Toronto 245 Queen Street East | 94.3m | 25s | ONE Properties | Graziani + Corazza

[Kenojuak]

They absolutely will not.

This is right - but what will happen is that every landowner or developer within this area will appeal the OPA and ZBL, those appeals will be consolidated and creep forward for half a decade, and will be settled eventually with tons of exceptions to the new rules. Plus there are already a dozen or more applications that would penetrate these new height limits, which new appellants will be able to point to as evidence that the new rules are not reasonable and that greater heights should be acceptable. So this will waste a huge amount of time and money from all parties and no one wins except the lawyers who will bill many millions of dollars to their clients. And who pays for all this delay and extra costs? End users, whether buyers or renters, in their cost of housing. Congratulations to the City of Toronto on worsening the affordability crisis at every turn.

 

[bilked]

Though one can always write to Councillors, the revisions to the King-Parliament Secondary Plan have been through a lengthy and exhaustive (and exhausting!) process: anyone who had comments should have been there as it's probably far too late to change anything now. Of course, it will certainly be appealed to LPAT so one can certainly expect changes that will benefit developers - in general neighbourhood groups (St lawrence Neighbourhood Assn, West Don lands Committee etc) are in favour of what was passed TEYCC a few days ago, as am I.

Fair enough, it may not change the outcome, but writing your representative to let them know your perspectives before s/he actually votes on an issue is part of the democratic process.

Regarding whether people with views on this “should have” expressed their opinions earlier, I think it’s fair to say that people looking for housing may not have had the same notice/engagement/awareness as the neighbourhood groups representing those who already have housing.

That informational imbalance is how we end up with outcomes like this (IMHO).

 

[DSC]

i think city will reverse their decision in few years, once they realize the potential of this neighborhood.

The 'potential' of some parts of the K-P area is that it is part of the original 10 blocks of the City and some people (yes, like me) moved here for it's 'charm'. People still move here as they like the area as it is. If I had wanted to live in a sterile high-rise area I would have moved to City Place!

 

[TossYourJacket]

The 'potential' of some parts of the K-P area is that it is part of the original 10 blocks of the City and some people (yes, like me) moved here for it's 'charm'. People still move here as they like the area as it is. If I had wanted to live in a sterile high-rise area I would have moved to City Place!

You mean you don't love walking past endless blank sheets of curtain wall at grade?

 

[bilked]

But if you hate Cityplaces...the irony is that it’s this type of policy that produces them.

ie Restrictive zoning in highly desirable central neighbourhoods and (so as to accommodate demand) massive high rise condo communities jammed up next to 12-lane freeways (now dotting all our 400 series highways).

Also - there’s really no connection between a 10 storey height limit and protecting against blank sheets of curtain wall at grade.

 

[DSC]

But if you hate Cityplaces...the irony is that it’s this type of policy that produces them.

ie Restrictive zoning in highly desirable central neighbourhoods and (so as to accommodate demand) massive high rise condo communities jammed up next to 12-lane freeways (now dotting all our 400 series highways).

Also - there’s really no connection between a 10 storey height limit and protecting against blank sheets of curtain wall at grade.

I suggest you actually read the Secondary Plan that was passed by TEYCC earlier this week, it deals with all kinds of things like parks, open spaces, heritage as well as built form and height and density. It may well not be perfect but is a VAST improvement over the current K-P Secondary plan that dates from 1996 - when most of the area was surface parking lots. It is at https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-165498.pdf

 

[bilked]

I suggest you actually read the Secondary Plan that was passed by TEYCC earlier this week, it deals with all kinds of things like parks, open spaces, heritage as well as built form and height and density. It may well not be perfect but is a VAST improvement over the current K-P Secondary plan that dates from 1996 - when most of the area was surface parking lots. It is at https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-165498.pdf

Not sure what you’re asking me to respond to. My concern specifically is with the height and density restrictions (and their application to a massive chunk of downtown Toronto). What’s the defence of that?

 

[bilked]

For those wondering what the height and density restrictions actually are, they’re outlined in the table at page 49 of 49 of the report DSC referred to:

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-165498.pdf

The heights referenced are confusing if you’re not an insider as they are specific to certain zoning designations (SS1, R, O, etc).

But even a complete layperson can get a sense as to what the City is imposing. Very little of southeast downtown under this plan allows for high rise development and even that is limited to 90 m. “R-zone” (residential only) designations are maintained. The city essentially wants a downtown of midrises, similarly scaled to Highway 7 in Markham.

 

[TossYourJacket]

I forgot cities are only good if you bulldoze everything and replace it with towers. Clearly Paris and London got it entirely wrong.

The reason this policy is a problem from a housing supply perspective is because we won't allow even gentle density in the majority of the city. If we slowly densified many neighbourhoods, we wouldn't need to just bulldoze every building in downtown to create more housing. It would be fine to have a midrise district in this area if we actually let housing be built elsewhere, but we don't so now we have this controversy. It's so damn frustrating.

Also, if you wanna understand what I mean about blank curtainwall and condo towers, just walk down Charles St E. The Casa triplets are a perfect example. Sadly the city does not have any control over building design so there is literally nothing we can do to force better pedestrian realms unless architects decide to actually care about that.

 

[Amare]

This is right - but what will happen is that every landowner or developer within this area will appeal the OPA and ZBL, those appeals will be consolidated and creep forward for half a decade, and will be settled eventually with tons of exceptions to the new rules. Plus there are already a dozen or more applications that would penetrate these new height limits, which new appellants will be able to point to as evidence that the new rules are not reasonable and that greater heights should be acceptable. So this will waste a huge amount of time and money from all parties and no one wins except the lawyers who will bill many millions of dollars to their clients. And who pays for all this delay and extra costs? End users, whether buyers or renters, in their cost of housing. Congratulations to the City of Toronto on worsening the affordability crisis at every turn.

Can this highlighted, marked with a star, stickied, or whatever else to note how important the details are in the post?

Some great insight, a lot of which i never thought about in the way it was explained.

Although i'll note it is very important to protect various areas of any given neighbourhood from rediculous development proposals that could ruin its character, the city took it way too far here. The boundaries are just laughable and include areas which should absolutely be marked for high-rise development

 

[FormerTorontonianBackInTO]

I forgot cities are only good if you bulldoze everything and replace it with towers. Clearly Paris and London got it entirely wrong.

The reason this policy is a problem from a housing supply perspective is because we won't allow even gentle density in the majority of the city. If we slowly densified many neighbourhoods, we wouldn't need to just bulldoze every building in downtown to create more housing. It would be fine to have a midrise district in this area if we actually let housing be built elsewhere, but we don't so now we have this controversy. It's so damn frustrating.

Also, if you wanna understand what I mean about blank curtainwall and condo towers, just walk down Charles St E. The Casa triplets are a perfect example. Sadly the city does not have any control over building design so there is literally nothing we can do to force better pedestrian realms unless architects decide to actually care about that.

I agree with the need to add more density in the yellowbelt, and think that that much of the 'missing middle' talk recently started by the city actually fails to go far enough, as some of these neighborhoods, especially when near good (dedicated right of way) public transit should be converted to mid-rises (as opposed to 4 storey walk-ups), however, I respectfully disagree about the Casa buildings, as I feel that the Casa podiums, and the landscaping/site plans in front of those buildings, look much better than what much of what can be found in this city, and would take no issue if other NON-MIXED USE residential buildings came out looking that good at ground level (it's unfair to compare them to mixed use buildings with at grade retail and the natural variety/character/animation that can spring from that)....this does not mean that I would choose not to retain the heritage components of the buildings in the districts being discussed here (the ones that the new proposed zoning bylaw applies to), however, I would have no issue with Casa-like podiums/landscaping filling in the gaps, as I like the variety of the old mixed in with the new.

 

[WislaHD]

This is right - but what will happen is that every landowner or developer within this area will appeal the OPA and ZBL, those appeals will be consolidated and creep forward for half a decade, and will be settled eventually with tons of exceptions to the new rules. Plus there are already a dozen or more applications that would penetrate these new height limits, which new appellants will be able to point to as evidence that the new rules are not reasonable and that greater heights should be acceptable. So this will waste a huge amount of time and money from all parties and no one wins except the lawyers who will bill many millions of dollars to their clients. And who pays for all this delay and extra costs? End users, whether buyers or renters, in their cost of housing. Congratulations to the City of Toronto on worsening the affordability crisis at every turn.

Great post. A truth-bomb about City Planning to begin the Monday morning.

 

[WislaHD]

Since this project is now being developed by two separate proponents, the thread should probably be split, right?

 

[Northern Light]

This is the Site Plan application for the *remaining portion* for the original proposal.

The western portion of the site having been severed from the balance of the application.

No Docs up yet.

ADMIN NOTE: text between ** corrected

 

[EddyMCD]

Very excited for this area and the future Ontario Line stop.