60 Paton Road (Nitta, ?s, ?)

[Northern Light]

Picking up on a couple of quotes from the Davenport Grade Separation thread:

Unless I'm mistaken, there's not really anything else planned to be built next to this stretch of rail corridor other than in the north-east quadrant of the diamond. There's also the commercial building on Wade at the very south end where the tracks are will be barely above current grade.

Likely something eventually coming to the former Skor Cash & Carry on Dupont (next to the new library/apartment building), though I have my doubts it would be a residential highrise. And probably the Nitta Gelatin factory too....but I think the City wants to keep that as employment lands, even leaving an employment buffer between them and the new seniors residence on Lansdowne (Though it seems like even they want to sell cash in to flip for residential construction - https://www.toronto.ca/city-governm...uidelines/official-plan/official-plan-review/ ).

Correct, @vic. Everything on the east side of the Barrie Line is E / Employment right down to Bloor. It's extremely difficult to change this (OPA231) and so few will try. The Skor C&C is also E / Employment and the parcel is too small to do anything with so I doubt we'll be seeing redevelopment there either. The first, tall, redevelopment we'll see will be the Value Village / Kingsett proposal down on Bloor.

From the Lobbyist Registry, we seen that McMillan LLP has been retained to lobby on this site, with an eye to MCR zoning.

Details for Subject Matter Registration: SM32983​

Decision(s) or issue(s) to be lobbied

Municipal Comprehensive Review, Zoning Application for conversion from employment use to mixed use at 60 Paton Road, Toronto, as owned by Nitta Gelatin NA

Aerial Pic:

Site Size: ~1.2ha/3 acres

Streetview:

Edit to add, that first building seems quite unremarkable today, and as though it would be no great loss.

But noticing than the original entrance is bricked up as are many of the windows, I wonder if the building once had a more charming appearance?

Couldn't easily find any historic photos.

 

[AlbertC]

The neighbours across the street on Paton along with nearby residents should be happy. The Nitta Gelatin plant stinks.

 

[vic]

The neighbours across the street on Paton along with nearby residents should be happy. The Nitta Gelatin plant stinks.

Literally stinks. Depending on the day, what they're doing, and which way the wind is blowing, it can be pretty awful.

Neighbours for an Odour-Free Nitta Facebook group (though it hasn't seen activity for a couple of years): https://www.facebook.com/groups/1511034805860687

 

[vic]

Photo of buses at the Lansdowne TTC yard, May 5 1972. You can see the Nitta (Then Canada Packers, I guess) building on the right.

https://flic.kr/p/LcGLy6

(Doesn't allow embedding, so link only)

May find some more images. Finding some fun stuff I hadn't seen before, but not necessarily relevant to this thread.

-Vic

 

[ProjectEnd]

It's so depressing to see the breadth of the electric bus network we had into the early '90s...

 

[smably]

Literally stinks. Depending on the day, what they're doing, and which way the wind is blowing, it can be pretty awful.

Bad smells and the occasional sulfuric acid fog.

 

[junctionist]

Bad smells and the occasional sulfuric acid fog.

Mixed-use density can be a great thing, but not in this form.

 

[concrete_and_light]

Rare case where the neighbourhood will maybe be supportive even if the ask is significant here lol. I live in the area too and the smell is quite noticeable at times (though it's weird, it doesn't exactly smell... that bad? but when you know what it is it makes it worse). I eat meat and obviously slaughterhouses gotta go somewhere and I moved into the neighbourhood so I don't really mind that much or complain about it, but I also wouldn't mind if that smell stopped being a thing haha.

That whole little pocket there has a lot of potential and with the opening up to the new multi-use trail and connection to the other side of the tracks it will become a lot more accessible. Hopefully we see something good here! I think maintaining employment lands in this area is good in general though and I hope they don't all become mixed use, but mixed use here would work. Hopefully we maintain some significant non-residential uses.

Having some residential back in here should hopefully also help animate and keep eyes and more of a presence on the multi-use trail at all hours of the day.