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Condos Are Destroying Art Galleries on Queen West
February 7th, 2013
By Benjamin Boles
Read More: http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/condos-are-destroying-art-galleries-on-queen-west
Toronto is about to lose several respected galleries so that yet another big shiny condo can be built. The Queen West buildings that currently house the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA), the Edward Day Gallery, the Clint Roesnisch Gallery, and the Mutt Animation Studio are slated to be torn down over the next year to make room for a new development. It's a depressingly familiar story in Toronto, but also throughout most major cities in the world (like Vancouver).
- Thanks to a perfect storm of falling crime rates, flocks of boomers and their children fleeing the suburbs for the glamour of the big city, and the popularity of real estate speculation, major metropolitan centres all over the world are booming. Like many North American cities, Toronto is fairly low density, so housing prices have skyrocketed due to lack of supply. This has encouraged a massive increase in the number of new condos going up over the past decade. These new developments tend to pop up in whatever neighbourhood has been recently declared trendy, and that pushes us cool kids away to the next area with cheap enough rent to suit the terminally unemployable. It also drives away the poorer immigrant communities that usually predate the art school kids, and that helps make us feel guilty about our own role in the process of gentrification.
- Some people are angry about this process, though. Very angry, actually. Specifically, the Ossington Community Association, who also have some problems with most of the other developments in the area. They're worried that the condo is replacing nice cultural stuff like art galleries, and that it will be too tall, resulting in shadows and lack of privacy for houses around the proposed building. They also don't like that it's not designed to be family friendly, since most of the units are only 700 square feet. Other problems include the lack of green space, no cross-ventilation in the units, and that there will be a driveway. Some of these complaints are obviously less convincing than others (they didn't respond to requests for further comment). What really comes through on the OCA blog post though, is the sense of frustration that they're not going to be able to stop any of this.
- You'd think the gallery owners themselves would share the outrage, but Clint Roesnisch doesn't seem nearly as riled up about losing the gallery space he's had for the past nine years. “Personally, I'm not against the development. I don't think a six storey (or whatever it is) condo building is evil like the OCA might think it is. I just don't think more condos are interesting. Certainly if the MOCCA were an amazing, historically important building then I would be upset and vocal, but it's not: it's a generic bullshit building from the 1970s.†He's also not so worried about the changing character of West Queen West. “Queen St West is done. It's unfortunate but it's also the same story of gentrification that has unfolded hundreds of times before. You already know that. My gallery has been here for nine years and this development is an opportunity for the gallery to change as the tenth anniversary approaches.â€
- “We can actually get good things out of higher density. It just has to be done right,†explains Councillor Mike Layton, whose ward the contested development falls in. As he explains to me, there is a process to help make sure that new buildings aren't going to ruin the neighbourhood around it, but there's not a lot that can be done about gentrification pushing the artists out of the areas they made trendy. "Much of that is just a matter of capitalism. This is one of the big reasons that when the city owns sites, we don't want to sell them. Now the current administration, on the other hand..."
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February 7th, 2013
By Benjamin Boles
Read More: http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/condos-are-destroying-art-galleries-on-queen-west
Toronto is about to lose several respected galleries so that yet another big shiny condo can be built. The Queen West buildings that currently house the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art (MOCCA), the Edward Day Gallery, the Clint Roesnisch Gallery, and the Mutt Animation Studio are slated to be torn down over the next year to make room for a new development. It's a depressingly familiar story in Toronto, but also throughout most major cities in the world (like Vancouver).
- Thanks to a perfect storm of falling crime rates, flocks of boomers and their children fleeing the suburbs for the glamour of the big city, and the popularity of real estate speculation, major metropolitan centres all over the world are booming. Like many North American cities, Toronto is fairly low density, so housing prices have skyrocketed due to lack of supply. This has encouraged a massive increase in the number of new condos going up over the past decade. These new developments tend to pop up in whatever neighbourhood has been recently declared trendy, and that pushes us cool kids away to the next area with cheap enough rent to suit the terminally unemployable. It also drives away the poorer immigrant communities that usually predate the art school kids, and that helps make us feel guilty about our own role in the process of gentrification.
- Some people are angry about this process, though. Very angry, actually. Specifically, the Ossington Community Association, who also have some problems with most of the other developments in the area. They're worried that the condo is replacing nice cultural stuff like art galleries, and that it will be too tall, resulting in shadows and lack of privacy for houses around the proposed building. They also don't like that it's not designed to be family friendly, since most of the units are only 700 square feet. Other problems include the lack of green space, no cross-ventilation in the units, and that there will be a driveway. Some of these complaints are obviously less convincing than others (they didn't respond to requests for further comment). What really comes through on the OCA blog post though, is the sense of frustration that they're not going to be able to stop any of this.
- You'd think the gallery owners themselves would share the outrage, but Clint Roesnisch doesn't seem nearly as riled up about losing the gallery space he's had for the past nine years. “Personally, I'm not against the development. I don't think a six storey (or whatever it is) condo building is evil like the OCA might think it is. I just don't think more condos are interesting. Certainly if the MOCCA were an amazing, historically important building then I would be upset and vocal, but it's not: it's a generic bullshit building from the 1970s.†He's also not so worried about the changing character of West Queen West. “Queen St West is done. It's unfortunate but it's also the same story of gentrification that has unfolded hundreds of times before. You already know that. My gallery has been here for nine years and this development is an opportunity for the gallery to change as the tenth anniversary approaches.â€
- “We can actually get good things out of higher density. It just has to be done right,†explains Councillor Mike Layton, whose ward the contested development falls in. As he explains to me, there is a process to help make sure that new buildings aren't going to ruin the neighbourhood around it, but there's not a lot that can be done about gentrification pushing the artists out of the areas they made trendy. "Much of that is just a matter of capitalism. This is one of the big reasons that when the city owns sites, we don't want to sell them. Now the current administration, on the other hand..."
.....