Toronto 619 Yonge | 237.99m | 70s | YI Developments | Core Architects

urbandreamer said:
Let me guess: developer overpaid for the land and thus are using their favourite budget architect to put up this "rental" condo tower. Maybe it's a sign the end is near?
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developer massively underpaid for the lands actually. but that doesn't preclude the rest of your supposition from being true!
 
Ugh, that podium is awful, straight out of a suburban office complex. Is it really hard for developers to design something interesting at ground level? Especially on Yonge street! Tower is okay, but I fear a precast mess. It's infuriating, why does the city even zone if the OMB is just going to amend it to that degree? I just wish there was some way to enforce quality design principles. That looks like a colonnade at the base, and all that's going to do is shift the focus away from the retail at grade.

Great job to all involved in this project. /s
 
Gphorce said:
Ugh, that podium is awful, straight out of a suburban office complex. Is it really hard for developers to design something interesting at ground level? Especially on Yonge street! Tower is okay, but I fear a precast mess. It's infuriating, why does the city even zone if the OMB is just going to amend it to that degree? I just wish there was some way to enforce quality design principles. That looks like a colonnade at the base, and all that's going to do is shift the focus away from the retail at grade.

Great job to all involved in this project. /s
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The issue is precisely that for a number of reasons the city intentionally hasn't changed the zoning since 438-86 was passed thirty years ago. 569 is an update in name only as the vast majority of 'permitted' FSIs in the codes are from the old by-law.

What that all has to do with 'enforc[ing] quality design principles' is however, beyond me.
 
AFAIK, this building has not been to the DRP yet. Maybe that's a trip it will be making before it gets Site Plan approval?

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Gphorce said:
why does the city even zone if the OMB is just going to amend it to that degree?
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What ProjectEnd said. There is no magic to most of the zoning in this city - it largely consists of a broad and general set of controls and performance standards applied to large zone areas (in most cases, decades ago) with no site-specific analysis whatsoever unless someone has come along with a redevelopment application. Unless one is in a low-rise, stable residential neighbourhood, the zoning is largely a placeholder until there can be a public planning process to consider the most appropriate development for any given site.
 
The City put zoning in place many years ago, and it worked pretty well until the Places To Grow Act effectively made it obsolete in 2005. The City has tried to redo the zoning since, but has not managed to create something it can agree on. Hence, the various area plans and guidelines that are coming into place.

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interchange42 said:
The City put zoning in place many years ago, and it worked pretty well until the Places To Grow Act effectively made it obsolete in 2005.
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Is that because developers can go to the OMB and claim that the Toronto Official Plan/zoning is not in line with provincial policy? And thus obtain height increases?
 
The Places to Grow Act essentially said that to contain endless sprawl, urban areas had to intensify. To accomplish that, the City of Toronto would have to find space for at least a million more people, and for that to happen, zoning restrictions would have to be modified in places where the City wanted the growth.

The City has made some progress towards that through various measures that direct growth like the Avenues study, but it has not managed a comprehensive update to its zoning. That means that just about every application of any size (and that's most applications these days) requires a zoning amendment, and why if the City acts too slowly (giving a developer the right to appeal a lack of decision in a timely fashion to the OMB) or too restrictively, that developers most often win at the OMB. Everyone going to the OMB typically says "our development supports the intensification aims of the Places to Grow Act", and as long as they don't ask for something absolutely unprecedented, they usually win. (Recently, the OMB has shown a liking for the new Tall Buildings Design Guidelines, and developers who have sought approval for applications that go beyond what the TBDG allow have not met with as much success.) The TBDG, BTW, typically allows for much more than current zoning on most sites does, while still placing restrictions on them.

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Does anyone have any pictures of the buildings on the site in the 1900s? I swear the building on the corner had a tower, which disappeared by the time it became a Canadian Tire in the 1920s.

Regardless, I hope the Yonge Street Heritage plan makes the developer retain the facade of at least the corner building.
 
Here is 637 Yonge in context, with other nearby developments:

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