Toronto X The Condominium | ?m | 44s | Great Gulf | a—A

What did you expect? Another case of Silly Hall run amok: they will approve anything these days, even if it is a 40 story tower that runs right to the curb! The travesty at St. Lawrence market that was allowed in the '80s and '90s wasn't enough. Now they want to turn the central city into Manhattan where the sunlight never hits the ground.

Don't get me wrong: 'X' by itself is gorgeous, but when combined with all the other development along Charles St., Yonge, Sherbourne, Wellesley, etc. the total spells catasrophe. This is my neighborhood and although I love tall towers (along the lines of the TD Center and St. Jamestown) what the city is allowing now is outrageous.

Look at Murano and Burano (love the names - good grief). Why put one tower on a property when 2 will do?

Has anyone got any friggin idea where the traffic is going to go? Oh, that's right, we're all going to ride in those plastic bicycle do-thingeys that I see the happy, smiling tourists riding around in.

If you don't like intensification on a grand scale live in a smaller town or in the burbs.
 
Even though Toronto is the largest city in Canada, 5th in NA, TO is quite a small (urban/density wise). Manhattan, London, Paris, Tokyo, blows our little city to the wayside. Regardless, TO is still great and love how it's growing.
 
What did you expect? Another case of Silly Hall run amok: they will approve anything these days, even if it is a 40 story tower that runs right to the curb! The travesty at St. Lawrence market that was allowed in the '80s and '90s wasn't enough. Now they want to turn the central city into Manhattan where the sunlight never hits the ground.

Don't get me wrong: 'X' by itself is gorgeous, but when combined with all the other development along Charles St., Yonge, Sherbourne, Wellesley, etc. the total spells catasrophe. This is my neighborhood and although I love tall towers (along the lines of the TD Center and St. Jamestown) what the city is allowing now is outrageous.

Look at Murano and Burano (love the names - good grief). Why put one tower on a property when 2 will do?

Has anyone got any friggin idea where the traffic is going to go? Oh, that's right, we're all going to ride in those plastic bicycle do-thingeys that I see the happy, smiling tourists riding around in.

Sounds like you might be happier living and working in Burlington.

This intensification is wonderful especially so close to a lot of commercial developments and so close to two different subway lines. At some point when traffic gets too much to bare, let's hope people smarten up and get out of their cars. (If not, that's their problem. I certainly won't be sitting in traffic.)

I think Spadina/CityPlace is a better example where traffic is already way out of control.
 
Sounds like you might be happier living and working in Burlington.

This intensification is wonderful especially so close to a lot of commercial developments and so close to two different subway lines. At some point when traffic gets too much to bare, let's hope people smarten up and get out of their cars. (If not, that's their problem. I certainly won't be sitting in traffic.)

I think Spadina/CityPlace is a better example where traffic is already way out of control.

That's a great attitude. Like, I said, let's see what people think in 5 years when these places are built. Have you seen what is planned or under construction in that little 6 block radius? You know, the one with tiny, one way streets and 4 lanes of Church, Yonge, 2 lanes of Wellesley...well, you get the idea.

Intensitification is one thing, but this is blind stupidity. This is not Hong Kong, but we are going to turn into it at this rate...and for all the wrong reasons.
 
What are the wrong reasons, and what would right reasons be in your estimation?

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Did you buy in X? I have many friends who did, and they are less than happy about the tower planned for across the street where Pizza Pizza's office used to be.
Even Vancouver demands a developer go before a committee to prove that each building will have a sightline of either the mountains or the ocean. In Toronto, you get dinged $40k to be on the 30th floor, then they build a 35 story building across the street! Is that what we are demanding these days?

Forget about cars (since I suspect already that the anti-car lobby is alive and well on this Board), what about walking down Charles St.? My gym is in the Manulife Tower, and I gave up running downtown. The dust, the foul mouthed constructions workers, the double parked delivery trucks....

This is just the beginning..............
 
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Sorry, couldn't resist.
 
Did you buy in X? I have many friends who did, and they are less than happy about the tower planned for across the street where Pizza Pizza's office used to be.
Even Vancouver demands a developer go before a committee to prove that each building will have a sightline of either the mountains or the ocean. In Toronto, you get dinged $40k to be on the 30th floor, then they build a 35 story building across the street! Is that what we are demanding these days?

If you check out the site plan application (from the 568-580 Jarvis Street thread) you will see that the proposed tower here is on the west side of the site, meaning that it will not be directly south of X's windows... so a little thought about sightlines is being put into it all.

That said, it's a lot to ask for if you have bought in a brand new building and expect that no other brand new buildings are going to go up. Caveat emptor - a little due diligence will show what can and cannot be redeveloped around you, and if you are partial to a particular view, double check on its likelihood for long-term survival. In the end, in the city the view of the city includes what is in the next block, not just a couple of kilometres away. If you don't want views of other windows, buy a spot across the street from a park.

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Talking of which, and shifting from 'X' to 'L' in the alphabet soup of new condos, won't Offshore Flipper have a nasty surprise - should he actually move here - when he discovers that his south-facing starchitect-designed pad faces directly into the GO tower?
 
I love it when people in brand new towers show up at public meetings complaining about new towers going up around them and blocking their views... you'd be surprised how often that happens. They don't stop to think for a second that the building they live in blocked another persons view - people can be rather self centred - same thing happens out in the suburbs with greenfield development - people come out to meetings complaining about urban sprawl, when they only moved to that area a couple years prior.

Sometimes the definition of urban sprawl or too many condos is the "home built after mine is urban sprawl' or 'once I live in this community there can be no more condos - too many people/too much traffic.
 
That said, it's a lot to ask for if you have bought in a brand new building and expect that no other brand new buildings are going to go up.

exactly.
If your buying into virtually any new condominium high-rise building in the downtown, chances are the same building you bought into is going to block the site lines of another building or buildings. When you choose to live in the downtown, part of what you have to expect is that your views are going to change over time.
 
Did you buy in X? I have many friends who did, and they are less than happy about the tower planned for across the street where Pizza Pizza's office used to be.
Even Vancouver demands a developer go before a committee to prove that each building will have a sightline of either the mountains or the ocean. In Toronto, you get dinged $40k to be on the 30th floor, then they build a 35 story building across the street! Is that what we are demanding these days?

People buy in highrise and are then upset that another highrise will be going up beside them or across from them? Did they expect to have a guaranteed view? I grew up in a suburban house. It had views of other suburban houses. That is the suburbs. I now live in the middle of a city and my view is of other buildings that make up that city. I imagine others have similar experiences.

The Vancouver rule does not mean that one will have a nice, sweeping view of either mountains or ocean. You might have something like a sliver of a view of one or the other, that's pretty much it. On lower floors, you might end up with a nice view of the building across the street, a view of an intersection, and some sky.

It also all depends very much on where you buy as well, and clearly some purchasers in X did not consider this issue. If one buys a condo in the centre of a city where there are tall buildings, then one should not be surprised that the view is one made up of other tall buildings. If, however, one wishes to have a permanent view of the water, there are a nice line of condos down by the waterfront that have such a view - and many will have a permanent views of that feature.
 
Dichotomy:

Did you buy in X? I have many friends who did, and they are less than happy about the tower planned for across the street where Pizza Pizza's office used to be.

Clearly, your friends are fools in making such a big investment without doing the proper research, if having an interrupted view is so important to them. Then again, this is the Internet, and those friends of yours could very well be imaginary.

AoD
 
Marketplace did a program on condos this year. Their message was "buyer beware" on almost every aspect (e.g., sitelines, size of unit, materials, and so on). I think if all potential purchasers watched it, the condo market would evaporate.
 

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