Community Consultation Meeting Dec 6th, 7:00pm
Tonight's Community Consultation Meeting was held in the 2nd floor auditorium at the 519 Community Centre, a much larger space than where the two previous meetings were held and was pretty much full to capacity, no standing room was required like the last two meetings.
Willie Macrae, City of Toronto Planner, opened by apologizing to the crowd for any misconception that this project was being "pushed through" without community input as there have been suggestions of such. He explained how the application process came to be, the first report issued in April and said that meetings such as this are not held in the summer months due to vacations and then there was the City election, which brought us to this evening.
I thought that tonight's meeting was a bit of a sham. There was no scale model which for some reason I thought there would be, however there were several easels with blow-up renderings and planning documents, all of which had been presented before and can be found on this thread. Willie Macrae did a brief review of the process, the site, the history of the buildings, the proposal and reiterated that this project had been rejected in it's present form for various reasons which most in attendance already knew and loudly applauded. To recap, 580/582 Church (built 1878, currently Fuzion & Voglie restaurants) will remain but have a small portion chopped off the back of the building for wider access to the proposed building from Dundonald Street, 584 Church (Catherine Collard House, 1909, the only building not listed as a heritage property) will be demolished for the condominium entrance, 592 Church (Wallace Millichamp apartment houses, 1873) will be demolished but the facade will remain (or be removed & rebuilt), 596 Church (Gloucester Mansions, 1911) will be demolished, 67 Gloucester St (Gloucester Mansions building #2, 1911) will be demolished but the facade will remain or be rebuilt & 69 Gloucester St. (Wallace Millichamp House, 1875) will be demolished. Gloucester Street would be turned into a two way street but only from the point where vehicular access from the condominium exits so that drivers can go east on Gloucester to Church Street, currently both Dundonald and Gloucester Streets are one-way streets going west to Yonge Street. The loss of 35 demolished rentals will be worked into the new project tucked away in behind in a 4-storey section to replace the existing rentals (bach., 1, 2 & 3 bedroom units). Existing tenants get first crack at them if the project gets green-lighted "near" the same amount that they are paying now.
A representative for the developer then gave us a poor, fluffy presentation from their side of the development with half a dozen or so very enthusiastic audience members clapping for his presentation over on the north side of the auditorium.
When the presentations concluded questions were taken from the audience. Most were concerns over the heritage buildings (which the developer noted were "run down" and "in poor shape", thanks of course to them - the owners of the affected properties), relocation concerns for existing residents, shadow impacts/clear sky views, the scale & height of the building in a heritage district, this being an unattractive proposal and such. Other questions (from the north side of the room) stood to support the project as it's the "kind of building they would buy into", the old buildings are "full of bugs" & "poorly insulated making them environmentally unfriendly" and the like. I can't prove anything but I started to get the feeling that the developer had planted people into the audience, especially after the comment "they (the developer, "Church 18 Holdings" [what else have they built?]) is a good developer that really cares about the community unlike most other developers". Further, I didn't hear these folks identify where they lived - everyone was asked to do this at the beginning of the question period along with giving their name as they stood to register their comments or questions.
My frustration began to grow and I was really opposing this whole thing even more until a woman who has lived in one of the buildings for 27 years (and raised her family in a spacious 3 bedroom apartment there) stood and clarified the temporary bug problem they had there in 3 apartments then made a comment which really resonated with me and confirmed my opposition, she said that we travel to places and marvel at historic districts, she identified Montreal as an example, but we have little regard for our own history right here in Toronto which slowly continues to disappear. That sealed the deal for me and I left.
I do not support this project. This 25 storey building (which we know that, if approved, could very likely turn to 27 or 30 stories) is too fat & stumpy looking, will block sun for several blocks around this low-rise heritage district of mostly century homes & low-rise walk-ups (although I'm not as passionate about this issue as others here are unless it affects sunlight in parks, prominent civic spaces or along the water's edge), the building and add-ons are unattractive even in the renderings, I hate to see the heritage homes and apartment walk-ups chopped apart and I generally think this location is all 'round inappropriate when there are many other opportunities nearby that are much more suited to more appropriate development. I'd also like to point out that the renderings presented by the developer seem to me to be misleading. The building (in my view) has been cleverly and deceptively squished in the renderings (see below) giving the impression that 25 storeys is not as high as one would be lead to believe by viewing the renderings. In one rendering they even emphasize nearby highrises (which are not as close as the rendering would suggest) and emphasize their height (which are mostly 15-20 storey apartments with 8' ceilings) compared to their proposal; look closely. So yes, this proposal is only 25 stories (currently) which by today's Toronto standards isn't that high but consider this if you live in, or are familiar with the neighbourhood, the north tower at Radio City is 25 stories so take the height of that building into consideration and try to visualize a building of that height being built in this mostly low-rise, residential heritage area.
I'm a solid no, as is.
Source: Raw Design
