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New Sustainable Community "Seaton" Moves Forward in Durham

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Just saw this on the website's frontpage: http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2014/04/new-sustainable-community-moves-forward-durham

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What is this about? First I've heard about it. :eek:
 
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Is it really? It's been in the works for a few years now, as far as I can recall.

It looks like it'll be quite the disaster though. I mean, the preservation of some of the greenspace there is well done and all, but I don't understand the seperation of "employment clusters" and residential. Does that not defeat the entire purpose of the exercise? That map isn't much to go by, sure, but it looks like more 20th century thinking with some greenspace preservation thrown in (sort of like Toronto's ravines, I suppose)
My parents own a farm near there and, yup, there goes the neighbourhood.
 
It seems like mankind has forgotten how to build sustainable communities, when all they need to do is look at some of our oldest neighbourhoods. I really don't get it.
 
"Sustainable" in suburban parlance means "lots of trees and shrubbery."

Is there any plan to have GO Train service?
 
I'm not sure about any official plans regarding the GO Train, but look at the map, and specifically at where the Havelock sub is in relation to the proposed development. Especially look at how far the employment clusters are from any potential train station. This whole Seaton escapade has '20th century rubbish' written all over it. Sort of like North Ajax, just down the road. Maybe the people will get lucky and said employment clusters will be Ajax-like big box parking lots. Nothing like meaningful part-time minimum wage employment.
 
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mjl08 said:
"Sustainable" in suburban parlance means "lots of trees and shrubbery."

Is there any plan to have GO Train service?
Click to expand...

How is Seaton any different than when, say, Springdale developed in Brampton (or Heart Lake for that matter)?

That said, what their premise is that it is sustainable because there will be sufficient employment within the development to provide work for the residents.....as soon as they ask for/seek GO trains are they not just acknowledging that this is just another suburban development.
 
TOareaFan said:
How is Seaton any different than when, say, Springdale developed in Brampton (or Heart Lake for that matter)?

That said, what their premise is that it is sustainable because there will be sufficient employment within the development to provide work for the residents.....as soon as they ask for/seek GO trains are they not just acknowledging that this is just another suburban development.
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Interesting point. If you look at Brampton, there are lots of greenspaces following the most inconsequential of tributaries of creeks and river in the newer sections. It's good for flood managment downstream and watercourse pollution, but these aren't great parklands and serve to spread out the otherwise dense post-1990 sprawl. One hundred years ago, these little watercourses would have been buried and built upon. Fifty-forty years ago, they would have been channelled into narrow corridors. Now they are built around with wide berths. Stormwater management ponds are also good for flood managment and surface water pollution control, but create lots of dead space.
 
Having done some work on urban river ecology, I believe that protecting the ravines is a very intelligent and indeed the more sustainable thing to do.

The 'community' being built at Seaton, however, looks anything but sustainable. For starters, they will force cyclists and pedestrians to cross or stand next to a large polluting highway to get to work.

A populous car-dependent settlement is by definition not a sustainable place.
 
mjl08 said:
"Sustainable" in suburban parlance means "lots of trees and shrubbery."

Is there any plan to have GO Train service?
Click to expand...

Compared to neighbourhoods like Cabbagetown or Queen West that were built to function without electricity, this development is a mean joke. using design, a house can keep cool and breezy during the summer without AC. In places like this, not only will everybody drive everywhere, but the crappy design of the housing will most likely require AC on any day after May 20th. good thing they're expanding Darlington nuclear plant.
 
ShonTron said:
Interesting point. If you look at Brampton, there are lots of greenspaces following the most inconsequential of tributaries of creeks and river in the newer sections. It's good for flood managment downstream and watercourse pollution, but these aren't great parklands and serve to spread out the otherwise dense post-1990 sprawl. One hundred years ago, these little watercourses would have been buried and built upon. Fifty-forty years ago, they would have been channelled into narrow corridors. Now they are built around with wide berths. Stormwater management ponds are also good for flood managment and surface water pollution control, but create lots of dead space.
Click to expand...

It's not even necessarily a "suburban" phenomena. Look at the original development plan of the Portlands and we can see the same predisposition towards discontinuous urban islands.

20120809portlands-comparision-to-original.jpg


Obviously green spaces are good, and storm management through maintenance of natural watercourses is as well, but surely the overall amount of green-space could be retained without creating this kind of urban discontinuity.

In this Seaton plan I can see at least 20 separate urban 'islands.' You'd think they could be consolidated into 2-4 larger communities and shifted south-east, creating a nucleus around Brock & Taunton, which would also integrate much better with any future rail service.
 
Looking at that map, the "urban islands" are the best thing about it. Or, I dare say, the only good thing about it....though, for it to make sense, each would have to be a self-supporting unit.
 
MTown said:
I'm not sure about any official plans regarding the GO Train, but look at the map, and specifically at where the Havelock sub is in relation to the proposed development. Especially look at how far the employment clusters are from any potential train station. This whole Seaton escapade has '20th century rubbish' written all over it. Sort of like North Ajax, just down the road. Maybe the people will get lucky and said employment clusters will be Ajax-like big box parking lots. Nothing like meaningful part-time minimum wage employment.
Click to expand...

You do remember back when the Harper won his majority and before DelMastro trumpeted long and loud about commuter service along the Havelock to service Peterborough...he spoke of it as a foregone conclusion...he was demanding it ahead of K-W service however that hasn't happenend...maybe there has been some muscle flexing between the Provs (MetroLinx/Go) and Feds (Via) re commuter service and the Feds lost...
 
MTown said:
Looking at that map, the "urban islands" are the best thing about it. Or, I dare say, the only good thing about it....though, for it to make sense, each would have to be a self-supporting unit.
Click to expand...

How can you ever have a truly self supporting area, though? The point of living in a city is exactly the opposite, to benefit from lots of different areas, all closely interconnected.

Look at how development works downtown. You have Queen West, then people start moving to Ossington, then gradually stuff along Dundas West. These things work because the areas aren't "self-supporting;" people go back and forth all the time.
 
diminutive said:
How can you ever have a truly self supporting area, though? The point of living in a city is exactly the opposite, to benefit from lots of different areas, all closely interconnected.

Look at how development works downtown. You have Queen West, then people start moving to Ossington, then gradually stuff along Dundas West. These things work because the areas aren't "self-supporting;" people go back and forth all the time.
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First, those areas in Toronto aren't purposely separated by bush. Second, I didn't mean that they had to be isolated from one another. I just don't see the point of having them completely separated from the employment lands like that. It's as if they're going for heavy industry....which still wouldn't make sense as it's all detached from the railroad.
 
MTown said:
First, those areas in Toronto aren't purposely separated by bush. Second, I didn't mean that they had to be isolated from one another. I just don't see the point of having them completely separated from the employment lands like that. It's as if they're going for heavy industry....which still wouldn't make sense as it's all detached from the railroad.
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Presumably some of the employment lands would be large scale warehouses/logistics. Not sure how much of it, but a lot of the suburban employment being built in the last few years seems to be that kind of stuff. Usually they like to build these next to highways. You see this in Brampton, Mississauga, Milton, Cambridge... probably will see it in North Oakville along the 407 too. They don't really fit into neighbourhoods very well, since they're very big, and have blank walls, and also have fairly low employment densities.

Presumably retail would be allowed in the residential sector. Not sure about offices. More small scale industry would probably be limited to the employment sector, even though I think it could be feasible to have at least some elsewhere. Honestly though, I still say that any development that happens in Seaton, no matter how dense and mixed use, will likely be auto centric, because it would still be relatively small, meaning there would be significant commuting between Seaton and surrounding areas in Pickering, Markham, Scarborough and Ajax, all of which are quite auto centric.
 
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