Toronto Lower Don Lands Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

[Northern Light]

I was referring to the form they were proposing. It basically can't be done, even if we wanted to. Very little in the way of car light development is proceeding in North America. Cul De Sac Tempe is an example, and that still required concessions for emergency vehicle access.

What Smart Density is asking though is

a) Smaller ROWs that are within tolerance for Toronto Emergency Vehicles, or very close, but much less wide that WT has proposed here. That could be achieved if you lowered the height/density.

b) They are proposing some of the roads be car-free paths of travel instead, but generally with the same ROW between buildings, that's easy, we do that now in all our ravine parks where we require a 4M wide bike path for just that reason. It also needn't be asphalt, just drivable hardscape.

***

Pushing parking to the edges of the perimeter is a feasible choice, but to be cost-effective, particularly when working with a high water table, it will mean retaining some land for above-ground parking (likely as a garage, not surface parking, and hopefully with retail blended into the grade-level), but this will come at the expense of density on the site.

In general, and I'm not singling you out here, we have a lot of people at UT who have advocated for higher density and more height here, when the opening density was already high by global standards. If one wanted narrower, lower traffic roads, one would need less density and lower height.

That's how it works. It's just math; not ideology.

Yes, we can talk about single-point egress, but not on its own; if we do that, we must talk about comprehensive fire suppression systems. If we do that, we will drive up costs for lowrise buildings. I'm fine w/that, but I hear people advocating for design changes that put people's lives at risk if they aren't accompanied by other changes we don't currently require and that add costs.

Everything is a trade, and there are no 'free lunches'.

People here keep going on............"If only we could be like" In this case Utrecht. Great Utrecht's population density is 25% lower than Toronto's at ~3,600 per km2. So we should stop building tomorrow, and kick 25% of the people out; then housing will be affordable and we can build shorter buildings with narrower roads. Is that what everyone meant? LOL

Sorry for the rant, my patience is just tested by people who look at pretty pictures and don't read the text. (not picking on you on this point)

 

[afransen]

Thanks for taking the time to expand. I agree that folks here can talk out of both sides of their mouths, asking for very high density and smaller scale fine grain streets. The Portlands is probably not the best place to be planning a predominantly 4s lowrise neighourhood. It is something that we should be considering more in suburban TOCs.

Point access blocks are permitted in other countries with commensurate fire resistant design and materials. They would increase cost, but given the popularity of that style of development it seems the fact that it is used there is an indication that the overall trade-off is often favourable. The other benefit being it can provide larger, more livable family-sized units. I don't see how this would drive up costs for existing lowrise buildings that are permitted today, as the stricter standards apply to taller than lowrise structures with a single elevator core and stair.

It's worth noting that Utrecht is a small city in a larger urban area, and the density figure you note includes a substantial amount of agricultural land, more than Toronto's ravines/Rouge Park in terms of uninhabited space.

 

[rdaner]

So no one went to the open house?

 

[AlexBozikovic]

Here are drawings of Merwede (source) and the built portion of Villiers, each about 24ha. Spot the differences..

 

[ADRM]

 

[afransen]

 

[skycandy]

Someone is chomping at the bit…

 

[drum118]

What i saw on Thursday, the removable of the north plug will happen soon.

With the removal of the old Cherry St bridge, the existing break wall is still there as the break wall for the bridge was built after it in front of it. Very odd seeing no bridge there after all the years I have been around to see it.

 

[rdaner]

Does anyone know if there is a break wall between the Don Estuary spillway and the Shipping Channel?

 

[greenleaf]

What would the grid look like here if the east west cross street in the middle used the CN Tower as the view terminus from the corner of commissioners and Villiers Park st? Might be neat to have the street at an angle like that.

 

[afransen]

What would the grid look like here if the east west cross street in the middle used the CN Tower as the view terminus from the corner of commissioners and Villiers Park st? Might be neat to have the street at an angle like that.

Such a street would need to be diagonal across Villiers. Or maybe I don't understand what you mean. The sightline of the CN Tower beyond Cherry & Commissioners is parkland.

 

[DSC]

Does anyone know if there is a break wall between the Don Estuary spillway and the Shipping Channel?

There certainly used to be. I suspect it was lowered with the spillway but .....

 

[Northern Light]

Here are drawings of Merwede (source) and the built portion of Villiers, each about 24ha. Spot the differences..

View attachment 561243

View attachment 561245

Merwede has significantly shorter buildings and significantly fewer units on its 24ha, than the 20 developable hectares at Villiers.

This, in turn allows for less parking, less traffic and less issues with shadowing in Merwede, which in part, explains the greater emphasis on pedestrian-only spaces and narrower ROWs.

 

[just east of the creek]

There was an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail today, an opinion piece by Alex Bozikovic, re the planning to date re the Developement of Villiers Island.

The piece was critical of the process and results so far…..
“A plan for Villiers Island, located in the Port Lands just east of downtown, went to a public meeting on Thursday; it will go to Toronto City Council in June. The plan is a failure. It is supposed to maximize the delivery of housing; it will not. It could create a unique sense of place; it won’t do that either. Instead, it will deliver dull and regressive city-building with a focus on the car and indifferent public space.”

Anyone else read this piece? The author proposes a different strategy to the planning process.”City hall should stop this train. It should call for a design competition to develop a new holistic vision for the area. Villiers should be a test case for a future Toronto: a dense city where people move by bike and transit, punctuated by lanes and squares that shun cars in favour of people.”

It’s an extensive piece with much more detail. I was interested in how UT views the proposed plan as the city has shaped it to date?

 

[Undead]

Lol, I mean, the issue is not that anyone wants to build a car centric area here. It's that the City and Province can't get their sh*t together after so many years to build a simple surface LRT.