Calling all neighbourhood artists and photographers, MHBPNA is having a contest! To help continue to brighten spirits this spring we are running a new MHBPNA Photo and Sketch contest!

There are some beautiful spaces and places across our neighbourhood, and we want to see them. We encourage everyone (amateur or expert) of any age in the MHBPNA area to capture some of your favourite spots. We’ve had a previous contest, but this is our first year to include children, youth and adults plus sketches of life in the ‘hood. Feel free to get together as a family for an old time drawing session.

To enter, submit a photo/sketch/work of art that you have taken within (or features) the Mount Hope-Breithaupt Park area to mhbpna@gmail.com.

Each submission must include: your name, the name of the street that you live on, contact (email or phone), and a short description (100 words max) of the image. You may use existing photos if they fit the qualifications.

All photos/sketches must:
1.           Be something within the MHBPNA boundaries (within the borders of King Street, Victoria Street, Lancaster Street, and the City of Kitchener boundary).
All suitable entries will be entered into a draw, and 5 winners will be selected at random for each of the two categories:
1.           Sketch
2.           Photos

This year the prizes we will be offering are ten $25 gift cards from local businesses in the neighbourhood! Neighbours helping Neighbours!

Please Note! All submitted photos and sketches will become the property of the MHBPNA and may be used for future articles, blogs or promotions. Artist attribution will be used whenever possible. We will certainly post many of your submissions on our website.

The deadline for submissions is May 31st. Winners will be drawn at random and notified by June 4, 2021.

The City (Planning and Strategic Initiatives Committee)  will be holding a virtual public meeting on April 19^th at 7 pm.   You can watch the meeting through kitchener.ca/watch in these COVID times.   If you wish to make either verbal or written comments you need to register as a delegate with Legislative Services prior to the meeting (kitchener.ca/delegations).

The agenda includes

1. OPA/zoning amendments for the Polocorp development on Mill/Queen
2. 298 Lawrence OPA and re-zoning
3. Additional Dwelling Units.  The project team working on the amendment to Zoning Bylaw 85-1 will be presenting their recommendations to the Committee to allow additional detached units (coach houses, backyard homes, laneway suites or tiny homes) in R1 to R7 zones.  Recommendations include size of unit, setbacks, building height, location on the lot.   (In a conversation I had with the project team they indicated that there are potentially 10,000 lots in the City which would be eligible through the additional dwelling bylaws).

You personally may not be interested in building an additional dwelling on your lot but this might be a zoning bylaw amendment that you may wish to understand as it will no doubt have an impact on other lots throughout the Mt. Hope/Breithaupt Park neighbourhood.

Catherine Owens

MHBPNA is having a board meeting this Sunday at 7 pm via Zoom. Everyone in our neighbourhood is invited to attend. Please email us at “mhbpna@gmail.com” or message us on our Facebook page for the Zoom information.

We will be discussing several topics including:

-How is everyone doing?
-Board selection
-Downtown Neighbourhood Association update
-Development Committee update
-Soccer?
-Music Festival?
-Other programs we could run during these ‘challenging times’.
-Other topics

If you would like to know about our neighbourhood, get involved in some way, or just hang out with moderately cool people, please ask for the Zoom link.

The City held their pilot session on December 1st on “planning 101”.  The session was very well attended online and City staff did a great job of outlining how the planning process works and how residents can become involved in projects impacting their neighbourhoods.  This was the initial session and the module will become available for wider distribution in 2021.  If you were not able to join on December 1st,  we would encourage you to watch for when the session is repeated in 2021 – the plans are to run it again three times in 2021 – the first probably being January.  We will post when these are occurring on this website and our MHBPNA Facebook page.

In addition to the formal presentation, City staff allowed 45 minutes for a Q and A on the planning process. 

The Q and A session addressed numerous resident questions but these were the major themes impacting our immediate neighbourhood.

1. Parkland plans in the Innovation District and the City’s rules on “cash in lieu of parklands” (where the developer pays a cash levy in lieu of parkland/greenspace).
2. Use of the Bramm Yards (Victoria and Joseph). 
3. How the Committee of Adjustment works, how these decisions are made and by whom and what constitutes a minor variance – particularly apropos to infill/teardowns in the neighbourhood
4. Affordable housing initiatives by the City
5. Laneway and Coach houses in existing neighbourhoods
6. Density targets to increase the number of people/jobs in the downtown and areas surrounding the downtown in Major Transit Station Areas (our neighbourhood)
7. How the Region’s Transit Hub fits into neighbourhood planning.

Keep an eye out for future Planning 101 sessions.

Catherine Owens

Recently there was an article in The Record about Waterloo Region (in the province of Ontario) moving to “yellow” status over the weekend. But what does that mean? It is difficult to understand the various restrictions and how they change.

Health officials say, ‘wash your hands’, ‘avoid meeting in groups, especially indoors’, ‘avoid close contact’, ‘wear a mask whenever you cannot maintain a 6′ distance, or when shopping indoors’ etc. These recommendations have not changed in months.

For a fairly complete and official look at Ontario and COVID, we hope everyone reads this document:

COVID-19 Response Framework

As always, stay safe! And remember our AGM on December 5th.

MHBPNA will be holding our Annual General Meeting on Dec 5th at 1pm. Because of the ongoing “Covid-19 situation” this meeting will be virtual and we’ll be using Zoom. Closer to the date, we will post information about getting the meeting code.

This meeting is open to the public and we appreciate everyone who is interested to attend, ask questions, perhaps even volunteer to be on the board for the upcoming year.

We will have a report from our councillor Sarah Marsh and a ‘special guest’ to discuss some intriguing aspect of our city and neighbourhood. Stay tuned!

Key points from the city: