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While very supportive of this project - it will be interesting to see how City Planning and Toronto East York Community Council respond. There's usually a "freak-out" at the rotunda if the "Affordable-Rental" units are not scattered evenly through-out the building. Often tagging worthwhile and sensible projects with claims of "Poor Doors" and "Poor Floors" - if any kind of unit segmentation is proposed.

www.blogto.com

New condo will have separate doors for rich and poor

Toronto's getting another condo with - as New Yorkers would say - a "poor door". The Aqualina Bayside development, coming to the city's w...
www.blogto.com www.blogto.com

Giving it the ARTSPLACE name - makes me assume that ArtScape will likely be their not-for-profit partner.
 
having a physical separation of the affordable housing component makes sense from an operational and practical point of view, though it may sound harsh and cruel.
The condos are owned (they pay a monthly maintenance fee which can fluctuate) while the affordable apartments are rented (cost of maintenance is built into the rent). There is a condo corporation with an elected condo board made up of condo owners while that doesn’t exist with rental apartments. The needs and wants of residents differ between owners/renters and different income levels, so amenities and even the finishes and aesthetics will differ to satisfy these groups. Also condo owners don’t want to subsidize the affordable housing portion of it as they are not a charity and some of these owners fear that mixing affordable housing will affect property values and desirability of the condos (as bad as that may sound). Like they say, good fences make good neighbours.

I really like this design and even though the affordable housing is segregated to the lower floors of the development, it should be commended that this amount of housing is actually included in this development from a private developer.
 
It would be nice to see traffic calming or speed reductions on Eastern Ave as part of this proposal. Eastern Ave westbound coming down the ramp is like a highway, and the north sidewalk is not very pleasant. The plan shows a nice wide pedestrian crossing but this will only work if traffic is much slower through this stretch. Slowing down traffic would be a real win, but also poses a challenge.
 
Logan said:
What are all those white vertical slats? I can't imagine looking out and seeing that. Prison like. Very bizarre.
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An interesting solution to keeping pigeons/birds from roosting on balconies.
And this might avoid future expensive maintenance on decrepit balcony railings in 20+ years.
And while this solution could prevent birds from coming onto a balcony, it might also prevent some things from leaving a balcony the wrong way, either on purpose (chairs, adults) or by accident (adults, unattended children).
Time will tell if this twist ages well, though.
 
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I don't take issue with having separate doors as much as I take issue with shoving the affordable units as close to the highway as possible. Do better, Markee.
 
neo said:
The problem is the highway, not the housing.
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Agreed - in a perfect world the city would pay to reconfigure it to be less hostile, but it's there and needs to be dealt with.

Anyways, I look to WDL block 8 as a good example of how to handle a mixed income building. The affordable units are evenly distributed throughout the building.

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DavidCapizzano said:
Agreed - in a perfect world the city would pay to reconfigure it to be less hostile, but it's there and needs to be dealt with.

Anyways, I look to WDL block 8 as a good example of how to handle a mixed income building. The affordable units are evenly distributed throughout the building.

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Agreed, but it is easier to do that kind of unit-distribution for "Affordable-Housing" in a Purpose-Built 100% Rental building - than when you are mixing "Affordable-Rental" units along with "Market-Ownership Condos", which is what Markee is proposing on their site.
 
Wahed said:
It would be nice to see traffic calming or speed reductions on Eastern Ave as part of this proposal. Eastern Ave westbound coming down the ramp is like a highway, and the north sidewalk is not very pleasant. The plan shows a nice wide pedestrian crossing but this will only work if traffic is much slower through this stretch. Slowing down traffic would be a real win, but also poses a challenge.
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Redesign and Reconstruction of the Eastern/Richmond/Adelaide flyover is coming.

Should be a drastic improvement.

I haven't seen the preliminary designs, but I know they feature cycle tracks and sidewalks

That will take some huge messing around to make that work.
 
I am one who tends to be firmly opposed to 'poor doors'.

I just see it as the ultimate sort of stigmatization.

That said, if this is targeted housing, and work/live space for artists, stigma may not be the issue it would be otherwise.

Also there may be a functional reason (beyond condo/rental splits) to keep the artists residences separate (particularly if live/work, or supporting work that may be more noisy or require higher ceilings etc.)
 
I just worry about the dynamic between the two sides of the building 10 years post construction. Regardless if each entrance is treated with the same level of design, the building will always inherently be segregated. I don't see anything that could stop owners of the market rate units from exacting demeaning and frustrating policies onto the affordable units like policing common interior and exterior areas, entrances and amenities.
 
DavidCapizzano said:
I just worry about the dynamic between the two sides of the building 10 years post construction. Regardless if each entrance is treated with the same level of design, the building will always inherently be segregated.
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There's some good material from 2015 on WHY the 'separated co-build' model works for these kinds of projects - https://etouches-appfiles.s3.amazonaws.com/html_file_uploads/830ce49f06774ae14d58a53d21299837_209-TheAquavistaProject.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline;filename="209%20-%20The%20Aquavista%20Project.pdf"&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIA3OQUANZMMJEUYZBJ&Expires=1631559503&Signature=RXcg9qDa%2Bi546l8UICSE89pv3wM%3D

You have to cut and paste that WHOLE link to access it.
 
HousingNowTO said:
There's some good material from 2015 on WHY the 'separated co-build' model works for these kinds of projects - https://etouches-appfiles.s3.amazonaws.com/html_file_uploads/830ce49f06774ae14d58a53d21299837_209-TheAquavistaProject.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline;filename="209%20-%20The%20Aquavista%20Project.pdf"&response-content-type=application%2Fpdf&AWSAccessKeyId=AKIA3OQUANZMMJEUYZBJ&Expires=1631559503&Signature=RXcg9qDa%2Bi546l8UICSE89pv3wM%3D

You have to cut and paste that WHOLE link to access it.
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Interesting read, thanks for sharing. I'm still not sold on the idea, and I think Markee would be all the wiser to figure out a more equitable approach, but this project is still super early on in the process. I'm also aware that there are Markee folks on this forum, so who knows what could happen.

I'm also not sure what's so funny @Undead - feel free to share with the class. The great thing about forums is you get loads of different opinions and perspectives, so I'm very curious to hear yours.
 
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DavidCapizzano said:
Interesting read, thanks for sharing. I'm still not sold on the idea, and I think Markee would be all the wiser to figure out a more equitable approach, but this project is still super early on in the process. I'm also aware that there are Markee folks (well, one) on this forum, so who knows what could happen.

I'm also not sure what's so funny @Undead - feel free to share with the class. The great thing about forums is you get loads of different opinions and perspectives, so I'm very curious to hear yours.
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I left a laugh because I see such concerns as made up problems that only progressive/urbanist minded folks worry about. In the real world, it's not really an issue. But I know I'm probably on thin ice with the mods because of my off topic histrionics, so I didn't want to say anything. ;)
 
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