Toronto Pinnacle One Yonge | 345.5m | 105s | Pinnacle | Hariri Pontarini

Wow six years and this is still floundering around. Dealing with city government seems torturous they need to move faster.
 
A more efficient process should always be the aim. 6 years really isn't that much considering the developer didn't do any favours by not proposing the settled plan in the first place. There's two sides to everything.
 
interchange42 said:
maestro is saying that Pinnacle should have just come in what they eventually settled on. If he doesn't think he's joking, he is nevertheless. Pretty much no matter what you come in with beyond the current zoning, you get bargained down by the City.

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Actually, you have to be joking if you think planning would also negotiate down any reasonable application over current zoning. That brings me to my next point. The first proposal was way beyond reason and just about anything else being proposed today is as well. I guess that's where our planning system is today; bartering. It's in the developer's best interest to aim ridiculous high just to see what planning thinks. The additional time to rezone doesn't appear to be much of an issue.

I understand and appreciate many forumers really liked the first proposal. I just don't agree with the opinion that taller and taller towers and more and more density is always better.
 
Can I assume there is no agreement yet? Sounds like it.

I live across the street from this site for the past 9 years. Contemplated selling because of this but I'm still on the fence. It will block my view whether it is 40 storeys or 90 storeys. I had hoped it would proceed to improve the neighbourhood. But I can't imagine the market is ready for 90 storeys but hey developers, ask for the ridiculous if that's how you think you need to negotiate.

And, I think the city needs to throw out proposals that are 25% more than current zoning as a matter of course in the first round and avoid ridiculous negotiations, this one is way beyond that. The OMB also needs to get real and respect the city's zoning more, long gone are the heroic days of the OMB to fight the 45 ft bylaw imposed in the 70s. That was 40 years ago, the OMB's relevance is diminished now and seems to be a developer agency, sought to aid the ridiculous.


My opinion, do you notice I said ridiculous.
Cheers.
 
The OMB is designed in to intervene when politics and occasional bad planning interfere with the development process. It's also required when a municipality fails to promptly deal with a development proposal causing a proposal to drag on for years. This is unreasonable and can cost a developer many millions of dollars in carrying costs or worse, their ownership. Delay is one of the city's best tools in "negotiating" with a developer. Without the OMB the development process could become vulnerable to all manner of abuse.
 
maestro said:
Actually, you have to be joking if you think planning would also negotiate down any reasonable application over current zoning.
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If you think that the City would not have bargained this down at the what they ended up at, you're deluding yourself. We never would have gotten 95 storeys here on one of the towers had there not been a few more towers proposed than finally accepted.

There are very few proposals which are accepted as is, because it's very hard to tell what reasonable actually is until the Planning Department and Councillor have responded, and a public meeting has been held. Since developers are nearly always having to ask way beyond current zoning to get something that works financially, they generally don't want to go in with something that the City is going to say yes to right away. If it's too easy to get what they're asking for, they'll just be going back to the Committee of Adjustment anyway. Might as well shoot for the moon initially, and see how it all pans out.
cc46 said:
Can I assume there is no agreement yet? Sounds like it.
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There's an agreement. They're just dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s still.
cc46 said:
I live across the street from this site for the past 9 years. Contemplated selling because of this but I'm still on the fence. It will block my view whether it is 40 storeys or 90 storeys. I had hoped it would proceed to improve the neighbourhood. But I can't imagine the market is ready for 90 storeys but hey developers, ask for the ridiculous if that's how you think you need to negotiate.
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Demand exceeds supply right now. A building within walking distance of the core and with suites with lake views, you're not sure that will sell? Hmm…
cc46 said:
And, I think the city needs to throw out proposals that are 25% more than current zoning as a matter of course in the first round and avoid ridiculous negotiations, this one is way beyond that. The OMB also needs to get real and respect the city's zoning more, long gone are the heroic days of the OMB to fight the 45 ft bylaw imposed in the 70s. That was 40 years ago, the OMB's relevance is diminished now and seems to be a developer agency, sought to aid the ridiculous.
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The City cannot throw out proposals just because they are 25% beyond zoning. Toronto zoning is generally out of date as most of the city is still under bylaws which haven't changed in decades, long before the Places To Grow Act was brought in in 2005. The Act means that instead of developing all the farms around our cities, the cities must intensify. Any city that did not update their zoning following the act, effectively has obsolete zoning now. The OMB, meanwhile, has been carrying on doing what it's done for years. Developers often win, not always, apparently it's 64% of the time. Some of the decisions are head-scratchers, but when you read through them in detail, the great majority of them make good sense. It's not a "developer agency", but the developers are asking for something reasonable more often than the City is.

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interchange42 said:
If you think that the City would not have bargained this down at the what they ended up at, you're deluding yourself. We never would have gotten 95 storeys here on one of the towers had there not been a few more towers proposed than finally accepted.

There are very few proposals which are accepted as is, because it's very hard to tell what reasonable actually is until the Planning Department and Councillor have responded, and a public meeting has been held. Since developers are nearly always having to ask way beyond current zoning to get something that works financially, they generally don't want to go in with something that the City is going to say yes to right away. If it's too easy to get what they're asking for, they'll just be going back to the Committee of Adjustment anyway. Might as well shoot for the moon initially, and see how it all pans out.

There's an agreement. They're just dotting the "i"s and crossing the "t"s still.

Demand exceeds supply right now. A building within walking distance of the core and with suites with lake views, you're not sure that will sell? Hmm…

The City cannot throw out proposals just because they are 25% beyond zoning. Toronto zoning is generally out of date as most of the city is still under bylaws which haven't changed in decades, long before the Places To Grow Act was brought in in 2005. The Act means that instead of developing all the farms around our cities, the cities must intensify. Any city that did not update their zoning following the act, effectively has obsolete zoning now. The OMB, meanwhile, has been carrying on doing what it's done for years. Developers often win, not always, apparently it's 64% of the time. Some of the decisions are head-scratchers, but when you read through them in detail, the great majority of them make good sense. It's not a "developer agency", but the developers are asking for something reasonable more often than the City is.

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No, I don't suspect planning would have been as open to 95 storeys but, my post shouldn't have been taken so literal either. I was more referring to the settled buildable density than height as I don't think 95 storeys is reasonable for anyone. It just makes sense to me that Pinnacle would rather not have to build that tall or big. They rather have more smaller, shorter towers to sell. I was thinking more along the lines if they originally came in with 30 to 50 storey towers instead of 60 to 90 storeys. This was before tower spacing zoning changes became a hot topic too.
 
Thanks guys, it's an education. I suppose my reference to understanding zoning in Toronto and the ways of the city dates back 20+ years; spent a few years attending John Sewell land-use committee mtgs. That said it seems to me current zoning seems like only a "suggestion" and not a bylaw to be heeded, like a speed limit on a prairie highway.

Again appreciate the comments.
Cheers!
 
I have a long-standing gripe with the way Toronto planners introduce development proposals at community consultations. Part of their spiel is to lay out what's allowed by the current zoning on the site in comparison with what the developer is asking for. What they omit is that in 90% of the cases, the zoning is obsolete and indefensible at the OMB (should it come to an appeal). That lack of forthcomingness leads to newcomers to these consultations ending up with unrealistic expectations, while demonizing the developers for asking for something that's actually closer to being realistic. It makes everything unnecessarily adversarial.

It's totally cray.

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stjames2queenwest said:
I often feel as though the ridiculous thing about this city is that some people think they are living in a sleepy little town, when in fact Toronto is one of the fastest growing cities.
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According to our zoning, half of downtown itself is zoned as residential... which means no retail allowed?

The last thing we need is "respect the zoning", which essentially says no building taller than 6 stories outside the financial district. :p
 
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