Toronto Canary Commons | 42.06m | 12s | DundeeKilmer | a—A

WislaHD · Oct 8, 2020

Ward8 said:
Kudos to the city on how this neighbourhood is shaping up. The only improvement, when looking forward to the Portlands, would be to make the lot sizes smaller, or at least more varied. This building is looking really good, but having so may lots this large gives the area a strange "soviet" feel. It sounds like I am complaining, but in this case it works well.

Indeed. That "soviet" feel is only saved by the excellent architecture in the neighourhood.

ROW of streets is way too large too, there should have been a healthy road diet.

evandyk · Oct 8, 2020

I don't mind the wide ROW as there is actually very little traffic on Front through there, and it moves slowly. The neighbourhood just needs more people living in it to keep the benches, splash pad and restaurant patios a little busier to give that ROW more life. A grocery store in the area would help too, to keep people in the neighbourhood for errands rather than driving elsewhere.

DKB · Oct 8, 2020

evandyk said:
I don't mind the wide ROW as there is actually very little traffic on Front through there, and it moves slowly. The neighbourhood just needs more people living in it to keep the benches, splash pad and restaurant patios a little busier to give that ROW more life. A grocery store in the area would help too, to keep people in the neighbourhood for errands rather than driving elsewhere.

As far as I know, a grocery store will be on the ground floor of this development

WislaHD · Oct 8, 2020

evandyk said:
I don't mind the wide ROW as there is actually very little traffic on Front through there, and it moves slowly. The neighbourhood just needs more people living in it to keep the benches, splash pad and restaurant patios a little busier to give that ROW more life. A grocery store in the area would help too, to keep people in the neighbourhood for errands rather than driving elsewhere.

Yeah it is an important reminder that even if the buildings in this district are approaching completion, the neighbourhood still very much is still "under development", as are nearby neighbourhoods which will also contribute to more active street life.

DavidCapizzano · Oct 8, 2020

I think the area needs to age in a little bit before I can really comment, but as Wisla mentioned it’s still pretty far off from being done yet alone starting to mature. The ROW is pretty wide but due to the generous tree plantings and almost universal use of Silva cells across the entire neighbour hood I’m confident in 25-35 years the trees will begin to develop quite the canopy. Hopefully this combined with the additional residents and the eventual bridging of this area with the distillery district will result in a good level of activity.

DSC · Oct 8, 2020

Ward8 said:
Kudos to the city on how this neighbourhood is shaping up. The only improvement, when looking forward to the Portlands, would be to make the lot sizes smaller, or at least more varied. This building is looking really good, but having so may lots this large gives the area a strange "soviet" feel. It sounds like I am complaining, but in this case it works well.

Though the City was certainly involved, most of the planning and block plans were done by Waterfront Toronto. It is certainly a great success and has lots of kudos to award!

One should also not forget the West Don Lands Committee ( a coalition of residents', business and civil society groups) that has been , and continues to be, active in planning for this area since 1997. (And WDLC continued work done earlier by a similar volunteer group who worked on Ataratiri - an earlier idea for the area. ) See: https://corktown.ca/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Corktown-News-Summer-2016-web.pdf