Toronto 3000 Kennedy | 12.6m | 3s | Kingspound Development | TAES

interchange42

interchange42

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I'm starting a thread for a rather rare proposal for Toronto: a new subdivision of single family homes. Not the stuff we usually yack about on UT these days, but I cannot remember the last time that anyone proposed a whole street of new detached homes in Toronto. (Any remember what the last time might have been?)

Anyway, there are some tweaks to the design of the homes that allow a good number of them to fit on the site, but is this the way to go on a site beside a major suburban arterial road? You can read all about the plans in a front page story here.

42
 
There was this from a few years back.
http://urbantoronto.ca/database/projects/crafthouse

And this from the same people.
http://www.sorbara.com/crafthouse/siteplan.html

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With this site, what kills me is how the plan effectively turns Fort Dearborn Drive into a spiral.

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People buying the orange homes at the end of the street will spend their lives circling to Perthshire, and then out to Kennedy to get in and out of their place by car. It's insanity that can be prevented by joining the street up to Kennedy now.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't bring the street within one row of homes to Kennedy anyway, and I wouldn't propose any single family homes. I'd move the turn to the north westward so that there were maybe 5 homes to the west of the turn, not 9. Putting more land to the east means you could put in mid-rise development there. The rest of the homes could be towns, achieving a higher density.

Finally, with towns, which could be built over a connected garage, you could avoid the permanent separation of Royal Albert Crescent that this plan would create. That street is currently in two pieces, but it's meant to be joined up once Zion Building Supplies gets redeveloped too. This plan would two streets beside each other here once Zion goes, which is without foresight and therefore pretty stupid. Instead of that giant cut-de-sac, that end of Fort Dearborn could be turned into a townhouse complex accessed now from Fort Dearborn, but which could face Royal Albert when it's joined together in the future.

All in all, this is a pretty strange plan.

42
 

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interchange42 said:
With this site, what kills me is how the plan effectively turns Fort Dearborn Drive into a spiral.

View attachment 93994 View attachment 93995

People buying the orange homes at the end of the street will spend their lives circling to Perthshire, and then out to Kennedy to get in and out of their place by car. It's insanity that can be prevented by joining the street up to Kennedy now.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't bring the street within one row of homes to Kennedy anyway, and I wouldn't propose any single family homes. I'd move the turn to the north westward so that there were maybe 5 homes to the west of the turn, not 9. Putting more land to the east means you could put in mid-rise development there. The rest of the homes could be towns, achieving a higher density.

Finally, with towns, which could be built over a connected garage, you could avoid the permanent separation of Royal Albert Crescent that this plan would create. That street is currently in two pieces, but it's meant to be joined up once Zion Building Supplies gets redeveloped too. This plan would two streets beside each other here once Zion goes, which is without foresight and therefore pretty stupid. Instead of that giant cut-de-sac, that end of Fort Dearborn could be turned into a townhouse complex accessed now from Fort Dearborn, but which could face Royal Albert when it's joined together in the future.

All in all, this is a pretty strange plan.

42
Click to expand...

Generally speaking, Scarborough is the kind of place where good planning and transportation policy takes a back seat to hubris.
 
interchange42 said:
With this site, what kills me is how the plan effectively turns Fort Dearborn Drive into a spiral.

View attachment 93994 View attachment 93995

People buying the orange homes at the end of the street will spend their lives circling to Perthshire, and then out to Kennedy to get in and out of their place by car. It's insanity that can be prevented by joining the street up to Kennedy now.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't bring the street within one row of homes to Kennedy anyway, and I wouldn't propose any single family homes. I'd move the turn to the north westward so that there were maybe 5 homes to the west of the turn, not 9. Putting more land to the east means you could put in mid-rise development there. The rest of the homes could be towns, achieving a higher density.

Finally, with towns, which could be built over a connected garage, you could avoid the permanent separation of Royal Albert Crescent that this plan would create. That street is currently in two pieces, but it's meant to be joined up once Zion Building Supplies gets redeveloped too. This plan would two streets beside each other here once Zion goes, which is without foresight and therefore pretty stupid. Instead of that giant cut-de-sac, that end of Fort Dearborn could be turned into a townhouse complex accessed now from Fort Dearborn, but which could face Royal Albert when it's joined together in the future.

All in all, this is a pretty strange plan.

42
Click to expand...
Indeed. You would think they could milk many more units for sale by changing the site plan and building more density along Kennedy and opting for towns instead of detached.
 
interchange42 said:
I'm starting a thread for a rather rare proposal for Toronto: a new subdivision of single family homes. Not the stuff we usually yack about on UT these days, but I cannot remember the last time that anyone proposed a whole street of new detached homes in Toronto. (Any remember what the last time might have been?)

Anyway, there are some tweaks to the design of the homes that allow a good number of them to fit on the site, but is this the way to go on a site beside a major suburban arterial road? You can read all about the plans in a front page story here.

42
Click to expand...

There's been plenty of infill comprised of detached housing since the boom and UT first took off. It is uncommon not to see some semis thrown in the mix,
 
Towered said:
Disgusting and irresponsible. City planning better soundly reject this.
Click to expand...

I'm curious. I will agree the subdivision plan is extremely dated but, I don't have an issue with the proposed number of units /built density.
 
Interesting. Anyone know what the lot widths are? And do we have requirements in place that new single detached lots must have a minimum? I'm just wondering why we don't see 5 metre-wide SFD lots like is commonplace with the tens of thousands of Edwardian homes in the city. Narrow, yes. But people will buy them, and it's a great use of space.
 
modern day requirements are that people want a single car garage - which means on lots without lane access you have a minimum of around 7m. There are plenty of 4.5m townhomes being built around the GTA with rear lane access.

Most of Toronto's "Old" neighborhoods have 25ft frontages (7.6m).
 
maestro said:
There's been plenty of infill comprised of detached housing since the boom and UT first took off. It is uncommon not to see some semis thrown in the mix,
Click to expand...
UT has been around for 14 years now, and I'm talking more recently than that. Scarborough finished building out onto virgin farmland in the first decade of the new millennium. Since then, there have been small pockets here and there, but I'm not sure we've had 41 single family homes planned for one property in several years now. Everything of any size has been multi-family for a while now I think.

42
 
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