Toronto Pinnacle One Yonge | 345.5m | 105s | Pinnacle | Hariri Pontarini

I can't see how Olivia Chow had anything to do with Ten York and even if she was Mayor, what part would she play in a development application? There are tens of thousands of people on waiting lists for affordable housing in an increasingly expensive city, dedicating a few floors in each development would put a good dent in that list over the next few years if a policy was developed, adopted and implemented. And since when are all those waterfront condos ultra luxurious? Come on!

I don't know what her involvement was in 10 York and yet we have a picture of Chow sitting in a private living room celebrating a NIMBY victory!

Yes there are 10,000's of people on a waiting list for affordable housing but the answer is not to force developers of luxury condo's (and yes anything being built on the waterfront is most certainly high-end) to set aside a certain number of units for TCHC administered housing. I don't want to go too far off topic but I will say the affordable housing crisis is not only the result of a lack of new supply. The greater problem is available units are being snapped-up by people who are not long term residents of this city.
 
I don't know what her involvement was in 10 York and yet we have a picture of Chow sitting in a private living room celebrating a NIMBY victory!

I'd like to see this picture - if it exists
 
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Yes, there's a picture of Olivia Chow looking very merry with some other people, that's it. There's no source to the photo, and no indication of what sort of gathering they are attending. If that one random, unsourced photo posted to an internet forum is your basis for suggesting she is anti-development, or fears tall buildings, or is a NIMBy-lover, or whatever, then your accusations are unjust and probably untrue.
 
Yeah, my statements were definitely a bit much, I pretty much agree with most of what you say because I hadn't meant to be that definitive but you piqued me just enough to respond.

the natural terrain and the architecture can sometimes be separated

My understanding of the comment wasn't the architecture, but the skyline, which in my view is massively affected by the mountains.

Viewed from, say, North Vancouver, Vancouver’s skyline cannot match Seattle’s, and not by a very long shot in my humble opinion.

Well if you view Seattle's skyline from its least attractive angles and compare it to Vancouver's best, you could say the same.

Granville Street, with its bizarre critical mass of douchey bars and wasted teens from Surrey two nights a week doesn’t count in my opinion.

Well, then you are right, without the largest grouping of people on a street totally full of bars, clubs theatres and music venues, it is just dead. But I won't disagree about Coal harbour etc. That is for absentee Hong Kongers and rich retirees. Anyway, I made the contrast far too opposite and Seattle does have some action. In fact some areas only have people at night.

Still, not many condos exist in Seattle while many do in Vancouver. As for the overall feel, I do prefer Seattle precisely because it is less condoified and therefore sterile. It has lots of areas that are more like Commercial in Vancouver or Gastown before it went upscale.

Also, of course people commute in both places - the dichotomy was too harshly put - but the fact is the downtown of Seattle is mostly corporate and not much residential development is going on. If I can't say that Seattle has a lot of highways for its size and that more people commute there, I won't argue because it is futile. Go there and see for yourself.

The population of Vancouver was quite tiny back when that decision was made, and had no manufacturing base to be concerned about – it’s always easier to make a decision like that when the need to move a great deal of people and goods is non-existent.

Wrong, there was tons of manufacturing all along the water and one of the largest ports in NA with all kinds of tertiary activity. No back patting, just actual decision - just like the beaches and the Spadina expressway. The viaduct was put in place in opposition to popular opinion and was to be the start of the megahighway - it is now hopefully being demolished. The only reason that the traffic is bad is that transit hasn't expanded enough to compensate.

My wife, a born and bred Vancouverite, always points out how badly the views of the natural landscape have been compromised looking from say the south side of False Creek towards North Vancouver.

Yeah, I am pro-development. I think a balance has been struck. The guy I was arguing against wants no restrictions. Your wife, like many Vancouverites, wants only nature. I am in between, where the current policies are. Sure you can't see everything from Granville Island, but just go up to Broadway and there is plenty there - but there wouldn't be without the view cones.

I would still argue Seattle’s skyline far surpasses Vancouver’s.

I didn't say it wasn't better - I said it is about 1 million people better plus a huge corporate base better. I was just saying the comparison is not 1:1. Imagine Vancouver when there are 1 million more people, plus whatever people come in to Seattle from the exurbs and places like Burlington. With all the condos plus people I think it would be more impressive than Seattle, but my opinion only I suppose.

Last, as to your complaining about the architecture, a lot is bad but there is a lot that is good coming and built. Coal harbour has quite a few nice new condos, the convention centre and BC place are great, BIG is doing a condo near Burrard bridge, Georgia Hotel is fantastic, Shangri-la isn't bad, most of the new commercial buildings look like they will be great (MNP, Credite Swiss, Bentall 6, Telus Gardens etc.) Vancouver's Turn will be top notch, etc. etc. For a small city it does alright - maybe not as good as the "best place on earth" b.s. but not too, too bad either.

I also am sorry and won't take the thread off topic again. I suppose the relevant comparison to Toronto is the tapering strategy, and I think that is worthy of discussion, but mostly because I think it isn't the best strategy for Toronto and I think another approach to the livability of the downtown would be better. The only "view" that preserves is from the island, but perhaps it does preserve the neighbourhoods next the the downtown, such as is being discussed in the Mirvish thread. The 1 Yonge development - as Innsertnamehere has shown - would balance the CN tower and provide a fantastic contrast to the CBD.
 
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Without taking things too off topic (but Pinnacle is a Vancouver developer),
the scale of the skylines in Vancouver and Seattle are quite different.
Vancouver's tallest - Shangri-la - is 642 ft (we all know how it pokes out).
That can be put into perspective in this graphic of a 660 ft office tower just announced for Seattle.
(The Smith Tower is about the same height as One Wall Centre in Vancouver)
Note that there is a steep grade downhill towards the waterfront in the graphic.

2020190819.gif

http://seattletimes.com/html/businesstechnology/2020190814_fifthcolumbiaxml.html

Also see Amazon's office complex project proposed for South Lake Union - 3 x 38 storey towers.
The tallest office tower in Vancouver is 35-36 storeys.

http://seattletimes.com/html/techno...017856462_images_of_amazons_new_towers_s.html
 
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Most of us don't want to see Toronto turn into Vancouver. How Vancouver's citizens allow their councillors to bully them around by enforcing their ideas of what is aesthetically pleasing is beyond me (then again, we'd powerless to stop our councillors too were it not for the OMB - something I'm afraid the new premier might scrap). FYI, Seattle's skyline looks a hell of a lot better than Vancouver's. That just goes to show how ignorant, and narrow minded these councillors are.

People such as Wong-Tam opposing large development due to "shadowing" and obstruction of "view vistas" need to move to Vaughn. Last time I checked, cities with large skyscrapers actually had a tourism sector entirely based on their tall buildings.

Totally, let's instead allow big corporations to bully us and impose their idea of... good taste? Do they care?

And who are these 'most of us' you speak of? Most Torontonians don't like tall buildings, and most planners would rather see mid-rise than high-rise where possible.

You and others need to understand that when your arguments are based purely on selfish emotional grounds (e.g. X looks prettier than Y to me) they can't be used to go around insulting everyone else.

The fact is - and every planner I ever met agrees - Toronto is more likely to become a great liveable city for people of all ages and classes if we increase density through mid-rise buildings than through high-rise buildings. Therefore, when a high-rise is proposed, we must make sure that it will contribute to the well-being of Toronto's citizens before approving it.
 
fedplanner:



Nor does truncated buildings at a lesser density equate to poorer development necessarily. If the reductions of a few floors turned a project into a "bad" development there is something fundamentally wrong with the project itself.

AoD


I don't disagree. All I'm trying to say is that density isn't a bad thing. When I wrote that post, I was thinking about the tendency for city planning to chop off a few floors of a perfectly good development for NIMBY appeasement. As if something good is accomplished by reducing the original proposal by 10 to 15%.
 
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David Crombie - Toronto's tiny imperfect mayor - was a Conservative politician who did more damage to the development of downtown Toronto than any Mayor in history of this city when he imposed his 45 foot height bylaw. He stopped dead in its track the building boom that we saw in the late 60's and throughout the '70's that gave us the major buildings that even today define our skyline. Even with our current long running building boom nothing has been built to equal or surpass the buildings erected before David Crombie came along and killed things.

Uh, btw/ Ed Stone's FCP and Gehry's AGO or Alsop's OCAD, I'd reckon most sensible judges of such stuff would place the latter ahead of the former.

Not to deny the quality of TD, Commerce Court, et al; but, Peepers, your manner of gushing over said building boom really betrays your true archi/urban judgment colours--and may I say this: you're like a stunted little child--a stunted little child who never recovered from Mean Mr. Crombie taking your toys away; thus you resolved to never grow up, etc. And I can't help thinking of those certifiable types who want to rescue that poopsie-woopsie IKEA monkey from his animal-shelter prison and restore him to his rightful owner...
 
Yes, there's a picture of Olivia Chow looking very merry with some other people, that's it. There's no source to the photo, and no indication of what sort of gathering they are attending. If that one random, unsourced photo posted to an internet forum is your basis for suggesting she is anti-development, or fears tall buildings, or is a NIMBy-lover, or whatever, then your accusations are unjust and probably untrue.

Yeah, but in the eyes of those posting such pictures of Chow and McConnell and their fellow travellers, this is what they're like

A1G2JcTCAAArE8b.jpg
 
Really? What didn't you like about it? Built as is, it would be some of the most daring architecture in the city. I take it from the rest of your post that the height of the buildings isn't the problem. I'm expecting it to go in the opposite direction, that what we saw is a fantasy begging for some cost engineering.

urbantoronto-6917-22995.jpg



I like the height of the buildings. It's just that the rendering is incredibly simplistic. A drawing like that doesn't leave much room for inferring graces. There's traces of podiums, but whether that's a good thing or not is hard to tell.

Most of the towers look like they were just drawn up quickly as filler ideas. I don't much like the straight-up xerox of the Zaha Hadid tower forms, though I like that the drawing contains towers that are literally, outside the box. But mainly there is no facility here that add variety and interest to the site providing seductive space: A museum of Toronto, maybe? A perfect, medium size concert venue? Something more public and spacious and inviting than just streets run through and towers filling the envelopes. It's the foot of Yonge Street - and now with the condos filling the lot beside the dock, this is a chance to add something there to anchor the base of the street less anonymously than simply more towers. (I always secretly wished CN had built their tower at 1 Yonge, it would have made for a spacious, easy to reach base in the best location imaginable).

I'll just wait and see until more detailed plans and renderings come out. Until then, I'm not really complaining - just a bit hopeful.
 
Yeah, but in the eyes of those posting such pictures of Chow and McConnell and their fellow travellers, this is what they're like

A1G2JcTCAAArE8b.jpg

Haha. My purpose for posting the photos is to encourage Urban Torontoers to show up and speak their mind at public meetings. Far too often it's groups like YQNA that are the only ones that show up, which is a shame because their demographic is not representative of the larger community. (But by no means am I suggesting that NIMBYs don't have a right to be NIMBY's and have their voices heard. I just more YIMBYs were involved in the process, especially if it's good and responsible development.)
 
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Uh, btw/ Ed Stone's FCP and Gehry's AGO or Alsop's OCAD, I'd reckon most sensible judges of such stuff would place the latter ahead of the former.
..

That may be but the AGO and OCAD don't define our skyline which was the point that I was making. The point I was making is that the building's that define our skyline - even today - were built / conceived / approved before David Crombie came along with his 45 foot building height limit.

FCP, TD Centre, RBC Plaza, Commerce Court, CN Tower. What would our skyline be without these structures? It would be nothing!
 
If by "fixing the mess" means tearing down what works and replacing it with something that doesn't for the sake of profit and nothing else, I'd much rather they leave well enough alone and plan elsewhere.
 

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