Toronto 505 University | 212.89m | 64s | Cartareal Corp | BDP Quadrangle

Northern Light said:
Now that was a quality rant! :)

Edit to add:

Collins Dictionary has a volume of usage trendline for the word:

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From: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/seminal
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Thanks for the chart. It doesn't break out the usage by sense, so I'm satisfied that the trend upwards in the 1950-1990 period simply reflects the enormous increase during that time of interest in and discussion of sex and reproduction. The Kinsey Report came out in 1953 and I probably don't need to say any more than that. Of course it doesn't control for the increased amount of material published either. Even a word dying out since the 1950s would likely show an uptrend simply because of the great increase in the sheer number of people and the number of words they publish. A plot of the raw number of instances of usage only tells us a little. Cheers.
 
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Builder: 1st Do No Harm said:
Thanks for the heads-up and link to your column. I appreciate your effort to save the building, but I fear you made few allies and many enemies by tying it in with a plea to tear down houses in residential neighbourhoods and replace them with mid-rise apartment buildings. Maybe you should have at least defined what you meant by mid-rise. If I had to guess, I'd say it meant taller than 6 storeys and fewer than 20, but others may have sensed something more like 12-25. I don't know. Anyway, replacing houses with anything will do nothing to relieve the shortage of housing, in much the same way that building freeways provides no long-term relief of road congestion, but simply causes cars to appear out of nowhere and clog them up in no time at all. Build a million apartments and word of it will reach millions of people across the country and around the world very quickly. A million-and-a-quarter of them will show up in person.
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...I doubt the object of opinion pieces is to make friends. They would be full on fluff and lacking of meaningful substance otherwise, IMO.

That said, I am not sure what this has to do with this has do with this proposal or the issues it raises here, outside of some weird way of waving around an axe to grind here.
 
UtakataNoAnnex said:
...I doubt the object of opinion pieces is to make friends. They would be full on fluff and lacking of meaningful substance otherwise, IMO.

That said, I am not sure what this has to do with this has do with this proposal or the issues it raises here, outside of some weird way of waving around an axe to grind here.
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I didn't say anything about making friends. I was talking about him gaining support for preserving this beautiful building. Anyone who's ever had a friend is likely to instinctively understand the distinction quite well.

That said, my reply directly concerned the column he wrote in The Globe & Mail on the 505 University proposal, to which he gave me a link. In a more general sense it had to do with residential real estate development in Toronto, and as such could hardly be more germane to the purpose of this site. I don't see what the reason for your reply was, aside from [reciprocal rancour removed, several months later]. Have a nice day.
 
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UtakataNoAnnex said:
...I doubt the object of opinion pieces is to make friends. They would be full on fluff and lacking of meaningful substance otherwise, IMO.
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Well...

I would argue the central point of any opinion piece is to persuade those reading it to adopt the opinion of the author.

That doesn't it require it to contain any sycophancy, or to have the central thesis muted; but it surely requires not engendering offense towards the author, or their point, by inflaming the reader; particularly if doing so isn't unavoidable as a
central facet of the argument being made.

I get @Builder: 1st Do No Harm 's contention here. He's not critiquing Alex as a person, nor even his central argument in the column, with which he clearly agrees; rather, he's arguing than in seeming to dismiss the value of something many of his readers will value (older SFH near downtown); that he may cause readers to become disinterested in his argument, or even alarmed; because given a choice between saving this tower, and their home, they'll choose their home and the tower be damned.

Builder is simply suggesting that the argument to save the tower on its architectural merits is sound and persuasive; and would be better made on its own, without risking the offense of others, whose support to save the tower may be required.

One can differ on the merits of Alex's secondary argument; or perhaps seek to finesse it to something that sounds a tad less radical; or you can endorse it without reservation. Either way, making that argument is likely to draw a negative reaction from many of the very same people are heritage advocates in this city , and whose voices are required here to achieve an aim.
 
Please know when to quit. No more on this tangent.

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This is the preservation equivalent of cramming for that Monday morning final on Sunday night. Yeah, it's a bit late, but as the saying goes...better late than never. Though 'demolition by neglect' is likely not a scenario for this building in this location, designation under the OHA is hardly a guarantee of this beauty's long-term preservation and demands that we all keep at least one eye on it for the foreseeable future.
 
Sazama said:
I wasn't initially a fan of building another tower on top of a pretty sharp existing office building, but the more I look at this, the more I like it. The design of the tower is very sharp, which goes way beyond facial resection (the developers could just raze it to the ground or opt for some cheap nasty facial resection). So I give this developer a big round of applause.
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All right, but let the developer find a less worthy building to knock down. Heaven knows one could be found somewhere on Univ. The Tata Building for instance.
 
Doppleganger said:
This is the preservation equivalent of cramming for that Monday morning final on Sunday night. Yeah, it's a bit late, but as the saying goes...better late than never. Though 'demolition by neglect' is likely not a scenario for this building in this location, designation under the OHA is hardly a guarantee of this beauty's long-term preservation and demands that we all keep at least one eye on it for the foreseeable future.
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I agree with every word of that.
 
The previous version of this submission, above, was appealed to OLT in October '23.

First CMC was conducted in February, next one is scheduled for Sept 16th, 2024, no Merit Hearing is yet scheduled.

While we wait:

Resubmission here w/the office component gone, its now 100% residential except for the retail at-grade.

@Paclo is flagged.

@HousingNowTO may wish to make note of this one, removal of office, close to transit, high density residential, certainly looks like an affordable housing ask to me.

Revised Site Plan:

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Renders in the new submission:

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1709900172065.png
 
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