SP!RE
°°°°°°
I think the new proposal (especially its podium) is as forgiving as you're going to find just off Yonge Street.
Toronto Nicholas Residences | ?m | 35s | Urban Capital | Core Architects
- Thread starter jaborandi
- Start date
egotrippin
Senior Member
Sadly though, the NIMBYs had a predetermined mental developmental barrier (I might trademark that term) and this development encroached upon it. Remember, it's 'Not in My Backyard'. If it's anywhere else, these modern day freedom fighters don't give a shi... damn.
greenleaf
Senior Member
The community meeting is this morning at City Hall at 10 am. Kyle Rae was on CBC this morning supporting the project.
The Condo Observer
Active Member
God, this is ugly. Another glass box dappled with cantilevered balconies...the dreaded cantilevered balconies yet again.
ganjavih
Senior Member
The peanut tower looks interesting, but I think the revised plan looks more appropriate for that area, even if it is another boring box. The peanut belongs at Yonge and Bloor.
greenleaf
Senior Member
City councillors approve condo tower for historic downtown street
Posted: October 13, 2009, 5:48 PM
By Allison Hanes, National Post
St. Nicholas Street, according to residents, is a beloved pedestrian corridor of Victorian row-houses, historic brick cottages and blooming front gardens – a cobbled oasis nestled between the hulking skyscrapers of Bay Street and the bustle of Yonge Street in Toronto’s core.
About three dozen people came to city hall today to plead for one of downtown’s last remaining low-rise streets to be spared from a high-rise development.
But Toronto and East York community council approved a 29-storey tower for the corner of St. Nicholas and St. Mary streets, reasoning the project had already been reduced from an original proposed height of 44 storeys.
Councillor Kyle Rae (Toronto Centre Rosedale) sported a “Save St. Nick†button even as he overruled local objections in an area slated for greater density.
“I think that this application has come a long way and is worthy of support today,†Mr. Rae said.
Neighbourhood residents, among them intellectuals and experts on architecture and planning, are vowing to take their fight to the next city council meeting, or even the Ontario Municipal Board.
“It’s clear that the entire community that will be affected by this new application is opposed to it and yet they didn’t even pay attention to any of the comments that we made today,†lamented Shawn Tracy, president of the Bay Corridor Community Association. “It speaks to the faulty process that residents have to try to work with here in the city of Toronto. The planning process is fundamentally flawed. That was in evidence today for all to see.â€
The opponents say they are not engaging in NIMBY-ism or trying to halt all development, but rather that they are trying to keep what’s left of Toronto’s urban character from being “smothered†by another modern tower.
Bernice Bradt tried in vain to sweet-talk members of Toronto and East York community council into chopping the tower down to size, baking a scale-model cake of the row houses, which she mounted with a Rice-Krispie square tower. She then took a large knife and sliced the high-rise down to 10-storeys, a height the local neighbourhood endorses, serving the confection to the councillors.
Another woman painted a scene of St. Nicholas Street, popular with shutterbug tourists, while another read a poem.
Myra Nan Rosenfeld, a Harvard-educated fellow at the University of Toronto who taught environmental design at Berkeley and worked at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, called Toronto’s planning process bureaucratic and backward.
In Toronto, incorporating a piece of an old building passes for heritage preservation, she said, while each proposed project is in isolation, rather than studying how a precinct will be developed.
“They’re not looking at the urban tissue. They’re not looking at buildings in the context of whole neighbourhoods,†said Ms. Rosenfeld, who now resides on nearby Wellesley Street, but has lived in Rome, Paris, New York, Boston and Montreal. “You have much more heritage that is saved in Montreal. Saving heritage is not part of the culture of Toronto. It’s very much business driven. Building is designed by computer. They decided how much they wanted to make.â€
Adam Brown, a lawyer for the developer 15 Saint Mary Inc., said the design has already been substantially scaled back.
The original peanut-shaped floor-plate was scrapped in favour of a square tower on a podium using a three-storey brick façade of the Planing Mill, a historic building that lacks heritage designation.
“It’s probably the lowest height new development that’s been done in this area,†Mr. Brown said. “This applicant has sort of gone to the nth degree in the hopes that people would be happy with it, but when you hear comments coming back saying go six to eight storeys, 10 maximum, in a mixed use area in close proximity to the Yonge and Bloor subway station, I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation for the site.’’
Posted: October 13, 2009, 5:48 PM
By Allison Hanes, National Post
St. Nicholas Street, according to residents, is a beloved pedestrian corridor of Victorian row-houses, historic brick cottages and blooming front gardens – a cobbled oasis nestled between the hulking skyscrapers of Bay Street and the bustle of Yonge Street in Toronto’s core.
About three dozen people came to city hall today to plead for one of downtown’s last remaining low-rise streets to be spared from a high-rise development.
But Toronto and East York community council approved a 29-storey tower for the corner of St. Nicholas and St. Mary streets, reasoning the project had already been reduced from an original proposed height of 44 storeys.
Councillor Kyle Rae (Toronto Centre Rosedale) sported a “Save St. Nick†button even as he overruled local objections in an area slated for greater density.
“I think that this application has come a long way and is worthy of support today,†Mr. Rae said.
Neighbourhood residents, among them intellectuals and experts on architecture and planning, are vowing to take their fight to the next city council meeting, or even the Ontario Municipal Board.
“It’s clear that the entire community that will be affected by this new application is opposed to it and yet they didn’t even pay attention to any of the comments that we made today,†lamented Shawn Tracy, president of the Bay Corridor Community Association. “It speaks to the faulty process that residents have to try to work with here in the city of Toronto. The planning process is fundamentally flawed. That was in evidence today for all to see.â€
The opponents say they are not engaging in NIMBY-ism or trying to halt all development, but rather that they are trying to keep what’s left of Toronto’s urban character from being “smothered†by another modern tower.
Bernice Bradt tried in vain to sweet-talk members of Toronto and East York community council into chopping the tower down to size, baking a scale-model cake of the row houses, which she mounted with a Rice-Krispie square tower. She then took a large knife and sliced the high-rise down to 10-storeys, a height the local neighbourhood endorses, serving the confection to the councillors.
Another woman painted a scene of St. Nicholas Street, popular with shutterbug tourists, while another read a poem.
Myra Nan Rosenfeld, a Harvard-educated fellow at the University of Toronto who taught environmental design at Berkeley and worked at the Canadian Centre for Architecture, called Toronto’s planning process bureaucratic and backward.
In Toronto, incorporating a piece of an old building passes for heritage preservation, she said, while each proposed project is in isolation, rather than studying how a precinct will be developed.
“They’re not looking at the urban tissue. They’re not looking at buildings in the context of whole neighbourhoods,†said Ms. Rosenfeld, who now resides on nearby Wellesley Street, but has lived in Rome, Paris, New York, Boston and Montreal. “You have much more heritage that is saved in Montreal. Saving heritage is not part of the culture of Toronto. It’s very much business driven. Building is designed by computer. They decided how much they wanted to make.â€
Adam Brown, a lawyer for the developer 15 Saint Mary Inc., said the design has already been substantially scaled back.
The original peanut-shaped floor-plate was scrapped in favour of a square tower on a podium using a three-storey brick façade of the Planing Mill, a historic building that lacks heritage designation.
“It’s probably the lowest height new development that’s been done in this area,†Mr. Brown said. “This applicant has sort of gone to the nth degree in the hopes that people would be happy with it, but when you hear comments coming back saying go six to eight storeys, 10 maximum, in a mixed use area in close proximity to the Yonge and Bloor subway station, I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation for the site.’’
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
It sounds like it was a real floor show there today. I should have waited outside of chambers to pass out Prozac, or perhaps some Pimozide.
casaguy
Senior Member
They fought a worthy fight. I hope in time they'll see that the tower only adds to the fabric of the street. (Well, probably not in our lifetime).
barrytron3030
Active Member
how is it that almost everyone here is satisfied with tearing down the heritage building? i'm moving to paris. well, no, i'm not, but high-rises aren't everything.
greenleaf
Senior Member
They will be keeping both of them.
barrytron3030
Active Member
sorry, i should have made reference to specific posts. it just seems that the general consensus on the forum was that the original design, in which the heritage structures were not incorporated, was the better design. quite frankly i don't think heritage preservation is nimbyism at all. height restrictions are a different matter.
casaguy
Senior Member
Councillors approve condo tower despite complaints
JENNIFER LEWINGTON
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Last updated on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009 2:51AM EDT
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
Over vocal complaints from local residents about "intensification gone awry," a proposed 28-storey condominium on a leafy downtown street of Victorian-era townhouses and nearby high-rises cleared a key hurdle at city hall yesterday.
After Toronto and East York community council gave lopsided approval for the high-rise, community activists vowed to take their fight to city council later this month, and possibly to the Ontario Municipal Board.
"We are not opposed to intensification, many of us live in towers, we live downtown," Shawn Tracy, president of the Bay Corridor Community Association, told reporters after the vote. "But you also need to have walkable, liveable communities. At present we have that because we have nice little side streets that have human-scale development."
The condominium project, at the corner of St. Nicholas and St. Mary Streets and a block from busy retail on Yonge Street, would replace a three-storey building that houses the Jesuit Graduate Faculty of Theology (Regis College).
That two block stretch of St. Nicholas is a tree-lined brick street of original and reproduction Victorian townhouses, with a 24-storey high rise immediately to the west, another 20-storey condo kitty-corner from the proposed project and lower-rise commercial buildings closer to Yonge Street.
The original proposal, a 44-storey glass tower 137 metres high, received no support from city planners, the local councillor or residents. But the project, now scaled down to 95 metres, fits with Toronto's official plan for increased density in mixed use areas, according to a report by city planners.
At yesterday's meeting, where about three dozen residents lined up in opposition, councillor Kyle Rae (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) praised city planners for doing "an excellent job of trying to capture what was significant to the residents all save but the height issue."
That was not the assessment of local residents, who fear the loss of a cozy neighbourhood of small side streets inside the high-rise corridors of Bay and Yonge.
"It's intensification gone awry," said Paul Farrelly, who lives in a nearby high-rise and expressed dismay that city officials said little about a new tower dominating 28 heritage buildings in the vicinity.
JENNIFER LEWINGTON
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Last updated on Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009 2:51AM EDT
CITY HALL BUREAU CHIEF
Over vocal complaints from local residents about "intensification gone awry," a proposed 28-storey condominium on a leafy downtown street of Victorian-era townhouses and nearby high-rises cleared a key hurdle at city hall yesterday.
After Toronto and East York community council gave lopsided approval for the high-rise, community activists vowed to take their fight to city council later this month, and possibly to the Ontario Municipal Board.
"We are not opposed to intensification, many of us live in towers, we live downtown," Shawn Tracy, president of the Bay Corridor Community Association, told reporters after the vote. "But you also need to have walkable, liveable communities. At present we have that because we have nice little side streets that have human-scale development."
The condominium project, at the corner of St. Nicholas and St. Mary Streets and a block from busy retail on Yonge Street, would replace a three-storey building that houses the Jesuit Graduate Faculty of Theology (Regis College).
That two block stretch of St. Nicholas is a tree-lined brick street of original and reproduction Victorian townhouses, with a 24-storey high rise immediately to the west, another 20-storey condo kitty-corner from the proposed project and lower-rise commercial buildings closer to Yonge Street.
The original proposal, a 44-storey glass tower 137 metres high, received no support from city planners, the local councillor or residents. But the project, now scaled down to 95 metres, fits with Toronto's official plan for increased density in mixed use areas, according to a report by city planners.
At yesterday's meeting, where about three dozen residents lined up in opposition, councillor Kyle Rae (Ward 27, Toronto Centre-Rosedale) praised city planners for doing "an excellent job of trying to capture what was significant to the residents all save but the height issue."
That was not the assessment of local residents, who fear the loss of a cozy neighbourhood of small side streets inside the high-rise corridors of Bay and Yonge.
"It's intensification gone awry," said Paul Farrelly, who lives in a nearby high-rise and expressed dismay that city officials said little about a new tower dominating 28 heritage buildings in the vicinity.
The hyperbole spewed regarding this one is something else.
If the Save St. Nick folks had been more realistic in their demands, maybe they could have gotten the height reduced to the same as the existing tower on St. Mary at St. Nick - but to ask for 10 storeys when there are 23 or 24 right across the street?
Come on... the City would be hard pressed to legally find a way to say 'no', and the OMB would have overturned it if they had. Anyone who believes otherwise needs a clearer pair of glasses.
42
If the Save St. Nick folks had been more realistic in their demands, maybe they could have gotten the height reduced to the same as the existing tower on St. Mary at St. Nick - but to ask for 10 storeys when there are 23 or 24 right across the street?
Come on... the City would be hard pressed to legally find a way to say 'no', and the OMB would have overturned it if they had. Anyone who believes otherwise needs a clearer pair of glasses.
42
What have cantilevers ever done to you? Do you find them intrinsically ugly? I do not believe that's a widely held position...
42
whatever
Senior Member
I'll second the nay to cantilevered balconies. They're uninviting, they're too shallow to be used practically, they lack privacy, they lack shelter, and they break up the facade of a building in a way that I find unappealing.