner at one of the meetings where the images came from. She explained that developers, including the smaller local ones, often hire specialist studios to produce them, and a lot of those studios are in the big city. The firm behind the images for that particular project did 3D rendering Toronto developers use for condo launches, she said, and it had built the building as a detailed computer model from the architect’s drawings, at real size, then placed it into photographs of the actual site.
That surprised me a bit. I’d assumed these images were mostly artistic impressions, loose and flattering. In fact, the buildings in them are usually drawn quite accurately. The height, the number of floors, the window pattern and the distance from the street come straight from the plans. What gets softened is everything around them.
What I’ve learned to look for
After a couple of years of going to these meetings, I’ve got into the habit of asking a few questions, and I’ve noticed other neighbours starting to do the same.
The first is about where the picture was taken from. The image I mentioned was framed from out on the river, as if from a boat, which made the building look wonderfully at home on the shoreline. Hardly anyone in Cornwall sees it from there. I asked whether we could see it from the trail and from the street behind it, where people actually live, and to their credit the developer came back to the next meeting with both views. The view from the street behind was the honest one. It showed a fairly tall wall where people had been used to looking at sky.
The second is about the season. Every image I’ve seen of a riverside project in this city has been set in high summer, with full trees and blue water. I’ve yet to see one in February, with grey ice on the river and the wind coming off the water. I’m not saying developers should show us the worst day of the year, but it’s worth remembering that summer lasts about ten weeks here.
The third is about the trees and the path. Landscaping in renderings tends to show what things might look like in fifteen years, not on opening day. If the waterfront path out front is part of the promise, it’s fair to ask whether it’s actually in the approved plans and who pays for it.
Why the images still help
I don’t want to sound cynical, because I think the better images have made public meetings better. When people can see a building in place, the conversation gets specific. At one open house, a resident pointed at a rendering and asked why the parking entrance faced the trail, which would mean cars crossing the path dozens of times a day. Nobody had noticed it on the site plan. The entrance was moved to the side street.
Clear pictures also make promises harder to forget. If a developer shows a public walkway and a small park in the images, residents remember, and they bring it up when the site plan comes back for approval.
For the next meeting
If you’re heading to an open house about any of the waterfront proposals, my suggestion is to look past the hero image on the big screen and ask for the views that matter to you. From your street, from the trail, from the park where your kids play. Ask what time of year the pictures show and which parts are planned and which are just decoration.
The developer of that first mid-rise has since revised the design, stepping the top two floors back from the street behind and adding a public path along the river. I saw the new images at the last meeting. They were set in summer again, of course. But this time they showed the view from the trail first.
About the Author
