Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Tea for Two

The building at the end of Cook Street at Dallas road, Dashwood Manor, applied to council to be able to offer tea to the people walking in the neighbourhood.

Victoria City Council turned it down because if they approved the tea room idea, the place would also be able to be a full service restaurant.

It strikes me that there is a fair amount of MIBYism going on this neighbourhood. What is fundamentally wrong with a restaurant in this location? Not that this is what the owners want to do. The Cook Street village area needs more people and more commercial/retail. Ideally that commercial/retail would flow southwards to the water from the current location.

Anchoring the end of the street with a tea room would be a great start. With cafe at the breakwater and the tea room at Cook and Dallas, you make it that much more inviting for people to walk along there. More walking is good for more fitness.

The core of the Cook Street village needs more condos - decent ones that offer street front retail operations and not the dead lawn space that so many of the apartments further north on the street have. Adding 2000 to 4000 people into the neighbourhood would improve local stores. increase demand for transit, and achieve a reduction of the footprint of the city.

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