Toronto Waterlink at Pier 27 | 43.89m | 14s | Cityzen | a—A

Group hug time?

Just maybe. It looks we've come to at least a rough consensus on this one, even if we don't agree on the nitty-gritty little things about potential uses.

(Am I privy?, US)
 
Still, that little scamp unimaginative2 really did say, "this massive site should be carved up into dozens of lots" - which to me means a minimum of 24, no?

Ahh...it's looking like dictionary time again. Note that there is a very, very large difference between lots and blocks. Also, where I said dozens of lots, later in the same sentence I also said "several blocks."

There's something beyond the naif - more like totally blonde airhead - in his, "I'll just get on the blower and ask the Aga Kahn if he'll agree to loan us his cultural project for our site if he'll spare the life of the Bata ..." approach to city building. As if the world works like that, duh.

What on earth is wrong with a land swap? Governments arrange it all the time, whether it's between developers who were given land in Seaton in order to spare the Oak Ridges Moraine, or the AGO and OCAD which were to swap land to get more room for expansion.

Do you think that if the Mayor or Premier called up the Aga Khan organization and offered them a prime waterfront site for their museum that they would shriek into the phone "No! Absolutely not! Don Mills was our initial site and we will not consider any other! Now, don't you ever call us again!"?

Going back into Toronto's history, it's well worth noting that all of Toronto's most successful neighbourhoods, the urban core of the city, were created through the division of the Park Lots north of Queen Street andn the military reserve into a large number of much smaller lots which were then individually developed.
 
When Amsterdam's former portlands were looking not unlike ours do right now, a restaurant was located out there among nothing bus abandoned warehouses appropriately named "The End of the World". It was a popular place, and people would make the trek to dine by the water in an otherwise completely derelict area.

Unfortunately, Toronto's had a vulgarized version of that phenomenon, called the Docks.

Oh, re Harbour Square, I guess the problem is this: it wouldn't matter if it were Brutalist or PoMo. (And if it were the latter, it'd be an Atlantic City casino.)
 
Let's remember this tidbit:

Cool project' or another affront on waterfront?
Angry councillors say their hands tied as 5 buildings slated for foot of Yonge St.
Paul Moloney
Jim Byers
City hall bureau
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/213182

One of the last prime pieces of waterfront real estate in Toronto is about to get the condominium treatment.

The former Marine Terminal 27 site at the foot of Yonge St. is poised to see construction begin on a project the developers hope will eventually total five buildings with 1,500 to 2,000 units.

City councillors are angry about the idea but say it appears there's little they can do to protect one of the last undeveloped parcels on what's supposed to be a jewel-like waterfront. The land is currently a parking lot.

"It's definitely a problem because it continues with the high rises near the water's edge," said Deputy Mayor Joe Pantalone. "But I don't think there's much we can do. We might be able to change a little but we can't affect the density."

Councillor Brian Ashton, chair of council's planning and growth management committee, agreed the city's options are limited. "I don't think city council would find that appropriate, but I don't know what can be done. The last thing people want is a huge curtain of condos near the lake."

But John Campbell, president of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp., said that won't be the case. "It's not a wall of condos. It's not reminiscent of some of the prevailing waterfront projects that people point to as bad examples."

"Obviously, I'm biased, but I think it's a really cool project," said architect Peter Clewes of Architects Alliance. "If it sells well – which I think it will because it's an extraordinary property – they would start construction very quickly."

A sales centre is to go up soon, with marketing to start early this summer and construction of the first phase over the next 2 1/2 years, Clewes said.

The first phase, totalling 477 units, consists of:

# Two 12-storey buildings connected by a two-storey bridge on top, on the Yonge St. side of the property, beside Captain John's restaurant.

# A 14-storey building running alongside the Redpath sugar refinery on the east side of the site, basically from the water to Queens Quay. The building would have condos overlooking downtown.

"We actually want to do a lower building, but it depends on working with Redpath and the Ministry of Environment," Clewes said. "There are sound issues that come from Ministry of Environment regulations."

Freeland St., which runs parallel to Yonge ending at Queens Quay, would be extended south into the development, ending in a cul de sac, providing public access from the street to the water's edge, Clewes said.

"What we're going to do from a landscaping perspective is make Freeland more like an urban square," he said.

A landscaped public promenade 25 metres wide would run along the water.

The site was originally owned by what was then the Toronto Harbour Commission. In a controversial move, it was sold in the 1980s to a company called Avro Quay Ltd., which succeeded in getting it rezoned in 1996 for about 1,400 condos.

The development subsequently went to the Ontario Municipal Board, which in 2002 limited heights to 14 storeys while permitting 1,500 to 2,000 units.

Clewes said the actual number will depend on unit size – the bigger the units, the smaller the total number.

Because rezoning permissions have already been granted, the current developers, Cityzen and Fernbrook Homes, need only site plan approval. Those issues are to go to a committee of adjustment hearing on July 4.

"We're substantially in accordance with what was approved there," Clewes said. "These are minor variations we're asking for at committee of adjustment."

Campbell said the site has been privately owned for some time. The waterfront corporation wanted to buy all of it but didn't have enough money. The corporation did buy half a hectare from Torstar, just east of Captain John's, a few years ago for $12.5 million. The site remains a small, fenced-in parking lot.

"We're talking with the developers about how we maybe combine our land with theirs and have more public space," Campbell said. "In the meantime, they're going ahead with the first phase."

Plans aren't clear for the corporation's half-hectare parcel.

"Our intention is to provide something that's a grand space," Campbell said. "We want a destination at the terminus of Yonge St. Not a building, we want a public place; a park or a plaza. But if we work with the developer it might be on a larger scale."

With files from Gail Swainson

The point, of course, is that we can count of a wall of expensive, first class condos being developed along the waterfront! The redevelopment of the dock lands and port area will result in bourgeois palaces in the sky! It's going to be awesome! Should the taxpayer pay for it? No, but the idiot taxpayer will anyway - and do so gladly, under some kind of mistaken view that port land redevelopment is about something other than creating a playpen for the rich (which is fine, provided the user pays for it)
 
My gosh, AreBe has returned (and I am already tired of the rants. You think some of the people in this thread are tiring broken records.....).
 
u2: Well, of course lots can vary in size - as can blocks. But the size of the property that we're discussing remains the same no matter how many theoretical divisions ( your "dozens" of plots, or your "several" blocks ... ) are created.

Queen Street was originally Lot Street, a concession line to the north of which were numbered park lots of 100 acres each - land grants with which Simcoe bribed officials to settle here.

Some of these people turned into Flipper, once the value of their lots rose, but there's little evidence that the despised "rich" owned any of it nowadays, other than a few big mansions still standing on Jarvis.
 
Let's remember this tidbit:


The point, of course, is that we can count of a wall of expensive, first class condos being developed along the waterfront! The redevelopment of the dock lands and port area will result in bourgeois palaces in the sky! It's going to be awesome! Should the taxpayer pay for it? No, but the idiot taxpayer will anyway - and do so gladly, under some kind of mistaken view that port land redevelopment is about something other than creating a playpen for the rich (which is fine, provided the user pays for it)


Could this be AreBe? Complete with the jumbled passage from Cicero often used for text-fill?

If not the "bourgeois," then who? Then again, how is "bourgeois" being defined here? How did one lot come to mean the entire waterfront? Why do such assumptions persist?

Not expecting any clear answer
 
u2: I understand that a significant number of people from Toronto's Ismaili population live in Don Mills, near where the cultural centre and museum are to be built. Maybe people like David Miller and Dalton McGuinty, who are not members of that community, do indeed think locating the complex where the landfill meets the lake is better, but there's no reason to suppose the Aga Khan will drop everything and go along with the idea given how suitable the present site probably is for his people.
 
Put me in the column of people who doubt His Highness would say "How High" in the completely unlikely event the Premier or the Mayor called to say "Jump".
 
I would expect nothing less, ap.

I'm well aware of the Ismaili population in the Don Mills area. I'm also well aware that the foot of Yonge is a vastly superior site in terms of prominence than Don Mills. I wouldn't be quite surprised if he turned down such an offer. But if he did, so what? That's why it was just a suggestion. You have to understand here that my job isn't to somehow imagine an ironclad tenant list for this project. I'm simply suggesting a variety of options. If the Aga Khan doesn't want it, U of T or Ryerson certainly would.

Thanks for the history lesson, US, but none of that is news to me. Like I said, the park lots and military reserve were divided into a tight grid of streets with small lots, creating all of our most successful neigbourhoods. I should think that is the urbanistic model to follow in newly re-developed neighbourhoods, rather than the modernist models of St. Jamestown, Regent Park, and Harbour Square.
 
Pier 27 isn't imitating St. Jamestown though, nor is it imitating Regent Park. Even Regent Park isn't imitating Regent Park these days, thanks to aA and several of our other leading local firms - though you could say they're working in a neo-Modernist style. No Victorian houses are being harmed for this development. An empty parking lot is being turned into homes for people.
 
I'm not talking about what's getting torn down. I'm talking about the site plan. Pier 27's site plan, cul-de-sacs and driveways and all, is very modernist and quite reminiscent of the three developments that I mentioned.
 
u2: aA takes full advantage of the large lot available to them to do something that your shantytown model - a site broken down into dozens of lots and ownerships, with all sorts of little lowrise buildings on them, inevitably blocking views of the lake - can't. With Pier 27, buildings are lifted and floated horizontally, creating space below and between. It's a design solution rather than your approach - which is based on applying ideology. EarlyToronto wasn't entirely a warren of small streets, by the way, and in fact had a fine collection of large civic buildings, with open space around them. So really, whatever age we look at - Georgian, Victorian, post-WW2 - it depends on what good designers can do with a site.
 
Oh yeah, a shantytown just like Queen West or Bloor West or the Old Town. Space below? The space below the building is completely inaccessible to the public. Just look at the rendering. It's cut off by a passageway between the buildings.

We're both applying ideology here. It's just that the Jacobian ideology that promotes walkable streets that I'm promoting has a history of success, while the modernist urban planning ideology has a long and ignominious history of failure.
 
Thanks for the history lesson, US, but none of that is news to me. Like I said, the park lots and military reserve were divided into a tight grid of streets with small lots, creating all of our most successful neigbourhoods. I should think that is the urbanistic model to follow in newly re-developed neighbourhoods, rather than the modernist models of St. Jamestown, Regent Park, and Harbour Square.


Not at all. Each square on the grid was divided into 200 acre farm lots. Outside the 1.25 mile grid created by the concession lines, the grid is entirely random. Some of the farm lots ran East-West, some of them North-South. That's why streets like Adelaide, Richmond, Carleton have so many jogs in them - they developed organically, they weren't imposed. Just like the pattern of subdivision and further subdivision of the farm lots themselves. It was an organic process, and couldn't and shouldn't be faked on the waterfront.
 

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