Toronto Yonge and Scollard | 167.5m | 49s | Cityzen | KPMB

Uptowner said:
Thank you for your usual thoughtful response. The site is lucky to have you. As for the specifics of this development, I’m not going to shift grounds but merely set some of what I wrote aside for the moment.


What is important for me is that the fact that 18 Yorkville was proposed at a time before 14 of our tallest 15 residential buildings had been built. Times were very different back in 2006 in Toronto as surely almost all of us know. What was being proposed back then was relatively limited for various reasons. I see nothing obliging or to delight in by being manacled to the products of our less prosperous and ambitious antecedents. Embrace the good that endures in them, but recognize the constraints they faced and understand they had no malice aforethought to condemn us to mediocrity. The past not being able to go taller should not mean that we have to go smaller.


If you dislike the the design of 1 Scollard inherently, or for how it impacts its surroundings, then that is one matter. But surely it would be absurd to let the fact that a previous developer, making a proposal a decade ago, couldn’t attract enough capital to build taller, and make more money, hold us back now. I believe we believe we are better than that even if change is scary to some. (This is not meant to sound patronizing, and I don’t take it to be an accurate summary of the thoughtful reasons one might oppose the current form of this project. Finally, it obviously in no way could conceivably apply to you personally, i42. I very much appreciate your contributions.)


Synopsis: Whatever reason there may be to object to this project I hope, for the love of all that is good on this beautiful planet of ours, the fact that neighbouring 18 Yorkville is only 115m tall should not be a definitive argument against it.
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I don't think there is one person that doesn't like 1 Scollard. The proposed height is also the least of the worries. It's the density. Few sites are this small that force a small floor plate to achieve density. Imagine 21 Scollard being replaced with a 60 storey, spandrel slab with 1200+ units. That's a possible outcome by allowing this insane amount of density here. The ownership structure is a turn off for developers but, neither is a condo corp closed to redevelopment.
 
Ramako said:
Read my post again. I never said that there shouldn't be rules. I was speaking specifically about height (not density or setback rules, which would still apply), and only within a defined "downtown" zone, not a suburban area full of single family homes.
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How do you design a city, province, nation without defined borders?
 
To Maestro,

Claim: I don't think there is one person that doesn't like 1 Scollard.

Response: I'll just take your word for the fact that there is virtually no one that doesn't like 1 Scollard despite the UT report on the meeting. Or maybe you are saying everyone likes it but just not here. That strikes me as rather irrelevant, however, as almost any project we see can be likable enough if you scour sites for an appropriate context. Almost everything proposed would be an improvement on some forlorn section of the city.


Claim: The proposed height is also the least of the worries.

Response: Again, I think it is clear the city strongly advocates a tapering policy and I think height is important to quite a few people, including some on this board. I suppose this isn't central to what you want to say, though.


Claim: It's the density. Few sites are this small that force a small floor plate to achieve density.

Response: I’m not sure I understand the second sentence. Do you mean few small floorplates are this dense? If so, I agree. Unless we have across the board uniformity in density then there will always be, by definition, somes projects near upper and lower bounds of what has been approved. As context, conditions and capabilities change I also want developers to continue to explore a broad spectrum of possibilities.


Point: Imagine 21 Scollard being replaced with a 60 storey, spandrel slab with 1200+ units.

Counterpoint: If you sextuple the number of units in perhaps any proposal I have ever seen, without increasing the floor plate or height, I guess I would oppose it. Saying someone might make such a proposal does not persuade me of anything other than some people are quite...imaginative.

Claim: That's a possible outcome by allowing this insane amount of density here. The ownership structure is a turn off for developers but, neither is a condo corp closed to redevelopment.

Response: That would be subject to planning approval wouldn't it? If there is a new proposal I would want to evaluate it on its own merits/demerits.
 
New new page story outlines changes here! Database file updated too. Have fun.

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Uptowner said:
Yet again I feel compelled to register my displeasure over the approach to sculpting a skyline peak in some formulaic manner. Unless you are planning on constructing a giant ski run starting at the top of The One and running over top of every other building to this one, then I don't get the maniacal obsession with some gradual slope. There seems to be a contingent of people at city hall that think this approach almost necessarily yields objectively more aesthetic results.

I think many, like me, find it boring and stifling both for the collective imagination and results on the ground. We also realise it is objectively stultifying to developers' creative potential. All this for the mere sake of demanding they genuflect to a bureaucratic process teeming with individuals who, no doubt, could give you no good reason for defending the "Monotonically Declining Height Theory of City Building" than "it says it is good on the paper they gave me." If that is your mentality, then don't be surprised if walking around ten city blocks of your end product generates no more excitment than reading through 10 pages of ticked boxes.
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+1000

interchange42 said:
Of course planners are trying to codify what happens "organically". That's why we have planners. And the reason for tapering the skyline is not because they fetishize neatly sloping skylines nor to annoy those who fetishize irregular ones…

it's to have an orderly decrease in heights from dense areas down to less dense areas. Every high tower that pushes beyond areas zoned for them creates further headaches for Planning for the next applications.

I'm not saying that every application should follow current zoning, and in fact because our zoning is out-of-date, developers typically cannot, but the thoughts expressed above on skylines have nothing to do with the reasons that the height peaks and ridges have been established.

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Ramako said:
I still don't understand why "an orderly decrease in heights from dense areas down to less dense areas" is an inherent planning virtue. Let's draw a boundary around what we define as "downtown" and say go as high as you want (subject to density, setback and shadowing rules) if you're within that boundary. If you're beyond that line, a different rule applies. Aside from the notion that there must be some kind of gradual build up in heights, I don't see why a tall tower isn't otherwise suitable at this location (leaving aside the issues of density, setbacks, etc.).

And inevitably these rules will be broken in the future as the city continues to grow and intensify, which will makes these height limits seem arbitrary in retrospect. You have Theatre Park being shaved from 165 metres to 157 metres because of a tapering policy, then suddenly two 300 metre towers get approved one block to the west, making that entire effort seem incredibly short sighted and pointless. And I know that Mirvish Gehry was a unique circumstance, but that's my point exactly - over time new circumstances arise and what was once considered the traditional height ridge will change over time. Why are we fighting it?
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I am pretty sure that 40 years from now we are going to look at city planning's obsession with height and density in the same way that we look at 1960s city-planning's obsession with separation of uses: as an inane, baseless assumption that causes more harm than good to city building and wastes tens of thousands of man-hours on unjustifiable bureaucracy in the process.

I've heard a phrase for this city-planning mindset where they play SimCity as though Toronto will freeze itself once every parking lot has been developed and then teleport itself into a snow globe: "modelitis."
 
The site as it is right now - a friend of mine lives in 21 Scollard - this is gonna tower over that.

The edge of the pop-out at the back will be less than 10m from their living room window.

20171005_071914.jpg
 
Biggest loss is the park, for me. The height is a shame but it's still a beautiful looking tower.
 
ChesterCopperpot said:
The site as it is right now - a friend of mine lives in 21 Scollard - this is gonna tower over that.

The edge of the pop-out at the back will be less than 10m from their living room window.

20171005_071914.jpg
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Hmm. Although they have an east view now, it's not much of one.

21Scollard.jpg


Looks like they have north or south facing windows too I assume?

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Not much of a north one. Unless you enjoy looking at the Masonic Temple every day (which I wouldn't mind).
 
From the last GYRA newsletter

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