Alley Kat
Active Member
You've seen that mall. Apparently the preliminary artist's renderings for it were attractive and nothing like the monstrosity SmartCentres actually built.
Trust your gut reaction on this one.
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Leslieville / Studio District
- Thread starter bar1967
- Start date
You've seen that mall. Apparently the preliminary artist's renderings for it were attractive and nothing like the monstrosity SmartCentres actually built.
Trust your gut reaction on this one.
insertrealname
Active Member
According to the SmartCentres document comparing the proposed development with Sherway Gardens, there is 644K sq/ft leasable space (Sherway Gardens: 980K), 1871 parking spaces (Sherway Garden: 5700) and gross land area 18.47 acres (Sherway Gardens: 74.3). I suppose SmartCentres can use these statistics to say, hey, we're now on the high density development bandwagon too!
There is no residential; initial plans did include something like 60 condos, but the provincial environmental land-use certificate--or whatever it's called--does not allow residential on what remains a contaminated site (former tannery, etc.). [SARCASM]Parking lots are an excellent way for the City and developers to avoid the cost of proper remediation for a brownfield site.[/SARCASM]
As for office space, I can't locate detailed published plans, probably these are the kind of building shells that are completely flexible in dividing up the interior, but there are three levels in certain parts of the complex, and SmartCentres is promising substantial retail space on the second level (there may be major tenants entirely on the second level). So one can imagine something like professional offices on the third level.
I am just fed up with trying to reason with people on urban developments like this proposal: if they can't see beyond the convenience of a big car-oriented shopping centre on the periphery of a mixed residential area, the machinations of one owner/developer pair to corner the market in film studio and retail space in this area, I don't know why they even bother to consider themselves "urban" dwellers--they might as well go live in some of the more disastrous low-density areas of Vaughn, where there are more abundant opportunities to spend time driving and shopping.
Do they consider their own interests as tax- and rate-payers in Toronto? All that new traffic requires enhanced maintenance of roadways and some new construction.
Do they consider the health effects of that traffic? South Toronto already has above average rates of respiratory deficits and disease, that all contribute to a growing health cost in this province.
Do they consider the potential future value of non-retail types of employment in the area? Everyone seems to take the attitude that, for instance, the presence of thousands of jobs allied to film-making was just an economic blip due to the low Canadian/US dollar exchange rate. No, the film-making economy and these jobs developed in such a way that the foreigners considered Toronto to be a reasonably competent and reliable place to actually get their production done (and that's leaving aside the value of the domestic demand for such services); the exchange rate and other rebates are just extra inducements: the the people and skills are not already there, they will not come.
Instead of watching these people and their skills scatter to the four winds or be recycled into something else, why not capitalize on it? And that's what's so strange about the obsession with Filmport as the future of Toronto's film-making economy. I can't believe that anyone in the business would want to give up low- and medium-cost studio space (the kind apparently used for all kinds of commercials, etc.) on the assumption that the high-end space like Filmport is going to keep the Toronto film-making economy viable.
O.K., I'm not in that business, so all the preceding is probably laughable speculation on my part, but still: why not reserve that land via zoning requirements for something a little more ambitious than shopping space? After all, if Toronto Film Studios took a risk and speculated in their Filmport development, the City is *not* there to pick up the tab for them by allowing speculation with their existing land holdings.
Look, it's clear that all the area south of Eastern Ave is industrial in various stages of contamination and dis/re-use, and it barely registers in most people's minds as a potential area to be re-integrated into Toronto's active urban fabric. And there are perfectly coherent current land usages there as well that will remain (there have to be e.g. port lands, garbage transfer stations, gravel and sand storage somewhere in the city). But the point is that the whole area is being developed without regard to the future, nor to the impacts on the current mixed residential areas in close proximity, nor to any potential expansion southward in the future, think of the plans currently discussed for the area west of the Don River.
And the City planners seem to be backed into a corner in the current OPA and ZBA appeal at the OMB: they must maintain a strict industrial/employment designation of the land at all costs, because allowing mixed employment/residential/commercial use (with the appropriate decontamination requirements) apparently weakens the case for opposing large shopping centre plans! And allowing one owner to build a shopping centre means allowing all the vacant land between Eastern and Lakeshore to be zoned for that purpose, or face repeated OMB appeals.
The whole thing is an incredible mess, and if the City loses, then I think we should all assume that the new City Plan and the new City planning instruments of 2006 are not worth the paper they are written on.
In that sense, the current SmartCentres OMB appeal will set a strong precedent and direction for *all* future urban development in Toronto. Do we think and innovate, or simply repeat current development practise?
Alley Kat
Active Member
The OMB hearing starts today, Wednesday May 21st.
Alley Kat
Active Member
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/...battle-for-leslieville-begins-at-the-omb.aspx
The battle for Leslieville begins at OMB
Leanne Wild, 34, and her daughter Jubilene, 2 1/2, (named for the Hebrew word Jubilee, her mom says) arrived in the grand lobby at 655 Bay St. at about 11:15 a.m today. Both wore bike helmets; Jubilene wore mittens and little yellow rain boots. The little girl stood on the gleaming granite in the lobby, dwarfed by a cathedral ceiling, and asked: ‘Mom, can I have an apple?’
With Jubilene in a bike seat, mother and daughter had just rode in from Gerrard India Bazaar along the Dundas and Gerrard Street bike paths. It was an epic journey of sorts, from the little house she bought two years ago, across the river, through rain showers and down busy streets to the corridors of bureaucratic power.
They joined about 100 residents of Leslieville and environs who packed a sterile hearing room on the 16th floor of this building, home of the Ontario Municipal Board, to voice their opposition to a Smart!Centre plan to rezone about nine hectares of employment land on Eastern Avenue for a big box shopping plaza.
“We’re not shop owners,†said Ms. Wild, unwinding her long, damp scarf. “We’re just residential folks in the neighbourhood. I’m frustrated in general by Smart!Centres and the way they operate. I like the downtown small shops owned by local people.â€
The city last year turned down the Smart!Centres project; the company appealed to the OMB. Provincially appointed OMB judges have power to overturn council.
On Wednesday James McKenzie, who presides this hearing, was outraged when the lawyers told him the case would take 26 weeks. “This is not going to be an open-ended process,†he told the 16 lawyers. “Let me disabuse you of that notion right now.â€
After lunch the lawyers agreed with Mr. McKenzie to spend 17 weeks on the hearing, and wrap up by Oct. 2. Smart!Centres said its key witness will be Tom Smith, vice-president of development, who has taken his case directly to Torontonians over the past few weeks with appearances on television, radio and in print.
The City of Toronto and Smart!Centres have two lawyers each, as do the East Toronto Community Coalition, Talisker, which owns the BMW dealership near the Don Valley Parkway, Mark Flowers, who owns land east of the disputed property, and Loblaws, who own a store nearby.
People from the neighbourhood wore black T-Shirts with the slogan “Good Jobs Matter,†which the coalition was selling for $20 each. They say they prefer film jobs or other high-paying work to Wal-Mart jobs on the site. Toronto Film Studios is leaving the spot at the end of the year to go the new Film Port in the port;
Wal-Mart is the usual anchor tenant for Smart!Centres. I asked Dennis Wood, Smart!Centres’ lead lawyer, what he thinks of the slogan, “Good Jobs Matter.â€
“There’s a difference of opinion between my client and them about whether good jobs of the kind they’re talking about are achievable on that site,†Mr. Wood said.
“It’s the difference between 75% of something and 100% of nothing.â€
But Brendan O’Callaghan, the City of Toronto lawyer, said industrial and commercial users occupy 94% of the land from the Don River east to Coxwell Avenue, from Eastern Avenue to Lakeshore Boulevard, including Canada Post’s mammoth South Central processing plant and the Lever factory. He says rezoning land in the heart of this area for retail could cause all the others to rezone and close factories.
“It’s a tremendously successful employment area,†Mr. O’Callaghan said.
A win for either side may well not be the end of the story. Eric Gillespie, lawyer for the local residents, noted that his firm fought Smart!Centres for 10 years to keep Wal-Mart out of Guelph. In the end Smart!Centres settled, building a berm to protect a local Jesuit seminary from its big boxes, he said.
“The Jesuits just announced that they are going to begin a reforestation project that will take 500 years,†Mr. Gillespie said. So I guess the mitigation measures have worked.â€
But as he spoke, I could see the wheels turning in the head of his client, Kelly Carmichael, who heads the community coalition. “Ten years,†she was thinkin.
“I’ll have to sell a lot of t-shirts.â€
The hearing continues at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
The battle for Leslieville begins at OMB
Leanne Wild, 34, and her daughter Jubilene, 2 1/2, (named for the Hebrew word Jubilee, her mom says) arrived in the grand lobby at 655 Bay St. at about 11:15 a.m today. Both wore bike helmets; Jubilene wore mittens and little yellow rain boots. The little girl stood on the gleaming granite in the lobby, dwarfed by a cathedral ceiling, and asked: ‘Mom, can I have an apple?’
With Jubilene in a bike seat, mother and daughter had just rode in from Gerrard India Bazaar along the Dundas and Gerrard Street bike paths. It was an epic journey of sorts, from the little house she bought two years ago, across the river, through rain showers and down busy streets to the corridors of bureaucratic power.
They joined about 100 residents of Leslieville and environs who packed a sterile hearing room on the 16th floor of this building, home of the Ontario Municipal Board, to voice their opposition to a Smart!Centre plan to rezone about nine hectares of employment land on Eastern Avenue for a big box shopping plaza.
“We’re not shop owners,†said Ms. Wild, unwinding her long, damp scarf. “We’re just residential folks in the neighbourhood. I’m frustrated in general by Smart!Centres and the way they operate. I like the downtown small shops owned by local people.â€
The city last year turned down the Smart!Centres project; the company appealed to the OMB. Provincially appointed OMB judges have power to overturn council.
On Wednesday James McKenzie, who presides this hearing, was outraged when the lawyers told him the case would take 26 weeks. “This is not going to be an open-ended process,†he told the 16 lawyers. “Let me disabuse you of that notion right now.â€
After lunch the lawyers agreed with Mr. McKenzie to spend 17 weeks on the hearing, and wrap up by Oct. 2. Smart!Centres said its key witness will be Tom Smith, vice-president of development, who has taken his case directly to Torontonians over the past few weeks with appearances on television, radio and in print.
The City of Toronto and Smart!Centres have two lawyers each, as do the East Toronto Community Coalition, Talisker, which owns the BMW dealership near the Don Valley Parkway, Mark Flowers, who owns land east of the disputed property, and Loblaws, who own a store nearby.
People from the neighbourhood wore black T-Shirts with the slogan “Good Jobs Matter,†which the coalition was selling for $20 each. They say they prefer film jobs or other high-paying work to Wal-Mart jobs on the site. Toronto Film Studios is leaving the spot at the end of the year to go the new Film Port in the port;
Wal-Mart is the usual anchor tenant for Smart!Centres. I asked Dennis Wood, Smart!Centres’ lead lawyer, what he thinks of the slogan, “Good Jobs Matter.â€
“There’s a difference of opinion between my client and them about whether good jobs of the kind they’re talking about are achievable on that site,†Mr. Wood said.
“It’s the difference between 75% of something and 100% of nothing.â€
But Brendan O’Callaghan, the City of Toronto lawyer, said industrial and commercial users occupy 94% of the land from the Don River east to Coxwell Avenue, from Eastern Avenue to Lakeshore Boulevard, including Canada Post’s mammoth South Central processing plant and the Lever factory. He says rezoning land in the heart of this area for retail could cause all the others to rezone and close factories.
“It’s a tremendously successful employment area,†Mr. O’Callaghan said.
A win for either side may well not be the end of the story. Eric Gillespie, lawyer for the local residents, noted that his firm fought Smart!Centres for 10 years to keep Wal-Mart out of Guelph. In the end Smart!Centres settled, building a berm to protect a local Jesuit seminary from its big boxes, he said.
“The Jesuits just announced that they are going to begin a reforestation project that will take 500 years,†Mr. Gillespie said. So I guess the mitigation measures have worked.â€
But as he spoke, I could see the wheels turning in the head of his client, Kelly Carmichael, who heads the community coalition. “Ten years,†she was thinkin.
“I’ll have to sell a lot of t-shirts.â€
The hearing continues at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
Alley Kat
Active Member
Leslieville fast becoming restaurant central
Leslieville offers couple in music biz a new place to dine every week
May 22, 2008 04:30 AM
EMILY MATHIEU
STAFF REPORTER
A wealth of culinary options and easy access to the rest of the city are reasons Ryan Spalding and Lisa Pieterse never plan to move far from the four city blocks around their Leslieville home.
The couple has lived for three years in a converted industrial space on Minto St., a quiet one-way a stone's throw from Queen St. E., near Leslie St. Spalding grew up in the area and most of his childhood friends still live close by.
Their building used to be a bakery. Because Spalding and Pieterse have the top apartment, they scored a rooftop patio the size of a small parking lot.
Leslieville has no shortage of tiny restaurants. When they moved in, the couple's mission was to try a new place each week. It's become a "three-year ordeal," says Pieterse, but she's not really complaining.
The beach is only a short distance away, so they always have a place to unwind and walk it off.
Spalding, 27, and Pieterse, 35, both work in the music industry. He is a marketing and promotions manager with Dine Alone Records, managing bands such as City and Colour, Black Lungs and Bedouin Soundclash. Pieterse is the media relations director for Wind-up Records Canada. The artists include Finger Eleven, Evanescence and People in Planes.
"For business purposes, it's really close to shows," says Spalding, who often uses the Queen streetcar. Pieterse works in the north end of the city and loves being able to jump onto the Don Valley Parkway.
The day we go for our walking tour is pelting rain with winds that turn umbrellas inside out.
We head south on Minto to Eastern Ave. Then take Knox Ave. north to Queen St. E. The rest of the trek takes us west. The weather hasn't dissuaded the brunch set in Leslieville. Every restaurant we pass is packed.
SHOW ME A PLACE YOU LOVE
That would be Edward Levesque's Kitchen. The food tastes upscale but the place has a relatively laid-back feel, they say.
Another favourite is Gio Rana's Really, Really Nice Restaurant, also known as the Nose, since the restaurant sign is a giant schnozz. "Their pork tenderloin is fantastic," says Pieterse.
Next we pass The Friendly Thai. "This place has the best hot and sour soup I've ever had," says Spalding.
Pieterse's expression shows she is less convinced.
We duck into Ok Ok, a restaurant with a retro feel. Spalding has a breakfast burrito. Pieterse orders a poached egg and salmon concoction on two hash brown patties.
ANYTHING YOU DON'T LIKE?
The strip featuring their favourite restaurants is peppered with something Spalding refers to as "dive bars." And during spring thaw, the waste-water treatment plant at Ashbridges Bay gives off an odour that can be summed up in one word: "Sewage," says Spalding.
HOW HAS THE NEIGHBOURHOOD CHANGED?
Development is booming, says Spalding. The number of people selling their homes has jumped. It's also cleaned up and become more family-friendly on the main strip, he says.
A skate park, to open nearby this summer, shows a commitment to kids and makes them feel part of the neighbourhood, they add.
A Wal-Mart big-box development has been proposed – zoning requirements are under review by the Ontario Municipal Board – and judging by the "No Big Box" signs in windows, it's about as welcome as an ex-boyfriend at a bridal shower.
IS THERE ANYWHERE ELSE YOU LIKE TO EAT?
For Italian, says Spalding, Baldini's. For a menu featuring cupcakes, visit Kubo Radio, says Pieterse.
That legendary joint The Tulip Restaurant also makes a mean pancake, on top of melt-in-your-mouth, exceptionally affordable steaks. Pieterse advises anyone tackling The Tulip's massive main courses for the first time: "You have to be ready for it."
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/428275
Leslieville offers couple in music biz a new place to dine every week
May 22, 2008 04:30 AM
EMILY MATHIEU
STAFF REPORTER
A wealth of culinary options and easy access to the rest of the city are reasons Ryan Spalding and Lisa Pieterse never plan to move far from the four city blocks around their Leslieville home.
The couple has lived for three years in a converted industrial space on Minto St., a quiet one-way a stone's throw from Queen St. E., near Leslie St. Spalding grew up in the area and most of his childhood friends still live close by.
Their building used to be a bakery. Because Spalding and Pieterse have the top apartment, they scored a rooftop patio the size of a small parking lot.
Leslieville has no shortage of tiny restaurants. When they moved in, the couple's mission was to try a new place each week. It's become a "three-year ordeal," says Pieterse, but she's not really complaining.
The beach is only a short distance away, so they always have a place to unwind and walk it off.
Spalding, 27, and Pieterse, 35, both work in the music industry. He is a marketing and promotions manager with Dine Alone Records, managing bands such as City and Colour, Black Lungs and Bedouin Soundclash. Pieterse is the media relations director for Wind-up Records Canada. The artists include Finger Eleven, Evanescence and People in Planes.
"For business purposes, it's really close to shows," says Spalding, who often uses the Queen streetcar. Pieterse works in the north end of the city and loves being able to jump onto the Don Valley Parkway.
The day we go for our walking tour is pelting rain with winds that turn umbrellas inside out.
We head south on Minto to Eastern Ave. Then take Knox Ave. north to Queen St. E. The rest of the trek takes us west. The weather hasn't dissuaded the brunch set in Leslieville. Every restaurant we pass is packed.
SHOW ME A PLACE YOU LOVE
That would be Edward Levesque's Kitchen. The food tastes upscale but the place has a relatively laid-back feel, they say.
Another favourite is Gio Rana's Really, Really Nice Restaurant, also known as the Nose, since the restaurant sign is a giant schnozz. "Their pork tenderloin is fantastic," says Pieterse.
Next we pass The Friendly Thai. "This place has the best hot and sour soup I've ever had," says Spalding.
Pieterse's expression shows she is less convinced.
We duck into Ok Ok, a restaurant with a retro feel. Spalding has a breakfast burrito. Pieterse orders a poached egg and salmon concoction on two hash brown patties.
ANYTHING YOU DON'T LIKE?
The strip featuring their favourite restaurants is peppered with something Spalding refers to as "dive bars." And during spring thaw, the waste-water treatment plant at Ashbridges Bay gives off an odour that can be summed up in one word: "Sewage," says Spalding.
HOW HAS THE NEIGHBOURHOOD CHANGED?
Development is booming, says Spalding. The number of people selling their homes has jumped. It's also cleaned up and become more family-friendly on the main strip, he says.
A skate park, to open nearby this summer, shows a commitment to kids and makes them feel part of the neighbourhood, they add.
A Wal-Mart big-box development has been proposed – zoning requirements are under review by the Ontario Municipal Board – and judging by the "No Big Box" signs in windows, it's about as welcome as an ex-boyfriend at a bridal shower.
IS THERE ANYWHERE ELSE YOU LIKE TO EAT?
For Italian, says Spalding, Baldini's. For a menu featuring cupcakes, visit Kubo Radio, says Pieterse.
That legendary joint The Tulip Restaurant also makes a mean pancake, on top of melt-in-your-mouth, exceptionally affordable steaks. Pieterse advises anyone tackling The Tulip's massive main courses for the first time: "You have to be ready for it."
http://www.thestar.com/living/article/428275
299 bloor call control.
Senior Member
The OMB is not the forum to argue what dictates a 'good job' - its whether or not this is good planning - and it's not. A 1,000 stall surface parking lot already says enough.
Riverdale Rink Rat
Senior Member
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Does the OMB read the paper?
Many, if not most, of the arguments against this project have been around the 'employment lands' designation. If I'm Smart!Centre, I hammer this argument home at every opportunity. 'We're creating real jobs' will have resonance.
IMHO, Fletcher et al. should have maximized the 'No Big Box' argument and minimized the jobs argument. They did to a certain extent.
I hope, if/when they lose, the anti-mall types morph into an Annex-style Ratepayers group which works with the developer to find some compromise. I'm not hopeful.
Many, if not most, of the arguments against this project have been around the 'employment lands' designation. If I'm Smart!Centre, I hammer this argument home at every opportunity. 'We're creating real jobs' will have resonance.
IMHO, Fletcher et al. should have maximized the 'No Big Box' argument and minimized the jobs argument. They did to a certain extent.
I hope, if/when they lose, the anti-mall types morph into an Annex-style Ratepayers group which works with the developer to find some compromise. I'm not hopeful.
Alley Kat
Active Member
Toronto's immaturity bound up in the power of unelected OMB
May 23, 2008 04:30 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME
If Toronto ever grows up, it won't be until we get rid of the Ontario Municipal Board.
This unelected and unaccountable body has been making a mockery of democracy and undermining the planning process since the 19th century. Along the way, it has created a culture of civic immaturity and petulance that has rendered city governance dysfunctional.
And this week the OMB began a hearing that will profoundly affect the city's future. Its decision will influence how Toronto develops in the years ahead, in particular whether the suburbanization of the downtown core will continue, or whether more urban values will prevail.
These are decisions that must be made, but it's wrong and regressive that the decision-maker should be the OMB. But that's how things work in this province and in this city.
Earlier this week, OMB adjudicators sat down to hear the cases for and against the controversial SmartCentres/Wal-Mart proposal for a 7.2-hectare site on Eastern Ave. The proposed mall was refused by the city, which has zoned the land for "creative industry" employment, but because of technical reasons, the board agreed to hear it anyway.
That was the OMB's first intrusion into the process, one that shouldn't have been allowed and one that's deeply embarrassing to a country that likes to think of itself as being so very 21st century.
So now lawyers for the two sides are lining up their trained seals who will slap their flippers on cue and offer expert testimony at great expense to taxpayers.
The decision will be made on the narrowest possible grounds. And in the end, three or four months from now, all of us will be losers, regardless of the outcome. Even if the OMB turns down the application, the city will have been diminished.
Yet this is the Spadina Expressway of our time. This is where the line must be drawn. This is where we must decide what kind of a city we want Toronto to become.
Will we stand up to powerful corporate forces that have saturated the suburbs with their big-box outlets and shopping malls and now want to do the same in Toronto? Or will the OMB give them what they want despite opposition from the city and its residents?
Most assume the OMB will side with SmartCentres.
When the Spadina Expressway was killed in 1971, the man who pulled the plug was then Ontario premier Bill Davis. Then, as now, it was the province that had the final say. All these years later, the premier could still overrule the board, but there's no indication that will happen.
Davis understood that the proposed expressway represented a point of no return. As he so eloquently put it, "If we are building a transportation system to serve the automobile, the Spadina Expressway would be a good place to start. But if we are building a transportation system to serve people, the Spadina Expressway is a good place to stop."
Similarly, if we want to build a city to serve large corporate interests, Eastern Ave. would be a good place to start. If we are building a city to serve people, it is a good place to stop.
These decisions are too important to leave to the OMB. Only the city should decide what's best for the city. True, Toronto councillors and planning and public works departments verge on incompetence. That may be scary but they're the best we have. Growing up isn't easy, but sooner or later Toronto must be given responsibility for Toronto.
The irony is that this time the city did make a decision, the right one, only to be undermined by the OMB.
http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Columnist/article/429151
May 23, 2008 04:30 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME
If Toronto ever grows up, it won't be until we get rid of the Ontario Municipal Board.
This unelected and unaccountable body has been making a mockery of democracy and undermining the planning process since the 19th century. Along the way, it has created a culture of civic immaturity and petulance that has rendered city governance dysfunctional.
And this week the OMB began a hearing that will profoundly affect the city's future. Its decision will influence how Toronto develops in the years ahead, in particular whether the suburbanization of the downtown core will continue, or whether more urban values will prevail.
These are decisions that must be made, but it's wrong and regressive that the decision-maker should be the OMB. But that's how things work in this province and in this city.
Earlier this week, OMB adjudicators sat down to hear the cases for and against the controversial SmartCentres/Wal-Mart proposal for a 7.2-hectare site on Eastern Ave. The proposed mall was refused by the city, which has zoned the land for "creative industry" employment, but because of technical reasons, the board agreed to hear it anyway.
That was the OMB's first intrusion into the process, one that shouldn't have been allowed and one that's deeply embarrassing to a country that likes to think of itself as being so very 21st century.
So now lawyers for the two sides are lining up their trained seals who will slap their flippers on cue and offer expert testimony at great expense to taxpayers.
The decision will be made on the narrowest possible grounds. And in the end, three or four months from now, all of us will be losers, regardless of the outcome. Even if the OMB turns down the application, the city will have been diminished.
Yet this is the Spadina Expressway of our time. This is where the line must be drawn. This is where we must decide what kind of a city we want Toronto to become.
Will we stand up to powerful corporate forces that have saturated the suburbs with their big-box outlets and shopping malls and now want to do the same in Toronto? Or will the OMB give them what they want despite opposition from the city and its residents?
Most assume the OMB will side with SmartCentres.
When the Spadina Expressway was killed in 1971, the man who pulled the plug was then Ontario premier Bill Davis. Then, as now, it was the province that had the final say. All these years later, the premier could still overrule the board, but there's no indication that will happen.
Davis understood that the proposed expressway represented a point of no return. As he so eloquently put it, "If we are building a transportation system to serve the automobile, the Spadina Expressway would be a good place to start. But if we are building a transportation system to serve people, the Spadina Expressway is a good place to stop."
Similarly, if we want to build a city to serve large corporate interests, Eastern Ave. would be a good place to start. If we are building a city to serve people, it is a good place to stop.
These decisions are too important to leave to the OMB. Only the city should decide what's best for the city. True, Toronto councillors and planning and public works departments verge on incompetence. That may be scary but they're the best we have. Growing up isn't easy, but sooner or later Toronto must be given responsibility for Toronto.
The irony is that this time the city did make a decision, the right one, only to be undermined by the OMB.
http://www.thestar.com/GTA/Columnist/article/429151
Alley Kat
Active Member
Opponents of Leslieville mall question quality of new jobs
JAMES RUSK
May 23, 2008
The retail jobs that would be created by a $220-million shopping mall in the old east-end Toronto neighbourhood of Leslieville are not "true" employment, a lawyer representing a coalition of local residents and unions that opposes the project told an Ontario Municipal Board hearing yesterday.
In the opening day of arguments in a planned 17-week hearing that will decide the proposed mall's fate, Eric Gillespie, the lawyer for the Toronto East Community Coalition, said the city and the coalition believe that the jobs the mall would create are not the kind that belong in a so-called employment zone.
"It is not just jobs, it's good jobs," Mr. Gillespie told the OMB.
The OMB is hearing an application by the mall's developer, SmartCentres Inc., to overturn amendments the city made to its official plan that have blocked the redevelopment of an old industrial site on Eastern Avenue. It was once occupied by a tannery and now houses a film studio that is due to move out by the end of the year.
The proposed mall, which includes space for one major retailer - possibly a Wal-Mart, as the company is often a tenant in SmartCentres' projects - has been described by opponents as a big-box development, although current plans for the project, which has parking for 1,900 cars, do not include free-standing stores.
In January, city council approved an amendment to the official plan to include the 7.5-hectare site in an 89-hectare employment zone that it wants to create between Eastern Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard, east of the Don River.
But the OMB would have to approve the site's inclusion in an employment zone because the application to build a mall there dates back to 2004, when a previous owner failed to get approval for a mixed-use development, long before the employment zone was created.
City lawyer Brendan O'Callaghan said the official plan calls for the creation of 380,000 jobs between 2001 and 2031, and as a consequence, it needs all designated employment lands in the city to remain in employment uses, including the Eastern Avenue site, which is slated for use by the film or technology industries.
SmartCentres' lawyer, Dennis Wood, said the firm's expert calculates that building the mall would not affect the right of the city to protect employment uses on the rest of the zone and that it would create between 1,900 and 2,000 jobs, which would be added to the city's employment base.
"These are real jobs because they are absolutely going to occur. They are not hoped-for jobs," Mr. Wood said.
He added that, historically, retail jobs account for about 25 per cent of the new jobs in employment districts in the city. The OMB should not get into a "philosophical discussion" over whether a retail position that pays $10.15 an hour is an acceptable job in meeting the employment targets of the official plan.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080523.LESLIEVILLE23/TPStory/TPNational/Ontario/
JAMES RUSK
May 23, 2008
The retail jobs that would be created by a $220-million shopping mall in the old east-end Toronto neighbourhood of Leslieville are not "true" employment, a lawyer representing a coalition of local residents and unions that opposes the project told an Ontario Municipal Board hearing yesterday.
In the opening day of arguments in a planned 17-week hearing that will decide the proposed mall's fate, Eric Gillespie, the lawyer for the Toronto East Community Coalition, said the city and the coalition believe that the jobs the mall would create are not the kind that belong in a so-called employment zone.
"It is not just jobs, it's good jobs," Mr. Gillespie told the OMB.
The OMB is hearing an application by the mall's developer, SmartCentres Inc., to overturn amendments the city made to its official plan that have blocked the redevelopment of an old industrial site on Eastern Avenue. It was once occupied by a tannery and now houses a film studio that is due to move out by the end of the year.
The proposed mall, which includes space for one major retailer - possibly a Wal-Mart, as the company is often a tenant in SmartCentres' projects - has been described by opponents as a big-box development, although current plans for the project, which has parking for 1,900 cars, do not include free-standing stores.
In January, city council approved an amendment to the official plan to include the 7.5-hectare site in an 89-hectare employment zone that it wants to create between Eastern Avenue and Lake Shore Boulevard, east of the Don River.
But the OMB would have to approve the site's inclusion in an employment zone because the application to build a mall there dates back to 2004, when a previous owner failed to get approval for a mixed-use development, long before the employment zone was created.
City lawyer Brendan O'Callaghan said the official plan calls for the creation of 380,000 jobs between 2001 and 2031, and as a consequence, it needs all designated employment lands in the city to remain in employment uses, including the Eastern Avenue site, which is slated for use by the film or technology industries.
SmartCentres' lawyer, Dennis Wood, said the firm's expert calculates that building the mall would not affect the right of the city to protect employment uses on the rest of the zone and that it would create between 1,900 and 2,000 jobs, which would be added to the city's employment base.
"These are real jobs because they are absolutely going to occur. They are not hoped-for jobs," Mr. Wood said.
He added that, historically, retail jobs account for about 25 per cent of the new jobs in employment districts in the city. The OMB should not get into a "philosophical discussion" over whether a retail position that pays $10.15 an hour is an acceptable job in meeting the employment targets of the official plan.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080523.LESLIEVILLE23/TPStory/TPNational/Ontario/
Kitsune
Senior Member
Smart Centres loves to fight - they have a even bigger fight on there hands in Sudbury right now.
299 bloor call control.
Senior Member
This is precisely why they can't be trusted:
Rendering:
Reality:
Smart!Centres, based in Vaughan, is Canada’s busiest retail developer; its “big-box” shopping malls have become commonplace on the outskirts of most Canadian cities.
The company has run into opposition in Leslieville of late with its plan for a 700,000 square-foot project, with parking for on Eastern Avenue.
The city turned them down, and the company’s appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board began on Wednesday.
As part of its intense lobbying efforts to win support for its plan, Smart!Centres has bought advertising in many local newspapers showing sketches of its proposed Eastern project, with three-storey red brick buildings and pedestrians and cyclists out front. The company introduced those sketches during its opening statement at the hearing yesterday.
The other day, Tom Smith, the company’s vice-president of development, argued in the National Post that, “Smart!Centres has done a lot of traditional greenfield 905 big box retail. We are changing the company from within.”
But, should the company win its appeal at the OMB, will the project it builds reflect its sketches? The office of Councillor Paula Fletcher (Toronto-Danforth) the other day forwarded a sketch Smart!Centres produced for a project, including a Wal-Mart, at Bathurst and Centre streets in its very own Vaughan, along with a photograph of what actually got built. Absent, in the mostly finished project, are the cobblestones walkways, grass, plazas in front of the stores, lamp posts, and awnings from the sketches. There are a few spindly trees.
Councillor Paula Fletcher comments, “The pedestrian features seem to have been lost from the concept drawings to the real thing.” Brendan O’Callaghan, the lawyer leading the city’s fight at the OMB, says that the Smart!Centre sketches, in the Leslieville case, are irrelevant.
“This hearing is not about trying to make a Smart!Centre look like a business campus,” he said. The city, he said, wants a “modern business campus for knowledge industries” at the site, along the lines of Liberty Village.
Rendering:
Reality:
Smart!Centres, based in Vaughan, is Canada’s busiest retail developer; its “big-box” shopping malls have become commonplace on the outskirts of most Canadian cities.
The company has run into opposition in Leslieville of late with its plan for a 700,000 square-foot project, with parking for on Eastern Avenue.
The city turned them down, and the company’s appeal to the Ontario Municipal Board began on Wednesday.
As part of its intense lobbying efforts to win support for its plan, Smart!Centres has bought advertising in many local newspapers showing sketches of its proposed Eastern project, with three-storey red brick buildings and pedestrians and cyclists out front. The company introduced those sketches during its opening statement at the hearing yesterday.
The other day, Tom Smith, the company’s vice-president of development, argued in the National Post that, “Smart!Centres has done a lot of traditional greenfield 905 big box retail. We are changing the company from within.”
But, should the company win its appeal at the OMB, will the project it builds reflect its sketches? The office of Councillor Paula Fletcher (Toronto-Danforth) the other day forwarded a sketch Smart!Centres produced for a project, including a Wal-Mart, at Bathurst and Centre streets in its very own Vaughan, along with a photograph of what actually got built. Absent, in the mostly finished project, are the cobblestones walkways, grass, plazas in front of the stores, lamp posts, and awnings from the sketches. There are a few spindly trees.
Councillor Paula Fletcher comments, “The pedestrian features seem to have been lost from the concept drawings to the real thing.” Brendan O’Callaghan, the lawyer leading the city’s fight at the OMB, says that the Smart!Centre sketches, in the Leslieville case, are irrelevant.
“This hearing is not about trying to make a Smart!Centre look like a business campus,” he said. The city, he said, wants a “modern business campus for knowledge industries” at the site, along the lines of Liberty Village.
Riverdale Rink Rat
Senior Member
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For a forum on construction...
... y'all seem to be willing to swallow Ms. Fletcher's disingenuous BS whole. The rendering of the buildings and buildings look... the same. Probably because the drawings were done from the blueprints submitted for approval.
Shocking that they didn't plant mature, 50 year old trees? C'mon.
Mr. O'Callaghan argument carries way more weight, although he might get what he wished for... good & hard. Burlington-style one story business campuses wouldn't exactly be a fabulous edition to the skyline, either...
... y'all seem to be willing to swallow Ms. Fletcher's disingenuous BS whole. The rendering of the buildings and buildings look... the same. Probably because the drawings were done from the blueprints submitted for approval.
Shocking that they didn't plant mature, 50 year old trees? C'mon.
Mr. O'Callaghan argument carries way more weight, although he might get what he wished for... good & hard. Burlington-style one story business campuses wouldn't exactly be a fabulous edition to the skyline, either...
299 bloor call control.
Senior Member
Uhm...
1) Instead of grass in the islands, it's gravel
2) Instead of decorative pavement, it's asphalt
1) Instead of grass in the islands, it's gravel
2) Instead of decorative pavement, it's asphalt
ShonTron
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And no decorative lighting as well. No crosswalks, no attempts to make things look pedestrian friendly.
RioCan, a similar developer of big box centres at least has a better record of design in its complexes (Trinity Common in Brampton is an example of it's big box developments that at least have token pedestrian amenities and design elements). And its Queen West Home Depot development isn't facing the same kind of opposition.
RioCan, a similar developer of big box centres at least has a better record of design in its complexes (Trinity Common in Brampton is an example of it's big box developments that at least have token pedestrian amenities and design elements). And its Queen West Home Depot development isn't facing the same kind of opposition.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
RRR:
What is the intent of the rendering? Depiction of a development with a distinctively "urban" feel. Did the results turned out anything like that?
AoD
What is the intent of the rendering? Depiction of a development with a distinctively "urban" feel. Did the results turned out anything like that?
AoD