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Hume shoots down Port Royal Place

I agree with Alchemis. I like Port Royal Place for many reasons. First, they are predominately brick construction and brick is a quality material that seems to stand the test of time. Second, the buildings are constructed of two tone brick that I find gives them a sense of depth. Third, each tower is unique in its own way. The first is low rise and longer, the second is tall and narrower and the third is stepped back being that the first five or so floors cover its space and then the building continues up indented. Fourth, their is a masonry flourish at about the third floor that is common to all three thus uniting them. Fifth, the first building has a subtle yet noticeable entrance on one corner. The other two are joined by a common entrance. Sixth, they take up no more space than that which they are constructed upon. A narrow drive leads up to them. They frame what according to the builder will be approximately two acre park that will be done to the nines....something the area really requires. As for comments about integrating them with the street pattern.....they are abutted against some of the grimmest Ontario Housing complexes in the city. It would have been impossible to grid streets to connect those monstrosities....behind the Ont. Housing buildings are an elevated park built over the parking entrances to said Ont. Housing and a swimming pool belonging to it as well. Any other space behind Port Royal is taken up by lanes to behind building parking for Ont. Hsg. You can't grid a street pattern to create a village over a pool. Port Royal is located on the east side of Michael Power Place. This is a new street that has yet to even be assumed by the City. The street does create some connection. I can now drive down it from Dundas and hang a right onto Ressurrection and then find myself at Bloor and Res. in front of the Police Station .....able to go right or left on Bloor....something that only existed at Islington and Bloor and not even at Kipling and Bloor. The connection with the Food Basics Development is not the fault of Port Royal as it exists only on the east side of Michael Power...it is the fault of the townhouses and whatever else is going in there. Again I really like the Port Royal complex and I think it will be a beautiful framework to the new park....they have done lots of landscaping and I think when it matures ...the area will certainly look rejuvenated....Now if only the owner of those god awful towers at Dundas and Mabelle were ordered to do some cosmetic work....
 
I didn't realize you could access Bloor from Michael Power via another road (probably though the townhouse development.)

I do dislike the townhome development - Poorly designed suburban crap, IMO
 
Ceaz:
Firstly, the street grid could have been better. Why doesn't Michael Power Place continue all the way from Dundas to Bloor instead of ending at a foot path? Why doesn't Resurrection Rd. continue all the way from Bloor all the way to Dundas? These are not traditional street grids. They resemble suburban subdivision streets intended to discourage through traffic.

Secondly, I'm not sure about this, but I believe that there are several wide-enough gaps between the Mabelle buildings to accommodate a street connection with Port Royal. I'll check this the next time I'm there. I suspect that the developers (and the condo purchasers) prefer to turn their backs to the lously Mabelle buildings. It's understandable but the solution really lies in integrating the buildings with the neighbouring communities not isolating them.

Thirdly, I'm sure the park will be great and much appreciated. My complaint lies with its placement. The condo buildings should have fronted onto Dundas allowing the commercial streetscape of Islington Village to extend westwards. (Perhaps this is unrealistic but I would have allowed the neighbouring highrises on Dundas to build out one or two storey commercial components on the strip between the sidewalk and the buildings themselves.) In its current location, the park will create a gap in the streetscape which, at night, will discourage pedestrian traffic. Furthermore, had the park been placed behind the condo buildings, it would have been insulated from the traffic noise of Dundas.

Fourthly, the lack of street integration between the Bloorwood townhouses (which in themselves I rather admire)and the neighbouring Food Basics development is a significant planning oversight. As Hume inferred, each of these three developments (Port Royal, Bloorwood and Food Basics) has been planned in isolation to one another.

I'm sure that these developments, once completed, will improve the community but the planning could have been better.
 
Borgos:

I appreciate your viewpoint, however let me address some of the points you bring up.

1) Michael Power ends at a footpath/park partially due to elevation. There are two bridges at that point on Bloor....one for the subway and the other for GO/CP type trains. It would make for an extremely dangerous corner if vehicles were required to be out in the sunshine on the east side of these bridges (read: blinded) and then enter a darkened area under the bridges and see and immediately stop for a traffic light to allow traffic on Michael Power to turn left or right. Also that area is quite elevated up an embankment. It would create a blind approach for cars going south on Michael Power and turning with their light. There would be absolutely no way of seeing if traffic was aware and stopping for the red when coming from the east and stopping under a bridge.

2) Have a look at the buildings of Port Royal already completed and you will see that there is NO space to build a roadway where the currently constructed buildings of the project are situated. This is not the fault of Port Royal. The buildings on Mabelle have behind them their inground swimming pool (actually built more half in and half out of the ground and a terraced park (second level) built over their underground parking and parking entrances. Again Port Royal cannot be evaluated based on mistakes made by other developments many years ago. You can't integrate through a pool.

3) As for the park. The entire Dundas edge of the park is not going to be all park. The current sales office will become a large gazebo on the corner of Michael Power and Dundas. Other interesting treatments of that edge are also promised. If you check out the site plan you will note that the park does not abut the entire Dundas strip. Between the Ontario Housing Bldg. on Dundas and the parking lot of the sales office......this isa lot slated for further development. Therefore, only a small stretch of Dundas will have parkland abutting it and what will have it will not just be grass or fence.


4) To answer the point of Port Royal, Bloorwood and Food Basics be isolated from one another. Hume was not evaluating Bloorwood or Food Basics. He was assessing the project called Port Royal. The street grid tying Bloorwood to Food Basics is a Bloorwood/Food Basics issue and something he may include in their evaluation. It is akin to having your child given a C- in school because the two students beside her are somehow fighting each other and not doing their jobs. If what you say is true in this regard, their is an enormous credibility issue to be addressed with respect to Hume as his assessments would have no validity.

In short, I reiterate that Hume's enormous shoulder chip for Etobicoke is not allowing him to either honestly or intelligently evaluate projects in this part of the city. His credibility is questionable and his motives contemptuous.
 
Ceas, thanks for your insight. Do you have an inside track to info? My responses (corresponding to your comments above) follow:

1. I understand that the difference in elevation precluded Michael Power from exiting onto Bloor. My point is that there should have been one north/south roadway currently where Resurrection meets Bloor, connecting Bloor directly to Dundas.

2. I know there is no room NOW to build a roadway between the already built PR buildings. My point is that the placement of the buildings should have been determined AFTER the street grid was laid out and connected to Mabelle. The developers put the cart before the horse, placing the buildings on the property first in order to maximize allowable density and then pencilling in the roadways.

3. I'm excited about the park as described. I hope that it turns out as anticipated. Where did you get this information? I'm aware of the other condo going up on Dundas (Bloorwood). It's quite an appealing building designed by Core. I'm becoming increasingly concerned, though, that the delay may mean something's up. Do you have any news?

4. My point about the lack of connectivity among Port Royal, Bloorwood and Food Basics is more a criticism of the planning process than a denunciation of Port Royal. The planners must have been aware that all three properties would soon be developed. Why not ensure that the planning for all three properties take place contemporaniously. Isn't that what they're doing for the Fort York neighbourhood?

5. As for Hume, I think you're too harsh. Give the guy credit for provoking insightful discourse on planning and architectural matters.
 
Bottom line: if Hume was given total control over city planning, we'd be living in a better city.
 
^A drab city with little neignbourhood distinction all for the sake of one's view of urbanity - no thanks. I like the options of the resort style condos in Humber Bay Shores to the highrise subdivision of Port Royal Place to the downtown offerings of Mozo.

Anyways, as long as large scale condo projects continue to offer the amenities currently offered it really doesn't matter what form they comes in - in essence they're nothing more than a stacked gated community.
 
Sorry I'm just getting back now, Borgos...was away all weekend. Thanks for keeping up this thread, I'm really enjoying exchanging thoughts with you. I agree that municipal planning issues are more the reason for this continuing discussion than Port Royal itself. Let me respond to your five points.

1) Though anything can change, as it stands now there is no stoplight or stopsign at the corner of Michael Power and Resurrection. It is used as a through street between Bloor and Dundas...albeit one with two curves in it. It acts as one continuous roadway and I would think that it is up to people's perception more than anything on how it is used. I can't see levelling Queen's Park or Upper Canada College to straighten out University Avenue or Avenue Road.

2) Your second point, I believe missed what I was pointing out about the buildings on Mabelle Ave. Directly behind the shorter of the Port Royal buildings is a swimming pool and a terraced 2nd level park above an underground parking garage and its entrances. These belong to the Mabelle buildings...not Port Royal....and the Mabelle buildings were constructed in the 1960's. Take a walk behind the Mabelle buildings and you'll see (besides drug deals) that these buildings wre built to isolate and shield themselves from the field of the former Michael Power High School that stood on the Port Royal site. In fairness to the Mabelle buildings, they were built at a time when no one probably knew that the high school was to be rebuilt somewhere else and the former school subsequently torn down. The inability to construct a street grid through the Mabelle buildings through Port Royal was created upon a very different landscape that existed 30 years ago. Again, the street grid issue is not one that could have been addressed by the Port Royal development.

3) I have written about the Bloorwood condo before. The townhouses have been a financial struggle to complete. Many tradespeople have abandoned them (as you may see by how long it is taking to complete them). The builder will not, if he is still able to, build until the townhomes are completed and sold. This is from a conversation I had with the site manager.

4) There is a street in front of Food Basics that joins Bloor and Dundas. I didn't mention it because only right turns may be made when heading south on it and, I believe though I'd have to check, that when heading east on Bloor it is impossible to make a left turn onto it. It is between the Food Basics development and the spired building planned for the six points corner where the gold building (housing Bert and Ernie's) was torn down. Not every neighbour needs nor should have a street between them. It would make for a very torn up city. Sometimes, good fences make good neighbours. As for contemporaneous planning, isn't that one of the biggest basis for discussion on this website (e.g. OMB or will the city ever approve it?)

5) As for Christopher Hume, I have no problem with provoking insightful discourse. That is what I think we have been engaging in....and I have really enjoyed it. My problems with Hume's credibility is criticism with no meat on the bones thrown out. Don't attack and then not back up. Intelligent discourse would have him say exactly what's wrong and how improvements can be made. His comments were about a large former borough/city. Ironically, he said everything in Etobicoke from the Lakeshore to Dundas was horrible, yet he recently praised "the pioneers" of the townhomes on Lakeshore around (I believe Tenth St.). If he checked his streetmap, those pioneers live in Etobicoke. I just question if the old guy is getting a little bored with his job or just losing it.
 
I just question if the old guy is getting a little bored with his job or just losing it.
Click to expand...
I took a night-school course that Christopher Hume taught at U of T last winter. He regularly would tell us that the condo reviews were the bane of his existence and that he really wished he didn't have to do them. In a way I can understand. It's not as if we have enough worthy condos being built in this city to warrant a review a week, but perhaps that's exactly why the Toronto Star is making him do it.
 
Given how crappy most of the reviewed condos are, I would call them bane of my existence too LOL

GB
 
I've been told that the Bloorwood condo building breaks ground in the spring (was supposed to be January).
 
I haven't spoken to the site manager since before the holidays...if what you say is gospel, Borgos...that's great news.
 
The 61 bloorwood townhomes are now done and the bloorwood condo building as not yet been built...builder went bankrupt. Port Royal has erected 5 buildings out of a total of 8 and the food basics site is working on building # 2 ( out of 4 total)
 
^ And they are belatedly getting around to building the park, which will unfortunately face directly on Dundas, occupying the space that could have been a good streetscape.
 
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