Toronto Strachan House Redevelopment | ?m | 30s | CreateTO + Homes First

Two new residential buildings are planned for the site, including:

• a 30-storey building with up to 300 rental homes and at least 20% affordable rental units; and

• an 8-storey building with approximately 80 deeply affordable supportive housing units, which matches the scale of the previous supportive housing program.

CreateTO - WELLINGTON - 2026 - MASSING.png


CreateTO - WELLINGTON - 2026 - BLOCKS.png


SOURCE - https://a-us.storyblok.com/f/1017201/x/bcb2fbe587/805-wellington-community-pop-up-boards.pdf
 
HousingNowTO said:
Substack Article -
hsuckstorff.substack.com

The Presence of the Past

A boarded-up mill, heritage, and Toronto's uneasy relationship with change
hsuckstorff.substack.com hsuckstorff.substack.com
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Its an ill-considered piece.

The proposal puts forward lots of new affordable housing.

Memorializing buildings with photos or murals entirely defeats the purpose, which is to retain an ambiance, a character, a vibe, a mural or a photo or a sculpture does not achieve this.

CreateTO did know the designation was coming...... seriously; she thinks it was an HPS ambush?

Its written as if Toronto hadn't lost volumes and volumes of great heritage, a good chunk of that next door in Liberty Village where far too much history was sacrificed for mediocrity.

I'm pro flexibility on Heritage restoration (ie. I'm open to reconstruction over retention), I'm pro adaptive re-use; I certainly don't think we need to save everything; and frankly I'd trade this building in a heart beat for putting back the better parts of the Inglis Factory, or Massey Ferguson as adaptively re-used offices, apartments, or community spaces.

But they were lost, and we're unlikely to get any of them back.

In sum, her approach reads as a one-way compromise in which all history is wiped out, because she doesn't much care.
 
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Red October said:
Good proposal, though even the massing looks to me like one of the spandrelpocalypse tower designs. Also I wish more new developments allowed space for community gardens like exists there now.
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I wouldn’t read too much into the architecture at this stage. Projects like this typically begin as master plans aimed at establishing zoning envelopes with the City to secure the development potential of the land. Once that framework is in place, partners are usually brought in for specific buildings, programs, and the actual architectural design.
 
innsertnamehere said:
in typical CreateTO fashion, the tower is 10-15 storeys too short.
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Hmm, the highest area precedent is 39s.

I might accept the argument they should match that, I'm not sure you can argue that a City agency should actually seek to exceed precedent.

I would add, the 39s is on the south side of the rail corridor, nothing on the north side exceeds 18s in that area.

So the ask seems reasonable to me.
 
Northern Light said:
Hmm, the highest area precedent is 39s.

I might accept the argument they should match that, I'm not sure you can argue that a City agency should actually seek to exceed precedent.

I would add, the 39s is on the south side of the rail corridor, nothing on the north side exceeds 18s in that area.

So the ask seems reasonable to me.
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I think about it as "what would a private applicant do here?"

And the answer is likely 40-45st.

15 storeys of density is about 150 units left on the table for... no reason.
 
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