Toronto First Parliament Site | ?m | ?s

evandyk said:
I think they could make some more room for green space, but less dense?? You could build a beautiful park with Parliament Square and the Green P lot, then build as high as you want to the north, with a nice courtyard in the middle.
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That was pretty much the original plan right? Parliament Square Park, then a building on the Staples site?

The thing I don’t get about the density argument is that in the Distillery/Canary District right now, there are 11 buildings on the books or underway that will provide 5,746 units- and that doesn’t include whatever comes of the Foundry, East Bayfront or the Port Lands.

So how much more do we want/need?
 
That’s only about 10k people, over a fairly large area. The number sounds high but when you consider how much money is being invested in the subway and that Toronto needs to deliver about 30-50,000 units a year to meet demand.. putting 1/10th of one year of supply atop a generational transit investment isn’t nearly enough.
 
innsertnamehere said:
That’s only about 10k people, over a fairly large area. The number sounds high but when you consider how much money is being invested in the subway and that Toronto needs to deliver about 30-50,000 units a year to meet demand.. putting 1/10th of one year of supply atop a generational transit investment isn’t nearly enough.
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Some of those units could also include affordable units, preferably scattered around, instead of concentrated. Should have a mix of rental, condos, commercial, and maybe light industrial (auto repair?, bakeries, etc.)
 
jsmith77 said:
That was pretty much the original plan right? Parliament Square Park, then a building on the Staples site?

The thing I don’t get about the density argument is that in the Distillery/Canary District right now, there are 11 buildings on the books or underway that will provide 5,746 units- and that doesn’t include whatever comes of the Foundry, East Bayfront or the Port Lands.

So how much more do we want/need?
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Until the Ontario Line came along, the two sites (First Parliament to the south and Staples to the north) were quite separate. FP owned by the City and the Ontario Heritage Trust, the Staples (and now the Porsche dealer) owned by two separate private owners. All have been expropriated by Infrastructure Ontario. There were residential plans for the Staples site (but not the Porsche part) that were for a residential tower - See: https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/250-front-st-e-greenpark-homes-12-2x-46s-svn.17446/

The planning for the FP site was underway and the City had prepared but not yet approved a Heritage Interpretation Plan and a Master Plan for the site. The Master Plan included a larger park, a District Library and 'heritage centre' plus affordable housing. Though the horse has not only bolted but been run-over by a train, Wong-Tam is trying to have the City approve this at Council next week. (See: http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2021.MM36.23)
 
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ProjectEnd said:
KWT getting absolutely ratio'd in that thread is pretty wonderous.
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Unfortunately Twitter is an echo chamber. The people doing the ratio-ing aren’t the people voting, and those voters are very happy with the status quo.

What we need are provincial partners who make the connection between the lack of density/infill and unaffordability, as well as the driver behind people living farther and farther away from their families. Make it politically unpalatable to take the position that Councillor KWT is.
 
I definitely think the area needs a lot more density. But I'm also cognizant of how terrible this site of local and national heritage has been treated in the past, and want to ensure that the First Parliament is a heritage site worthy of its namesake. How this plays out with residential density, I'm not sure.
 
So put a plaque there. I really feel the lachrymose sentimentality over two brick houses that very temporarily housed our first parliament before the site hosted any number of different uses (including a number of highly toxic industrial concerns) is completely overplayed by those who'd rather not have tall buildings and shadows.
 
ProjectEnd said:
So put a plaque there. I really feel the lachrymose sentimentality over two brick houses that very temporarily housed our first parliament before the site hosted any number of different uses (including a number of highly toxic industrial concerns) is completely overplayed by those who'd rather not have tall buildings and shadows.
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True, though the proposed scheme felt rather pedestrian and is a bit of a waste of the site.

AoD
 
The site north of Front has minimal significance. South of Front: It seems like the two site plans (the city's and the province's) are not very different. The city wants smaller building footprints (which have nothing to do with archeology) and shorter heights.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1382861363433848837
 
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Not to pile on, but I mean, just ugh.

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ADRM said:
Not to pile on, but I mean, just ugh.

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So we desperately need housing and KWT thinks we can solve this, not by actually building it, but by playing some kind of expropriation shell game?

Honestly if this is the kind of serious thinking that the presenting councillors are putting into the use of this site, we really don’t need their johnny come lately pony show.
 
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