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Ecoplace Community By the Lake (Whitby)

rdaner

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Whitby has green dreams for work-at-home project
Ecoplace Community in Whitby is depicted in this artists’ rendition. The site will be home to 14,000 and employ 10,000 once it’s completed in 10 years.

Aug 24, 2007 04:30 AM
Carola Vyhnak
Staff reporter
Toronto Star


It's big. Really big. The biggest development in Durham Region and one of the largest in Ontario.

By the time Ecoplace Community by the Lake is completed, it's expected to provide homes for 14,000 and jobs for 10,000. That's huge for Whitby, says Mayor Pat Perkins.

"It's exactly what we've been looking for – an opportunity for living and working in one place."

As the region's fastest-growing municipality, Whitby has homes but not jobs for new residents, Perkins explains.

"People are spending two to three hours on the highway every day" to get to work in Toronto. "The highlight of this development is the employment opportunities for residents."

She stands on the 35-hectare swath of land north of Victoria St. in the southwest corner of Whitby where the development will be built. It's not much to look at now – empty fields dotted with a few small poplars; woods to the west, Sobeys and Highway 401 to the north.

It also has to go through the process of approvals and input from various levels of government. But Perkins can already envision phase one of the project, expected to be completed within two years.

Preliminary plans for the first phase include a 20-storey office tower, 700 units in three condominium highrises and retail stores.

The entire development, to be built in four phases over about 10 years, will include a hotel, convention centre and multiple residential and commercial buildings.

"It gives us the opportunity to develop this parcel of land in exactly the way it's being prescribed by the province – to intensify and put in mixed-use with employment opportunities as well," says Perkins.

One of the best features is its location, she says. Less than two kilometres north of Lake Ontario, as the seagull flies, it's within walking distance of the GO station, Iroquois Park Sports Centre, the waterfront trail and Lynde Shores Conservation Area.

Residents on the west side will have ducks and swans for neighbours, Perkins says.

The development will not only have little environmental impact, she notes, but it will "take people out of their cars and help revitalize the waterfront."

"It's an opportunity you only get once in a very long time," she says of the project and partnership with Saverio Montemarano and Mario Cortellucci of Nordeagle Developments Inc.

"We want to set a new standard for a sustainable neighbourhood. ... We believe it's important for residents to feel as proud about how they live as where they live," says Montemarano.

Ecoplace is so named for its environmentally healthy features. The LEED buildings will be designed for high efficiency and will include terraces with trees and gardens, says Montemarano.

And with shops and amenities close at hand, "you almost don't need a car."

"You can wake up in the morning, take your child to daycare right there, get your coffee and walk to public transit."

Montemarano, whose other company, Melody Homes, has built communities all over Ontario, including Peterborough and Barrie, is as excited as Perkins. "It will be the place to be east of Toronto."

Initial response indicates others think so, too.

"The whole community supports it. We're hearing `how soon can you do it?' " says Montemarano, who has "a host of major corporations ready to move in."

Perkins already has her shovel ready for the groundbreaking.
 
the rendering makes it look like the St. Jamestown of the 21st Century...

265975_3.JPG
 
a 20 storey office tower in Whitby? .. yeah like thats gonna happen. Far too ambitious and y'know what eventually happens to amibition ... townhomes and big box retailers
 
I'll give credit to Whitby for its ambition of joining Vaughan and Markham in creating another city centre in the GTA. However they will have to try really hard to convince future residents to give up the car and take alternative transport to get around. Mississauga's city centre failed to do that when it first started (and it's debatable whether their current "second attempt" at placemaking is making any effect). Scarborough has failed. Vaughan Corporate Centre will fail for sure. Downtown Markham is trying hard to create a walkable atmosphere, but given its surroundings, I'm sure DM residents will not give up the car.

Ecoplace will have to do a lot more to promote itself. A press release/article in the Star doesn't sound like a good start for such an ambitious development. The only rendering released shows little detail except for building massing, with no display of how it will fit into the surrounding context. Where's the flashy website?
 
I'll give credit to Whitby for its ambition of joining Vaughan and Markham in creating another city centre in the GTA.
The difference is that Whitby already has a downtown. A real downtown, not a little one block "village" like Markham.
 
Star

Link to article

`New urbanism' projects put jobs close to home


Forget long commute to downtown Toronto. Residents can walk, bike to work, retail stores in `compact lifestyle'
Aug 25, 2007 04:30 AM
Theresa Boyle
STAFF REPORTER

A new live-work development planned for Whitby is part of an evolution in urban planning that will see more of us walking to work, riding our bikes and parking the car, say architects, planners and politicians.

"My sense is that we're at the beginning of what is going to be a profound transition to a more healthy, balanced and sustainable way of building our communities," prominent architect and urban designer Ken Greenberg said yesterday.

A planned development in Whitby that grabbed attention this week may provide homes for 14,000 and jobs for 10,000 when it's completed in a decade. Residents will be able to live and work in the same community rather than spending hours commuting to jobs in downtown Toronto.

It's the latest in a string of such developments planned or under construction in the Greater Toronto Area.

"It's the new urbanism. It's all about sustainable communities," said Dave Ryan, mayor of Pickering, where the largest of such projects is now in the works.

Construction of the Seaton community in North Pickering is to begin in about two years. When it's complete, about 20 years from now, it will be home to 70,000 people and 35,000 jobs.

The high-density developments will include more condominiums, more mixed-use buildings and more "green" components.

"It's about a more compact lifestyle where people are taking up less space in their living environment. The complete community provides jobs as well as places to live. It brings the amenities that contribute to the quality of life closer so that people don't have to get in their cars to go shopping and go to schools," Ryan said.

The province is pushing for more developments like this through its Places to Grow Act. Passed two years ago, it requires that at least 40 per cent of any new development in the Greater Golden Horseshoe be in areas that are already built up.

This movement in planning, also known as smart growth, is responding to a way of life that has its roots in the Industrial Revolution.

"It was at a time when smokestacks were spewing soot and toxic fumes. People wanted to get away from workplaces that were seen as unhealthy environments. There was this whole idea of a bucolic life in the countryside," Greenberg said.

The emergence of the car made this possible. Zoning followed, with central business districts, industrial districts, residential districts, cultural districts, shopping centres and the list goes on.

But the downside of this way of life spawned a counter-movement.

"At least for the last couple of generations, there has been a realization that there were some terrible downsides and opportunity costs," Greenberg said.

"Life on the fringe was isolating, it was hard on families, it left women very often as the primary caregivers and homemakers in situations where they were separated from everything else. We got to the point where virtually every adult had to make every trip in an automobile and traffic congestion became astonishing," he said.

Today's workplaces aren't the health hazards they once were and it's possible for people and their jobs to co-exist in the same community.

"This mixing of things is the most fundamental thing you can do about sustainability. We need to get people not to spend enormous amounts of fuel and fumes and time moving from one thing to another. We need to bring things in closer proximity to each other," Greenberg said.

In addition to homes and jobs, this also applies to recreation, retail and culture.

This kind of mixed-use community stands in stark contrast to what most of the GTA looks like today.

"If you fly into Toronto, 90 per cent of what you see from the air is old-style subdivisions. They are essentially tract housing," Greenberg said.

There is little employment in these neighbourhoods. Residents have to jump into their cars just to buy a litre of milk, and there are few amenities.

Gary Wright, Toronto's director of community planning, cites Maple Leaf Square, being built beside the Air Canada Centre, as an example of the type of development the city is encouraging. The development will include a hotel, offices, condominiums, restaurants, stores, a daycare and underground access to the subway.

"In a lot of areas, we do want mixed-use because it just adds to the vitality," Wright said.

*****

Some might argue whether Ecoplace is really "new urbanism". Where's the historicist human-scaled architecture in this development?
 
Will the Whitby development get a new GO station? The site is right next to the line, so that would actually give it some potential to be a transit/pedestrian community, at least for commuters to Toronto.
 
Will the Whitby development get a new GO station? The site is right next to the line, so that would actually give it some potential to be a transit/pedestrian community, at least for commuters to Toronto.

The site is a 5-10 minute walk from the Whitby Go Station.

And if anyone is wondering about that big empty area in the middle of the rendering - that is currently occupied by a massive warehouse.
 
Looks neat. First 'burb in the east to try this out. What's the comparison in size with VCC, Markham, other new downtowns?
 
I'll give credit to Whitby for its ambition of joining Vaughan and Markham in creating another city centre in the GTA. However they will have to try really hard to convince future residents to give up the car and take alternative transport to get around. Mississauga's city centre failed to do that when it first started (and it's debatable whether their current "second attempt" at placemaking is making any effect). Scarborough has failed. Vaughan Corporate Centre will fail for sure. Downtown Markham is trying hard to create a walkable atmosphere, but given its surroundings, I'm sure DM residents will not give up the car.

While the ideal scenario would see many GTA residents giving up their car to use alternative transport (public transit and active) to get around. I really think that it will be difficult if not impossible to achieve in the short term. When we dream of a GTA neighbourhood without cars, we are dealing not with an urban form or design issue, instead it becomes an issue of behaviour and attitudes. The baby boomer generation and all their affluence are unlikely to give up their cars despite the fact that these new centres are and/or will be mixed use at reasonable densities to use alternative forms of transport. I would settle for a decreased use of the auto's, where people are able to chain trips by virtue of having many uses in close proximity to each other.
 
Nobody's going to "give up their car". This is Whitby, not St. Lawrence. People might use their cars less, but they're not going to get rid of them outright.
 
The difference is that Whitby already has a downtown. A real downtown, not a little one block "village" like Markham.

Though for the scale of community that Whitby is today, even it's not much of a downtown--and conversely, Markham Village is more than just one block. We're talking about something coming closer to rough "parity", here...
 
Markham has 3 downtowns, though...well, one is shared with Vaughan. And they're trying to build a fourth to rule them all.
 

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