why don't they just change the damned rules so that the market can determine whether people will buy buildings adjacent to each other? wtf is this obsession with over planning all this stuff? has anyone been to new york or tokyo? toronto and vancouver treat podium point towers as a universal moral truth, to be protected by canon law and indoctrinated into the young as self-evident. just let developers build on their lots and if people don't buy because they want more light or whatever, the price will go down and other developers will choose to avoid it! same goes for parking and balconies - they should never be required! it's so hard for people in toronto and vancouver to see how hopelessly and unconsciously locked into their ideology they are.
in my opinions, building code for safety compliance and ensuring a building has ground floor retail where appropriate, these are pretty much the only things the city should worry about.