91 King Street East (Albany Club, 25s, WZMH Architects)

[AndreaPalladio]

Do you realize how much proposals cost? Did you take into account all the costs of lawyers, planners, architects just to bring this "fishing expedition" to city hall? If you added all these costs, you would agree that no company would ever bring jokes like this to city hall unless they were truly planning on building them. Obviously, they may be pushing the boundaries a tad, but I'm sure they've taken that into account and with a few minor cosmetic/massing modifications, the core structure is actually the one they are aiming to construct.

Yes. Yes. No. No. Surely they are paying a lot of money. To get what they want. Which is most likely to find out the maximum they are allowed to build. In any negotiation, you ask for more than you actually want. Once they know what they can build, they will design it, propose it and, Mark Carney willing, sell it and build it.

 

[thecharioteer]

Do you realize how much proposals cost? Did you take into account all the costs of lawyers, planners, architects just to bring this "fishing expedition" to city hall? If you added all these costs, you would agree that no company would ever bring jokes like this to city hall unless they were truly planning on building them. Obviously, they may be pushing the boundaries a tad, but I'm sure they've taken that into account and with a few minor cosmetic/massing modifications, the core structure is actually the one they are aiming to construct.

You miss my point. I don't believe that the "collective" is aiming to construct anything. This is a land play, not unusual in the industry, in which a group of adjacent landowners get together, chip in some money, and get their land rezoned in order to sell it to a real developer or builder (see the Clairtrell development at Sheppard and Bayview, in which an entire street of single-family homeowners got together and got their street rezoned for development). Note that there is no developer attached to this thread. Also, costs can be kept to a minimum when the architect never moves beyond the simplest of conceptual design sketches (501 Yonge?). Biggest costs are all the ancillary reports needed for a "complete" application to the City, but even these can be kept to a minimum of detail in order to submit an application.

 

[gristle]

Wasnt that the same said 8yrs. ago when developers were planning and putting foward proposals for, Aura, Four Seasons, Festival Tower, X-Condos, atc. not to mention... the Distillery District, Liberty Village and Queen-West
....they were untouchable areas for hi-rise development at one time
I guess its just part of this great city of ours growing up.

Did you bother to read the post I was responding to?

 

[AlbertC]

71 - 95 King Street East - Zoning Amendment
Application - Preliminary Report

http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2012/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-47765.pdf

Architect is Pellow and Associates.

 

[Ramako]

As the report explains, there are a lot of problems with this proposal, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how the height is one of them. This is literally one block away from 88 Scott, which was approved at over 200 metres, and it's far closer to the CBD than virtually of the Entertainment District towers, which are of similar height.

It's literally two blocks from King & Yonge for god's sake. You can't tell me that there isn't a significant anti-height presence within city planning staff.

 

[DSC]

As the report explains, there are a lot of problems with this proposal, but for the life of me, I can't figure out how the height is one of them. This is literally one block away from 88 Scott, which was approved at over 200 metres, and it's far closer to the CBD than virtually of the Entertainment District towers, which are of similar height.

It's literally two blocks from King & Yonge for god's sake. You can't tell me that there isn't a significant anti-height presence within city planning staff.

The current City guidelines allow far greater height in the area where 88 Scott is going up s that is not in the Kng-Parliament area - the current guidelines etc call for buildings to slope downwards from the King Eddy (which is about 19 'regular' floors.) The planners are simply doing their job in pointing out that the 47 proposed storeys is not currently permitted on this site and I have heard the developers (actually the owners) are already proposing something lower.

 

[Ramako]

The current City guidelines allow far greater height in the area where 88 Scott is going up s that is not in the Kng-Parliament area - the current guidelines etc call for buildings to slope downwards from the King Eddy (which is about 19 'regular' floors.) The planners are simply doing their job in pointing out that the 47 proposed storeys is not currently permitted on this site and I have heard the developers (actually the owners) are already proposing something lower.

Why is it important that the buildings slope down to the King Eddy? What an arbitrary restriction. It's nonsense.

 

[Red October]

Why is it important that the buildings slope down to the King Eddy? What an arbitrary restriction. It's nonsense.

St. James I imagine.

 

[DSC]

Why is it important that the buildings slope down to the King Eddy? What an arbitrary restriction. It's nonsense.

I suggest you actually read the City planning guidelines before trashing them. They may be imperfect but they are not arbitrary and were developed after a great deal of thought and consultation. It is the planners' job to evaluate proposals against them and evaluate whether exceptions should be made. +-

 

[yyzer]

I think any type of 'tapering' policy is ludicrous, anywhere in the city....it's one of the worst examples of obsessive micro-management, and over-regulation, that we seem to be saddled with...

We need to let the city grow organically, and keep the pencil pushers at bay...

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Not really, growing "organically" doesn't meant growing without rules and regulations - which always existed no matter where you go, in some way, shape or form. Would you argue Paris, with its' height limit in the central city, isn't organically "grown" over the course of its' history - for example? Or London? Or even New York City? In fact one can argue in comparison - Toronto has always been rather lax with enforcing said rules.

AoD

 

[yyzer]

AoD, I'm not saying we don't need rules and regulations, there is definitely a need for good planning - I'm just saying that a 'tapering' policy seems pointless and arbitrary...I don't think Chicago has such a policy, nor NYC, nor Hong Kong, all dynamic, urban cities..tapering would imply that the downtown core can only have one peak, which I think is limiting...also, a tapering policy effectively distorts land value - within the tapering cone, your land is worth more, and outside of it, less..this determined by some bureaucrat..

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

yyz:

I'm just saying that a 'tapering' policy seems pointless and arbitrary...I don't think Chicago has such a policy, nor NYC, nor Hong Kong, all dynamic, urban cities..tapering would imply that the downtown core can only have one peak, which I think is limiting...

I am not familiar enough with the planning regime in NYC and Chicago to judge, but Hong Kong? They have policies around breaking the ridgeline of the hills behind the CBD even - and yes, it is limiting, but planning is by default balancing various interests.

also, a tapering policy effectively distorts land value - within the tapering cone, your land is worth more, and outside of it, less..this determined by some bureaucrat..

Zoning by land use also "effectively distorts land value" - and yet we don't seem to have a huge problem with that when applied to neighbourhoods.

AoD

 

[DSC]

...also, a tapering policy effectively distorts land value - within the tapering cone, your land is worth more, and outside of it, less..this determined by some bureaucrat..

Actually the planning guidelines are determined by Council after listening to citizens - the bureaucrats are "simply" administering the Rules as best they can.

 

[neubilder]

I think any type of 'tapering' policy is ludicrous, anywhere in the city....it's one of the worst examples of obsessive micro-management, and over-regulation, that we seem to be saddled with...

We need to let the city grow organically, and keep the pencil pushers at bay...

Wrong.