Anyone else make it to the public open house tonight? I was there for the 6:30 presentation, and then the talk time afterwards.
The place was packed, and apparently was also packed for a mid-afternoon presentation as well.
The City presented first, with area Councillor Mark Grimes emphasizing that nothing comes until a GO station is built, then handing it off to Sabrina Salatino who is the planner in charge of the file. She mentioned the various studies underway in the area, and gave some time lines.
First Capital's first speaker was Jodi Shpigel, Senior Vice President of Planning for First Capital who gave a broad overview of the vision for the site and introduced those who'd be expanding upon the plans.
Next up was Alun Lloyd, a principal at BA Group, the transportation consultants, who explained what moves had gone into the site planning in regards to mobility for all modes, emphasizing the new relief road, the mutli-modal transit hub, and pedestrian porosity of the site. Very smart to start there so that people understood that the traffic management for the site and the existing neighbourhood is a prime concern.
Then it was on to Alfredo Caraballo, a principal at Allies and Morrison, who lead everyone through the architectural and public realm planning for the area, stressing that after taking into consideration the transportation concerns, especially the new GO Station, they planned the open space system first and then grouped buildings around it.
There were a couple of new renderings—nothing that deviated from the plans we've already seen, just a couple new angles really—and also presented a set of watercolour-type images of the area. He was pretty thorough with the programming ideas behind the three public squares, the major park, and the central galleria area. It looks like a plan is forming up to build a new major library at the centre of it all across the galleria from the central food market, which would likely mean the Humber Bay branch on Park Lawn north of the Queensway would close and move into it. (That would make a lot of people in my area unhappy: just add a new branch and don't close the old one. The current Humber Bay branch is tiny, but it's a close walk for the area north of the Queensway, and that should count for something.)
After Caraballo's talk, Salatino came back up and told everyone that there were displays around the room where they could speak to both City staff and the proponent's people, and plenty of opportunities to leave their comments on sheets set up on tables. We avoided, therefore, the dreaded mic line-up where people tend to prattle on, with a few monopolizing the time typically. With the comment sheets, everyone gets to leave messages, it's much better.
Most comments I saw were positive, (there were some "I love it"s), but other people are concerned with the density to varying degrees. At one point when I was speaking with Ms. Shpigel, someone who lives south of Lake Shore asked her how much it would cost for First Capital to go away. Hahahahahahahahaha. She was very diplomatic in response, but didn't give him any reason for illusions. I provided some counterpoint to his contentions that this would ruin the area, from which he declared that I must be, therefore, a supporter of Don Cherry. Honest to God. I believe I remained polite while explaining how that was the most bizarre conclusion that he could possibly come to and that it was actually backwards, that in my estimation—for example—a new transit hub for the area was the last thing a Don Cherry supporter would care about. Honest to God.
Other than with Mr. Logical Fallacy, it went impressively well.
42
The place was packed, and apparently was also packed for a mid-afternoon presentation as well.
The City presented first, with area Councillor Mark Grimes emphasizing that nothing comes until a GO station is built, then handing it off to Sabrina Salatino who is the planner in charge of the file. She mentioned the various studies underway in the area, and gave some time lines.
First Capital's first speaker was Jodi Shpigel, Senior Vice President of Planning for First Capital who gave a broad overview of the vision for the site and introduced those who'd be expanding upon the plans.
Next up was Alun Lloyd, a principal at BA Group, the transportation consultants, who explained what moves had gone into the site planning in regards to mobility for all modes, emphasizing the new relief road, the mutli-modal transit hub, and pedestrian porosity of the site. Very smart to start there so that people understood that the traffic management for the site and the existing neighbourhood is a prime concern.
Then it was on to Alfredo Caraballo, a principal at Allies and Morrison, who lead everyone through the architectural and public realm planning for the area, stressing that after taking into consideration the transportation concerns, especially the new GO Station, they planned the open space system first and then grouped buildings around it.
There were a couple of new renderings—nothing that deviated from the plans we've already seen, just a couple new angles really—and also presented a set of watercolour-type images of the area. He was pretty thorough with the programming ideas behind the three public squares, the major park, and the central galleria area. It looks like a plan is forming up to build a new major library at the centre of it all across the galleria from the central food market, which would likely mean the Humber Bay branch on Park Lawn north of the Queensway would close and move into it. (That would make a lot of people in my area unhappy: just add a new branch and don't close the old one. The current Humber Bay branch is tiny, but it's a close walk for the area north of the Queensway, and that should count for something.)
After Caraballo's talk, Salatino came back up and told everyone that there were displays around the room where they could speak to both City staff and the proponent's people, and plenty of opportunities to leave their comments on sheets set up on tables. We avoided, therefore, the dreaded mic line-up where people tend to prattle on, with a few monopolizing the time typically. With the comment sheets, everyone gets to leave messages, it's much better.
Most comments I saw were positive, (there were some "I love it"s), but other people are concerned with the density to varying degrees. At one point when I was speaking with Ms. Shpigel, someone who lives south of Lake Shore asked her how much it would cost for First Capital to go away. Hahahahahahahahaha. She was very diplomatic in response, but didn't give him any reason for illusions. I provided some counterpoint to his contentions that this would ruin the area, from which he declared that I must be, therefore, a supporter of Don Cherry. Honest to God. I believe I remained polite while explaining how that was the most bizarre conclusion that he could possibly come to and that it was actually backwards, that in my estimation—for example—a new transit hub for the area was the last thing a Don Cherry supporter would care about. Honest to God.
Other than with Mr. Logical Fallacy, it went impressively well.
42
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tgam/O4UTOMDYOFHK5JLNRERIBA4HPM.jpg)
