Toronto 101 Heath West | 14.1m | 3s | Haven | RAW Design

Undead said:
I will also point out that this area already has 2.5 and 3 storey apartment buildings which blend in perfectly well with the surrounding 2 storey detached houses. The height objections here are ridiculous.
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Yup - many have been there going on 70 ish years and doing fine.

Right across the street:

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And immediately behind the property on Deer Park

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Also immediately behind 101 Heath on Oriole

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Agreed. This project is taking away 5 affordable rental units in Mid-town Toronto to create a 3-storey building with 10 x $1 to 1.5 million dollar condos, which itself speaks volumes about reducing shelter as a basic human necessity. This project only serves to make this neighbourhood further out of reach financially for the average Torontonian.

It is also important to understand the privacy issues created by this project affect all kinds of residents on either side of the project as the area is a mix of freehold properties, townhouses, condos and homes that are multi-tenant rental units with tenants who have lived in the area for over 10 years or more because of the strong sense of community and the relatively affordable rental rates for the area. Everyone will be negatively impacted, not just the owners of expensive freeholds.

This project could easily be a 7-unit, three-story project following the depth footprint of the condo next door without impacting the residents on all sides. Haven developments would still make plenty of money because the two properties were bought for a song (3 million for both), and the cost of the condos, when they go on the market, for sale will be so high. (for your reference see this current listing in the condo next door for a condo half the size of one of the projected Haven Condos: https://www.zolo.ca/toronto-real-estate/105-heath-street-west/7 ) No historic trees would have to be killed, the existing animal ecosystem would not have to be impacted and everyone's privacy, renters and owners alike, would be respected.

Residents in the area have no fundamental objection to the project. Indeed, there has been much positive feedback about the elegance of the Heath street fronted design. Gentle densification projects without killing the inner city ecosystem are fine, they happen all the time in this neighbourhood. The key objection to the project is the insistence on pushing the limits (asking for unnecessary minor variances to build right back to the property line) for the project for no other reason than greed. This project would be completely viable financially and would be respectful to both the community owners, renters and the environment by simply scaling down from 10 units to 7 units of the same size, sold at $1 - 1.5 million using a depth mirroring the property depth of the buildings on either side. The community's request to build the project without the minor variances here is not irrational, it is entirely reasonable and the project would still be viable without these variances.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
Interesting pivot from property values to "affordable housing". I can't *wait* to see someone coming forward to build more affordable housing in this neighbourhood then, if that's what this was about! Time to invite TCHC to have a chat.

AoD
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It is not a pivot. Both things happen to be true at once, even though this might be uncomfortable for you to face. Do you care to know the status of and the future planning for the renters they are evicting or are you just interested in trolling? Check the City of Toronto submissions to the Committee of Adjustment. The answer is currently, that Haven Developments are refusing to work with the City of Toronto to create assistance plans for any of the current renters. When a project is an equal offender to all, owners and renters alike, that is saying something. It speaks volumes about the character of the people involved, and the question becomes, why should these particular people be given an exception to the Official City Plan which has been put forth for the benefit of all Torontonians. Is the equation just that arrogance, greed and bullying win the day?
 
Undead said:
I will also point out that this area already has 2.5 and 3 storey apartment buildings which blend in perfectly well with the surrounding 2 storey detached houses. The height objections here are ridiculous.
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I believe you will find the height objections are directly related to the fact they are ALSO proposing to build right back to the property line and that the extra height will further impinge on the privacy of the neighbours. If the depth footprint of the project mirrored that of the condo next door, this objection would become a non-issue.
 
The threshold for SIPA to enforce rental replacement / assistance measures is 6 units and up. As this is 5 units, folks are kind of SOL. Legislation can't compel Haven to do anything if they don't want to.

My folks live on Lonsdale and their backyard borders one of the 3.5 storey apartments on Oriole Gardens. 'Privacy objections' are absolute horseshit. Everyone lives happily together there, as they will here.
 
ProjectEnd said:
The threshold for SIPA to enforce rental replacement / assistance measures is 6 units and up. As this is 5 units, folks are kind of SOL. Legislation can't compel Haven to do anything if they don't want to.

My folks live on Lonsdale and their backyard borders one of the 3.5 storey apartments on Oriole Gardens. 'Privacy objections' are absolute horseshit. Everyone lives happily together there, as they will here.
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Yes, you are correct, Haven is not compelled by legislation. But does everything we do to do the right thing in life have to be compelled by legislation? When Haven stands to make the profit they will make off this property? They won't even fill out paperwork to assist with relocating the tenants. Really? Good folk obviously.

Yes, and there are no new projects like the situation your parents are in anymore unless the kind of massive exceptions Haven is asking for are made. This is precisely because of a wide range of experts and community feedback and millions of dollars to create an Official Urban Plan for the City of Toronto towards optimal residential planning for a better future for us all deemed this less than optimal city planning. The projects that are anything similar to your parent's, which I know well, living in the neighbourhood, are projects that are at the youngest, at least 40 years old, and many are older than that. And that is the point of the City's Official Plan, to build better communities than they did 40 years ago. The question is not can people live cooperatively close together, of course, they can - you seem to be missing the point. The question is, can one entity be allowed to step in and take over change the character of half a city block, reverting to city planning choices that are over 40 years old? Why go to the trouble and expense of developing a City Plan at all then? Why do four 140 to 160-year-old trees need to be felled unnecessarily, killing an entire ecosystem negatively impacting owners and renters alike, when a financially viable project can be built for 7 units instead of 10 without negatively impacting neighbours?. You seem to be saying you find it entirely acceptable to have one entity move into a neighbourhood and to unilaterally changes the lives of half a block of owners and renters alike, not out of making a need to make a project viable, but out of sheer greed? You seem to be saying the default is that developer should win at all costs, which is, of course, your prerogative, but we disagree with you. This project could be a wonderful positive contribution to the neighbourhood: it could preserve the ecosystem, keep the canopy of 140 to 160-year-old trees whose carbon-oxygen exchange is so massive that even your parents two blocks over benefit from their presence according to the arborists report. The two properties were purchased for so little that the developer could make plenty of money simply by building to depth footprints already established on the block by building 3 fewer units and extending the underground parking lot for the existing condo and thereby reducing traffic on Heath. Your point seems to be that unnecessary greed at the expense of half of a neighbourhood's city block is completely acceptable (? )That no progress should be made in Urban Planning? That the investment in the City of Toronto's Official City Plan is millions of dollars down the drain and should be ignored? It begs the question, who would hold this viewpoint? Are you a developer yourself?
 
I'm a little concerned about the double standard you're setting when it comes to the topic of greed. On one hand, you find Haven's need to keep the project in the black as an overreach, one driven by profit and greed, while also arguing that nobody in the area should have to endure any loss of property value. Are you and the neighbours not motivated by greed here? Greed for home and land values? Greed for the desire to control the space beyond your property lines? Houses in the area go for upwards of 2.5 million dollars, with a nearby listing going for 4.5 A 20% reduction in value on a 4.5 million dollar house means it is now a 3.6 million dollar house. Is 3.6 million (I repeat, MILLION) dollars not enough? Sounds tone deaf and privileged to me considering this is more cash than many torontonians could ever hope to have tied to their name in their entire lives.

On the topic of trees - developers are often very willing to negotiate when it comes to landscaping. The city tends to prefer the planting of native species, and our forum tree aficionado Northern Light would surely be happy to recommend some species you could cite as ideal replacement specimens during discussions with the developer.

But if I'm being real frank - lets not pretend like none of the surrounding homeowners can't afford to hire landscapers to help plant new privacy trees and shrubs along the perimeters of their yards. You can do a lot for the biodiversity of an area on your own property without overreaching onto others.

There are lots of things in this city worth being bothered about - this project, it aint' it.
 
DavidCapizzano said:
I'm a little concerned about the double standard you're setting when it comes to the topic of greed. On one hand, you find Haven's need to keep the project in the black as an overreach, one driven by profit and greed, while also arguing that nobody in the area should have to endure any loss of property value. Are you and the neighbours not motivated by greed here? Greed for home and land values? Greed for the desire to control the space beyond your property lines? Houses in the area go for upwards of 2.5 million dollars, with a nearby listing going for 4.5 A 20% reduction in value on a 4.5 million dollar house means it is now a 3.6 million dollar house. Is 3.6 million (I repeat, MILLION) dollars not enough? Sounds tone deaf and privileged to me considering this is more cash than many torontonians could ever hope to have tied to their name in their entire lives.

On the topic of trees - developers are often very willing to negotiate when it comes to landscaping. The city tends to prefer the planting of native species, and our forum tree aficionado Northern Light would surely be happy to recommend some species you could cite as ideal replacement specimens during discussions with the developer.

But if I'm being real frank - lets not pretend like none of the surrounding homeowners can't afford to hire landscapers to help plant new privacy trees and shrubs along the perimeters of their yards. You can do a lot for the biodiversity of an area on your own property without overreaching onto others.

There are lots of things in this city worth being bothered about - this project, it aint' it.
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Your argument is both specious and disingenuous, as you do not really care about greed. Only one entity that stands to make a minimum of 5 million dollars on real estate in this half-block: Haven Developments. But that is not enough for them. No, they want to make 10 million by obtaining approvals to build to the back property line in defiance of the City's Official plan recreating construction standards enforce 40 years ago. Not one of the individual-owned freehold properties as valuable as they are would come anywhere near making this kind of profit if they were sold today. No one stands to benefit excessively from the sale of property in this area but Haven Developments.

There is no double standard here; there is only the excessive greed at the cost of destroying the massive canopy that supports the carbon-oxygen for the neighbourhood, resulting in loss of urban ecosystem and irreplaceable 140 to 160-year-old trees if one entity is allowed to steal space and privacy from 30 renters and owners on either side of the project by getting variance approvals that are in place to keep a balance between neighbours in situations like these.

There appears to be a comprehension issue here: 140 to 16O-year-old trees are irreplaceable regardless of the species you choose to replace them with. That canopy would take over100 years to grow back, which is serious from a climate change point of view. One of the reasons the air quality is as good as it is in Toronto is the age of the trees in the community. Renters can't afford to put trees in at the back of their properties to replace them with other species. And for those who can afford to plant new trees regardless of species, new trees will never come close to replacing the historic trees that are to be removed if Haven succeeds here. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2020/ie/bgrd/backgroundfile-141367.pdf

This project is a good fit for this neighbourhood. It is completely financially viable as 7 units rather than 10 without the need for variance approvals to build to the back of the property line, which would still allow the developer to make plenty of money. It is that simple.

Not one person has objected to this project being implemented without minor variances, so NIMBY does not apply here. If you care to validate this, check out the letters of objection to the Committee of Adjustment, not one person has suggested this project be abandoned, only that the minor variances proposed are not needed and should not be approved.

Thankfully, all taxpaying citizens who seek a voice in this process get one in Toronto, regardless of your assessment of the relative import of the particular situation.
 

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The hard reality of increased density​


Oct 20, 2021

An application by Haven Developments to take two single-family homes in Toronto’s Deer Park neighbourhood and convert them into a 12-unit condo building highlights all the legal and political forces that wage war over building even a single new apartment in Canada’s largest city.

“We’re replacing two households with 12, and this is a very large piece of land for two homes,” said architect Roland Rom Colthoff, of RAW Design, who is doing the plans for the proposal for 101-103 Heath St. “We started working on this in 2018; we’re three years into the process and it is still nowhere. I have much larger buildings that sailed through approvals. And you wonder why we have a housing crisis.”

The project is typical missing middle typology: neither a six- to 12 storey mid-rise, nor a single-family dwelling. It is three-storeys tall with a parking garage and it’s in a neighbourhood that has other apartment buildings of the same scale literally across the street. All that is required to build is some minor variance approvals from Toronto’s Committee of Adjustment (COA) on setbacks and a solution for some mature trees that straddle the neighbouring lots.

The project came up for a vote at Toronto’s Committee of Adjustment in July, but a decision was deferred until December. Toronto-St. Paul’s Councillor Josh Matlow does not have a vote on the COA and will not have a vote at council on the development because unlike the typical high-rise building the project does not require by-law changes to go ahead. Nevertheless, he says he did urge the committee to defer a decision in order to arrange for a community meeting between Haven and the neighbours in hopes of forging a dialogue on compromise.

“All the neighbours around the site are objecting to the project, it really does intrude into their properties,” said Cathie MacDonald, the president of the Deer Park Residents Group, and herself an architect and former city planner. At issue is the building’s depth, and nearness to the backyards of multi-million-dollar homes on Deer Park Crescent. The concerns of privacy have led to suggestions that all the second floor windows be frosted glass, that they be smaller, and that there be no walkways along the fence-line (for fear of noise from partying). So far, the attempts at dialogue do not seem to have worked. “We saw some new drawings and it didn’t seem to be changed much. … I think as far as I know it’s all opposition. I haven’t heard of anybody saying they support it,” Ms. MacDonald said.

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Paolo Abate, Haven’s chief executive, said he has had nothing but constructive communications with city planning, but blames the politics of NIMBYism on the delays on this new, much smaller, project.

“Housing of this nature should not take the same timeline for a condo that’s 200-units plus,” Mr. Abate said.

Jordan M. Teperman, executive vice-president and general counsel of Haven, said Haven has collected a dozen examples of COA applications with the same sort of height and setback for single-family monster homes that were approved without delay. That said, he acknowledges these apartments will be luxury ownership units in the area, and are not designed to be a piece of the affordability puzzle.

“There’s some people who are going to want to look at this, and say this is an example of the bigger discussion in our city … to turn it into an existential discussion around the missing middle,” Mr. Matlow said. But he rejects that framing, and said he simply had concerns about Haven’s willingness to listen to the community.

“Muliti-family is absolutely not the issue, apartment buildings are permitted in the area,” said Ms. MacDonald, who noted her own grandmother had lived in one of the rental apartments on Heath that are the same size and scale as the proposed Haven building. What changed, she said, is that when those low-rise apartment buildings were constructed in the 1950s there was no restrictive zoning. “They are non-conforming now,” she said. Essentially, the city’s by-laws wouldn’t allow the mixed-income neighbourhood to be built today.

The question of what kind of change the city is willing to accept is a hot topic after recent city hall debates punted on widely studied pro-housing proposals such as legalizing and regulating rooming houses city-wide.

“If it’s simply an argument made by somebody that there can never be any change, that’s not reasonable. What I do not accept, is that only a supply of new housing is going to be the antidote to solving the affordable housing crisis,” said Mr. Matlow, who points to the boom in high-rise condo-construction that has not lowered prices, and at the same time a lack of affordable-by-design and subsidized housing construction in recent decades. “What I’m convinced of is the status quo is not sustainable.”

Mr. Matlow, who according to recent report by Acorn Canada is among the Toronto councillors who have accepted the least amount of money in political donations from the development industry, says he’s waiting to see the study on the missing middle from Toronto chief planner Gregg Lintern before he comes down on whether single-family zoning areas of the city – the two-thirds of the residential land referred to as the Yellowbelt – need to be rezoned to allow for more types of duplexes, triplexes or multi-storey apartments like on Heath.
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www.theglobeandmail.com

The hard reality of increased density in Toronto

Residents wage war to stop a plan to take two single-family homes in Toronto’s Deer Park neighbourhood and convert them into a 12-unit condo building
www.theglobeandmail.com www.theglobeandmail.com


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