GO Transit: Redevelopment of Station Parking Lots

[scarberiankhatru]

Despite Willowdale's history, I don't know how much the "used to be a village" counts here; even as a village/hamlet/whatever, Willowdale was always rather diffuse--I'd say it was defined more by the postwar suburban strips along Yonge, or just by Yonge being Yonge...

Obviously, you can't separate the village factor from the Yonge = main street factor. "Yonge being Yonge" meant that it became the main street of the village that became 'downtown North York.' If Willowdale wasn't there but villages existed and persisted along Bathurst or Don Mills or wherever else, then that's where the civic centre would be and that's where Mel's attention would have been. Remove the village and Willowdale today would probably be more like Yonge & Lawrence, only less affluent and probably with a few taller offices and apartments clustered at Finch and Sheppard stations (North York Centre would never have been built) due to weaker NIMBYs.

 

[adma]

I find that someplace like Cooksville has more "used to be a village" to it, even if it's much more of a chaotic mess than NYC/Willowdale ever was...

 

[gweed123]

Reactivating this long-dormant thread to spur discussion about the redevelopment of GO parking lots. Pretty sad to see that almost nothing has changed since the 2008 article posted on the first page.

Front page story from today: http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/04/go-station-parking-lots-missed-opportunities-urbanize

 

[steveintoronto]

There's also the opportunity under Toronto's latest zoning category (and possibly in surrounding jurisdictions too) for mixed "Employment" (read light industry) Commerical Residential:

Chapter 50 Commercial Residential Employment
50.5 Regulations Applying to the Commercial Residential Employment Zone Category
50.5.1 General
50.5.1.10 Interpretation
(1)

Application of General Regulations Section


The regulations in Section 50.5 apply to all lands, uses, buildings and structures in the Commercial Residential Employment Zone category.

(2)

Interpretation of the Commercial Residential Employment Zone Symbol


The zone symbol on the Zoning By-law Map for zones in the Commercial Residential Employment Zone category consists of the letters CRE, indicating the primary land use permitted in the respective zone.

(3)

Interpretation of the Zone Label


In the Commercial Residential Employment Zone category, the letters following the zone symbol in the zone label have the following meaning:


(A)

a numerical value indicating the permitted maximum floor space index for all land uses on a lot and may be followed by one or both of the following in brackets:


(i)

the letter "c" and a numerical value indicates the permitted maximum floor space index for non-residential uses on a lot;

(ii)

the letter "r" and a numerical value indicates the permitted maximum floor space index for residential uses on a lot; and

(iii)

the letter `e' and a numerical value indicates the permitted maximum floor space index for employment uses on a lot.

50.5.1.20 Restrictions
(1)

Use Restrictions on Commercial Residential Employment Lots without Street Frontage


If a lot in the Commercial Residential Employment Zone category does not front on a street and has its only vehicle access from a lane or private right-of-way that abuts a lot in the Residential Zone category or Residential Apartment Zone category, the lot may only be used for required parking spaces.

(2)

Living Accommodation in Ancillary Buildings


In the Commercial Residential Employment Zone category, ancillary buildings may not be used for living accommodation.

50.5.20 Permitted Uses
50.5.20.1 General
(1)

Firearm Manufacturing


The making of a firearm or any part of a firearm is not a permitted manufacturing use in the Commercial Residential Employment Zone category.

(2)

Firearms Manufacturing Interpretation


A gunsmith or custom workshop that makes a firearm is a manufacturing use and must comply with regulation 50.5.20.1(1).

(3)

Firearm Manufacturing for the Entertainment Industry


Despite regulation 50.5.20.1(1) and (2), the making of a firearm or any part of a firearm for use in a motion picture or television show is not a manufacturing use.

50.5.40 Principal Building Requirements
50.5.40.1 General
(1)
[...continues...]

http://www.toronto.ca/zoning/bylaw_amendments/ZBL_NewProvision_Chapter50.htm

The above, btw, can be done *in the same building* as is done in Vancouver and many US cities. (NYC has a study on this) This would allow vastly greater flexibility in using the space for the most prominent and needed use locally.

 

[steveintoronto]

Not the report I was looking for referenced above, will find that later, but Googling shows a number of studies exactly as Gweed alludes to:
Parking In and Around Mixed-Use Buildings in Designated Growth ...
https://realestate.washington.edu/wp.../Runstad_Center_Parking_Study_2015_final.pd...
Parking In and Around Mixed-Use Buildings in Designated Growth Areas with Frequent and Reliable. Transit Service: A Puget Sound Region Study. Cole Kopca

Unfortunately, both of my browsers warn of the site being "un-secure" and I'm not going to risk accessing them. Point being that there is development being done in other cities on exactly this. I'll try and find some other site to download the above report from, as well as others.

Edit to Add: I've found the report I was looking for, very difficult to find on-line now, but I will try and attach it as a file upload to this site later, I got a copy back off of GMail that I'd sent to architect friends:

November 2014
THE NEW YORK
CITY COUNCIL Engines of
Opportunity
MELISSA
MARK-VIVERITO
SPEAKER Reinvigorating New York City’s
Manufacturing Zones for the 21st Century

But looking for the above on Google, and this feeds directly into Gweed's points, I tripped across this:

Note: This is a Cdn website!

By: Baystreet Staff - Monday, February 06, 2017
Jacob Frydman - Examines NYC's Zoning for Mixed-Use Commercial and Residential Real Estate

[ACCESSWIRE]

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / February 6, 2017 / A decisive sift towards mixed-use real estate has recently been taking the lead in New York City and other cities across the United States. Property expert Jacob Frydman is optimistic about the returns for investors currently putting their capital into this type of residential rental and commercial use opportunities, including office space, retail, and hospitality. Manhattan alone has now over 30 Special Mixed-Use Districts (MX), with the number of MX-zoned properties growing rapidly within the rest of the boroughs.

Jacob Frydman notes the special interest and close attention paid by the New York zoning officials to the bullish mixed-use real estate climate. Melissa Mark-Viverito, Speaker of the NYC Council, has recently addressed the growing demand. "We are seeing remarkable interest from a range of companies to build new buildings and retrofit existing buildings in neighborhoods across the City...We need to create the conditions to support this kind of investment," she urged. In a November, 2014 report, "Engines of Opportunity: Reinvigorating New York City's Manufacturing Zones for the 21st Century", Mark-Viverito recommended that zoning officials establish new vertical MX zoning designations. And this past April, the New York City Council approved a modified version of a major planning initiative proposed by Mayor de Blasio that includes mixed residential and commercial use development in East New York and Ocean Hill neighborhoods. The real estate data research firm, AxioMetrics, reports that the Kings County submarket in Brooklyn, NY alone has 23 mixed-use developments in the pipeline for 2013-2021.

"Opportunities abound today for investing in mixed residential and commercial use real estate," says Frydman, who has a long history of successfully redeveloping and repositioning real estate assets like the Old Global Crossing Building in Manhattan, which was purchased in 2003 for $46.2 million and sold in 2005 for $91.2 million. The veteran real estate investor praises New York zoning officials for taking pro-active steps to embrace the new "live-work-play" paradigm that has been blooming in the city's urban areas. MX zoning creates a lively and diverse infrastructure - it revitalizes neighborhoods and stimulates economic growth. For the Millennial generation, leaving a smaller carbon footprint, spending less time in commuting, and fostering a sense of community are high priorities, says Frydman. And as Millennials flock into urban settings where they can enjoy a living space in close proximity to ground floor employment, shopping, and dining, the mixed-use market is bound to flourish.

Jacob Frydman is a New York-based property expert and consultant who sources and identifies value added investment opportunities. For over 30 years, he has executed and participated in highly complex real estate transactions valued at over $2 billion and spanning over 5 million square feet. A frequent guest on Fox News, Bloomberg TV, CNBC, and other television news outlets, Frydman has also lectured on real estate finance at Columbia University and in the Master's Lecturer series sponsored by New York Law School. An avid philanthropist, Jacob Frydman devotes much of his time and capital to various charitable organizations, including the National Committee for Furtherance of Jewish Education (NCFJE), Chabad of Dutchess County, and the Brem Foundation of Washington, DC.

Jacob Frydman - Blog - JacobFrydmanNews.com: http://JacobFrydmanNews.com

Jacob Frydman - Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/jacob-frydman

http://www.baystreet.ca/viewarticle.aspx?id=454406

 

[steveintoronto]

Further to above, how Vancouver is approaching this (not just transit parking lots, but in general, due to very limited space, a condition we're close to matching now in Toronto)

This is from an older email send, so links may not be active, but the stories will still exist on the web:


Industrial grit meets residential glass in Vancouver - The ...
www.theglobeandmail.com › ... › Industry News › Property Report
Jan 19, 2015 - Vancouver project combines industrial and residential space in a single building ... It's less noxious than when zoning laws were first put in place.” ... a new report it commissioned on how to revitalize its industrial sector. One of the recommendations: a new mixed commercial-residential-industrial district.
You've visited this page many times. Last visit: 05/10/15
[PDF]Vancouver - Avison Young
www.avisonyoung.com/fileDownloader.php?.../Vancouver/.../Vancouve...
Jan 30, 2015 - Industrial Report ... Amendments to industrial zoning regulations altering market activity. #. #. # .... MC-1 zoning “reinforces the mixed-use nature of this area, with residential, commercial and light industrial uses permitted.
Office zoning in Vancouver industrial areas spurs ... - RENX
renx.ca/office-zoning-in-vancouver-industrial-areas-spurs-real-estate-bo...
Mar 18, 2015 - Office zoning amendments to Vancouver's Mount Pleasant indusrial area ... year as fewer, bigger deals were made, a report from Avison Young found. ... to allow developers to construct a new mixed-use building an industrial area as .... 2015 Canadian commercial and residential real estate news at RENX.

 

[steveintoronto]

NYEO pdf file too large to attach, but here's some features from it that could/would very well apply to GO parking lots, municipal land use and zoning permitting:

http://www.eastbrooklynbid.org/uploads/6/4/5/8/6458522/engines_of_opportunity_report.pdf

Edit to Add: If Wynne is serious about addressing the GTA's housing issues, then while she has a majority still in the Legislature, she should press through an amendment to the Places to Grow Act (or subsidiary ones to it) to accord the right for the Province to enforce, via the MAH, the right to build over GO parking lots, and needless to say, when disputed, it goes before the OMB (Province actually doesn't have to take this route, the Minister of Housing alone can impose it by Order in Council, but I digress). The very first reaction we're going to hear from those oh-so-concerned about the lack of housing is:
"But not in my backyard".

They can't have it both ways, and transit parking too. These parking blights must serve a higher purpose.

 

[SaugeenJunction]

Of interest to this thread would be what is planned/happening near Oakville GO. Despite no parking lots being built over yet, the long term plan is to do just that with the Midtown Oakville Mobility Hub (see Metrolinx doc). Lots of density is planned, which I know scares Oakvillians but will be a good thing long-term. Also, my understanding is that most of the GO parking lots in Oakville are owned by Hydro One (80% sure on this), and one section has been "leased" recently.

 

[steveintoronto]

Of interest to this thread would be what is planned/happening near Oakville GO. Despite no parking lots being built over yet, the long term plan is to do just that with the Midtown Oakville Mobility Hub (see Metrolinx doc). Lots of density is planned, which I know scares Oakvillians but will be a good thing long-term. Also, my understanding is that most of the GO parking lots in Oakville are owned by Hydro One (80% sure on this), and one section has been "leased" recently.

Did a fairly thorough search to get more background on this, could find little save what I'll post below, but not mentioned by anything I found (almost all 8-9 years old) is how the parking is to be accommodated, internally in the new development, or just in more open space elsewhere. The report was difficult to navigate and search, not least because my OS (Linux) doesn't support a full Adobe Reader (as buggy as a cockroach hotel anyway) and searching is a chore compared to the full Accroreader.

But found this:

I also found this:

GO eyes paradise from a parking lot


Today the Oakville GO station's dominant feature is a vast expanse of paved parking.

By Tess KalinowskiTransportation Reporter
Mon., Feb. 11, 2008
Today the Oakville GO station's dominant feature is a vast expanse of paved parking.

But Oakville is already moving to transform that land into a vibrant work-live neighbourhood that could attract between 20,000 and 30,000 people to the area south of the QEW near Trafalgar Rd.

The vision for the Midtown Oakville area includes offices, light industry, homes, walking and cycling trails and, at its heart, access to local transit, GO service and bus rapid transit. Oakville is even considering relocating its town hall from the current location north of the QEW.

"The stars, the moon and the planets have all lined up on this," said Oakville Mayor Rob Burton, adding that 13 months of consultations have wrought nothing but praise for the planned development.

"This is absolutely a place that is ripe for land use and transportation," said Joe Berridge, a transportation consultant developing a business plan for Midtown.

He is the same expert who has been working with the province's transportation planning agency, Metrolinx, on a proposal to put mobility hubs across Greater Toronto. In places like Oakville, those hubs could be destinations in themselves, a neighbourhood where people work, live, meet and shop.

"Midtown has all the components of a mobility hub," Berridge told the GO board Friday. "It has the best chance of any of the urban growth centres of getting off to a strong start."

What makes Oakville's GO station so ripe for this kind of development is the vast amount of public land available there, if parking lots are replaced by structures.

GO and the town together own about 12 hectares of land in the area. Some 33 hectares are railway and hydro lands, and there's a parcel belonging to General Electric.

The Midtown development is effectively underway with the advent of GO's third track along the lakeshore and the widening of the QEW underpass, Burton said. He expects many of the homes, workplaces and amenities in the plan to be in place by 2020, with the entire vision realized within 20 years.

It will be a decade before the town outgrows its current civic headquarters, but at that point moving it would be a real possibility. Oakville is expected to grow from its current population of 166,000 to about 230,000 by 2021. "Many of us believe that to support Midtown is to take a position there," said Burton.

Midtown is one of three intensification areas already identified in the existing urban plan and the province's Places to Grow document. At least one or two more will be identified in a new official plan for the town to be released in June, according to Burton.

He's determined that Midtown won't take the "left turn" that occurred in the Uptown area of Dundas St. and Trafalgar Rd. Initially visualized as a vibrant "Manhattan style" streetscape, it became another sprawling big-box development.

The third area designated for intensification is around Dundas St. and Bronte Rd.

If the Midtown development shows signs of success, the Bronte GO station would be an obvious next target for development.

As to costs, Burton says Oakville is still trying to catch up with the current pace of growth in terms of infrastructure and services.

"I'm not the mayor who is going to subsidize growth. Growth is supposed to pay for itself," he said.

Berridge said early signals suggest a successful Midtown development could indeed pay for itself.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2008/02/11/go_eyes_paradise_from_a_parking_lot.html

And yet here we are nine years later with no development to show....

That's an excellent heads-up though Alex, if nothing else, the *potential* has been realized in Ontario. There might yet be better examples where development is actually scheduled...

 

[ShonTron]

Of interest to this thread would be what is planned/happening near Oakville GO. Despite no parking lots being built over yet, the long term plan is to do just that with the Midtown Oakville Mobility Hub (see Metrolinx doc). Lots of density is planned, which I know scares Oakvillians but will be a good thing long-term. Also, my understanding is that most of the GO parking lots in Oakville are owned by Hydro One (80% sure on this), and one section has been "leased" recently.

It's true. The old Toronto-Niagara hydro corridor is largely disused, but it is still owned by Hydro One. It's a diagonal from Sherway Gardens, across the QEW/Mississauga Road interchange, and then follows the Oakville Sub from just west of Clarkson Station to Bronte Creek, then through Burlington (now mostly a multi-use path) towards Burlington Beach.

Only the section from Sherway to the Oakville Ford Plant is still actively used by Hydro One.

 

[steveintoronto]

Compliments to Gweed for re-vitalizing this string, as the more I dig, the more I see a slew of articles from the time this string went dormant, and not much since, other than in US cities. Still trying to track those down.

Steve Munro had an excellent article on this ten years ago!
https://stevemunro.ca/2007/06/25/go-transits-addiction-to-parking-lots/comment-page-1/

More recently, Shon Tron has had articles on same, but oddly, here's reference in TorStar from three years ago with a link (now dead) to UrbanToronto:

By Tess KalinowskiTransportation reporter
Mon., Sept. 29, 2014
[...]
Metrolinx has sold its property at 141 Bay St. to Ivanhoé Cambridge in exchange for a long-term lease at the base of an office development planned for the site at 45 Bay St., currently used as a parking lot.

The development proposal for the southern site, submitted to the city on Monday, includes a new GO bus station and an office tower.

(Mobile/tablet users, tap here to view a map of the rail lands development proposal.)

Plans also call for a public park to be built over the rail corridor, the first of its kind in Toronto.

The completed development is expected to add 2.5 million square feet of office space to downtown. Earlier renderings showed a three-tower development extending to the north and south of the tracks.

According to an August report on UrbanToronto.ca , it will also include underground parking and retail. Retail is not expected to be part of the first phase of development, however.

The office development on the north side of the tracks won’t be built until the new bus station is operating.

Construction on a new terminal and tower is expected to begin next year and take about three years.
[...]
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/tr...velopment_to_feature_new_go_bus_terminal.html

Globe has another, albeit indirect, reference to stacked use of sites like parking lots featured in today's paper:

Property Report

‘Stacked industrial’ development offers affordable work space in pricey Vancouver
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...rk-space-in-pricey-vancouver/article34689364/

So where is this in Toronto? Alex may have put his finger on it in his earlier post: "Lots of density is planned, which I know scares Oakvillians".

Gweed states: "Pretty sad to see that almost nothing has changed since the 2008 article posted on the first page.".

It's beyond sad, it's irksome.