I would rather see a staggered skyline too: the tabletop that is coming together in the area is not particularly attractive.
The fact remains, however, that developers all want to be able to build as high as (or even higher than) everyone else around them has been allowed to go. The City knows, however, that the infrastructure in place simply cannot support unbridled growth, therefore there are limits in place, as there are all across the city at varying heights and densities.
The City thought that Festival Tower would be the one tall one in this area, and granted them a particular height based on the give-back to the community that the cultural facility that the Lightbox represented. Everything else in the surroundings was supposed to be shorter, and as I said, was supposed to get shorter the closer it got to Spadina.
The OMB decided, however, that the community benefit of the Lightbox should not factor into whether other developers seeking to build in the area get the same height or not, so up they were all allowed to go, as high at 157 metres. It has become their de facto unalienable right as property owners in the area.
So, if you want to aim a figurative gun at anyone on this issue, aim it at the OMB.
The next big question here though is, will to new de facto height be 187 metres? That's what the owner of the site on the SE corner of King and Spadina wants as they sail that boat off towards OMB waters… which I suspect are going to be awfully choppy.
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