Queen's Park vista threatened by condo plan
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ista-threatened-by-condo-plan/article1403344/
Two towers on the Four Seasons hotel site would dramatically alter one of Toronto's most prized heritage viewscapes
John Lorinc
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
Published on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009 11:53PM EST
Last updated on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2009 2:42AM EST
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Queen's Park may soon be sporting a strange protrusion.
A proposal to replace the Four Seasons Hotel on Avenue Road with 48- and 44-storey condos has drawn howls of outrage from heritage advocates and even the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly because the new towers will poke up from the gables of the building, sullying the silhouette of one of Toronto's best-known landmarks.
“The development is going to have negative impact on the view of the legislative buildings,†Stephen Peters said yesterday, echoing statements he made at a public meeting earlier this fall.
The issue has everything to do with the views looking north on University Avenue toward Queen's Park, an enormously historic part of the downtown that was designed 150 years ago to frame a young province's new seat of government.
The current inhabitants of the legislature seem to have forgotten their history lessons. While provincial bureaucrats flagged the need to protect the heritage vistas around Queen's Park over a year ago, Ontario's Liberal government now appears unwilling to take steps to block the high-rise.
This has left heritage fans stumped and angry.
“It's just stupid,†said architectural preservation expert Catherine Nasmith.
She points out that capitals like Ottawa, Washington and most of Canada's provincial seats of government take steps to ensure that views of legislative buildings aren't compromised by competing development.
Recalling U.S. President Barack Obama's inaugural motorcade to Congress, she asks, “Could there ever be a condo building behind the Capitol? It's inconceivable.â€
The file rests with two ministers: Jim Watson of municipal affairs and housing, and Aileen Carroll, who holds the culture and heritage portfolio.
With the high-rise development application now before the Ontario Municipal Board, the two ministries missed an opportunity earlier this month to seek formal standing at a hearing set for March, citing as an excuse the city's vague policies for protecting heritage landscapes.
Ontario planning law, however, allows the government to trump the decisions of the OMB (a quasi-judicial body that vets municipal planning decisions), but the government rarely exercises that authority.
Ms. Carroll, in an interview yesterday, stressed that her ministry has no intention of getting involved in the hearing: “No, I am not going to seek standing at the OMB.â€
More than a year ago, however, Ms. Carroll's officials wrote to the city with their concerns about the towers' “negative impact†on the legislature's appearance. In response, the city and the province agreed to jointly commission a heritage impact assessment, which was completed last month but has not yet been made public.
The Globe and Mail has obtained a copy of the 104-page report, prepared by Archeological Services Inc. and Carleton University historian Herb Stovel, and delivered to Toronto Planning.
It recommends the city's planning rules be altered to protect historic view corridors, and urges the province to “take every appropriate action to protect the highest level of visual integrity of significant views of the Queen's Park cultural heritage landscape.â€
Ms. Carroll said she was not aware of the study.
Co-author Ron Williamson, an authority on the city's history, points out that the Four Seasons, built in the 1970s, also interfered with the view of the legislature, so repeating the mistake with a considerably higher structure makes little sense.
“Why on Earth would you not take every step you can not to worsen that viewshed if that was the intent of the city fathers?†says Mr. Williamson. “Other cities can get this right. Can't we?â€
But area councillor Kyle Rae says the condos won't be visible from College Street. Further south, he argues, University Avenue views of the legislature are already obscured by visual clutter.
The City of Toronto was a leader in view-corridor protection in the 1970s, forcing developers to respect vistas of historic structures such as St. James Cathedral. But those policies were whittled away, and are little more than discretionary guidelines in the 2006 official plan.
In late 2007, Menkes Developments came forward with the redevelopment plan requiring the demolition of the 31-storey hotel. The original plan, deemed unacceptable by city planners, called for 54- and 48-storey towers.
The fight echoes a recent battle to block a high-rise condo from being built at the south end of the Royal Ontario Museum. As in this case, heritage activists condemned the city and the museum for considering towers that diminish the symbolic importance of Queen's Park.
