Toronto 1140 Yonge Street | 44.95m | 10s | Devron Developments | AUDAX

Wow this blew up quick!

I feel like a lot of people misinterpreted my post. So here are some of my thoughts...
1. I agree that the percentage of homeowners in Canada is decreasing, for many reasons. I care about renters, and everyone here seemed to take a lot of offence from just a few words. What I meant is that we shouldn't dismiss peoples' concerns just because they're homeowners.
2. Planning is, for the most part, a subjective profession... not a science. Of course, we can agree on basic things like separating heavy industry from residential, but we can't only stick to statistics. Official Plans are the way we choose what our city becomes. Reverting back to the simplified version of planning where we just decide on "what is built, how much of it is built, and what uses are permitted" would basically throw away our opportunity to let our ambitions to be fulfilled and our challenges solved. The city is much more than just simple zoning policies and people have opinions outside of just that aspect of our city, and that's why comprehensive planning is much better.
3. Subjective opinions can be wrong. In my opinion, homeowners are wrong to oppose density without any compromises (which makes NIMBYs even more annoying, they say no to literally any change in their neighbourhood). But why do we dismiss any opinion that is subjective? Are we robots? Do we not have a desire to do something based on our own ambitions and do we not have our own thoughts about the city? And why do we constantly dismiss people's concerns about urban design? These posts sound to me like a return to modernist planning where everything subjective is dismissed, no one empathizes with people and just has their own view on how things should be, and then flashes their professional certification to prove that they know better than people that aren't planners.
4. I want to say it again. It's great that you (@ookpik) are a Registered Professional Planner, but that doesn't mean you know better than anyone who isn't. This is the exact kind of thinking that led to the bulldozing of communities that people loved, because "I'm a planner, so that gives me the right to advance my own vision of the future without caring about the common folk, who surely can't be smarter than me".
5. Why is everyone so condescending? I am posting my opinions on this thread, and most of my arguments weren't even acknowledged and everyone jumped on that one sentence about homeowners. I try to be a good writer, so I would appreciate any suggestions. Also, I noticed that @ookpik wasn't a big fan of posts by @Northern Light. I don't mean to be weird, but I really appreciate his insight on the forums. I've been reading his posts for a few months (including the Problematic Parks thread). They're very detailed and interesting to learn from. He definitely puts in the work to make posts that are worth reading, and opinions that are very well-informed. So just because you (@ookpik) don't like what he posts, doesn't mean you have to dismiss him entirely. I would also ask you creative questions like "would you want to live right next to a 300m building" due to your intense rhetoric. Just some advice: tone it down and explain yourself instead, since rhetoric usually has much more shock to it than substance.
 
daniel_kryz said:
1. I agree that the percentage of homeowners in Canada is decreasing, for many reasons. I care about renters, and everyone here seemed to take a lot of offence from just a few words. What I meant is that we shouldn't dismiss peoples' concerns just because they're homeowners.
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Hey @daniel_kryz just wanted to say that my previous post wasn't directed at you (or anyone) in any way and I wasn't offended and didn't interpret you as being anti-renter or anything! I just appreciated @interchange42 's post on its own and wanted to add my voice on that subject. Wasn't meant in any way to imply that you're anti-renter, I think people on this forum are generally very thoughtful about these things :)
 
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concrete_and_light said:
Hey @daniel_kryz just wanted to say that my previous post wasn't directed at you (or anyone) in any way and I wasn't offended and didn't interpret you as being anti-renter or anything! I just appreciated @interchange42 's post on its own and wanted to add my voice on that subject. Wasn't meant in any way to imply that you're anti-renter, I think people on this forum is generally very thoughtful about these things :)
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Thanks a lot! I also think that renters should be treated better and that we need more rental development. Unfortunately, home ownership continues to be a good way for people to earn money. It's very sad, but it seems like the best way for people to accumulate wealth for their retirement. I want housing prices to fall, but I do wonder what would happen to homeowner's lives if their biggest asset were to fall in value. We need alternatives to this unsustainable real estate market, and ways for people to earn money for their retirement without screwing over future generations.
 
The concept of "transition" is so imbedded in current planning jargon, particularly in cases like 1140 Yonge, where a proposed 13-storey building flanks 3-storey structures (I'm focusing on built-form, not tenure). It's interesting to look at this in the context of streets like Fifth Avenue in New York, where the introduction of taller buildings along "Millionaire's Row", ((i.e. apartment houses replacing gilded-age mansions) beginning in the 1910's resulted in juxtapositions that would be unthinkable in Toronto today. I love this pic of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, taken in the 1920's, which illustrate the phenomena. Even today, the taller buildings on Fifth flank much lower buildings on the side streets. Does it somehow work here because the architecture is more appealing?

gettyimages-134639081-2048x2048.jpg
 
Once again, in comparison to The James at Scrivener Square under construction, 1140 Yonge Street is not that tall. Furthermore, this project has far more in common with that ancient clock tower + station north of it than The James does design wise. Thus, this seems a lot ado about nothing, IMO.
 
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daniel_kryz said:
Wow this blew up quick!

I feel like a lot of people misinterpreted my post. So here are some of my thoughts...
1. I agree that the percentage of homeowners in Canada is decreasing, for many reasons. I care about renters, and everyone here seemed to take a lot of offence from just a few words. What I meant is that we shouldn't dismiss peoples' concerns just because they're homeowners.
2. Planning is, for the most part, a subjective profession... not a science. Of course, we can agree on basic things like separating heavy industry from residential, but we can't only stick to statistics. Official Plans are the way we choose what our city becomes. Reverting back to the simplified version of planning where we just decide on "what is built, how much of it is built, and what uses are permitted" would basically throw away our opportunity to let our ambitions to be fulfilled and our challenges solved. The city is much more than just simple zoning policies and people have opinions outside of just that aspect of our city, and that's why comprehensive planning is much better.
3. Subjective opinions can be wrong. In my opinion, homeowners are wrong to oppose density without any compromises (which makes NIMBYs even more annoying, they say no to literally any change in their neighbourhood). But why do we dismiss any opinion that is subjective? Are we robots? Do we not have a desire to do something based on our own ambitions and do we not have our own thoughts about the city? And why do we constantly dismiss people's concerns about urban design? These posts sound to me like a return to modernist planning where everything subjective is dismissed, no one empathizes with people and just has their own view on how things should be, and then flashes their professional certification to prove that they know better than people that aren't planners.
4. I want to say it again. It's great that you (@ookpik) are a Registered Professional Planner, but that doesn't mean you know better than anyone who isn't. This is the exact kind of thinking that led to the bulldozing of communities that people loved, because "I'm a planner, so that gives me the right to advance my own vision of the future without caring about the common folk, who surely can't be smarter than me".
5. Why is everyone so condescending? I am posting my opinions on this thread, and most of my arguments weren't even acknowledged and everyone jumped on that one sentence about homeowners. I try to be a good writer, so I would appreciate any suggestions. Also, I noticed that @ookpik wasn't a big fan of posts by @Northern Light. I don't mean to be weird, but I really appreciate his insight on the forums. I've been reading his posts for a few months (including the Problematic Parks thread). They're very detailed and interesting to learn from. He definitely puts in the work to make posts that are worth reading, and opinions that are very well-informed. So just because you (@ookpik) don't like what he posts, doesn't mean you have to dismiss him entirely. I would also ask you creative questions like "would you want to live right next to a 300m building" due to your intense rhetoric. Just some advice: tone it down and explain yourself instead, since rhetoric usually has much more shock to it than substance.
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That’s a lot of platitudes and dancing around the fact that we are talking about your opinion that towers should not be allowed in or near Neighbourhoods. Cutting away all the fat, that’s what I disagree with on so many levels. And you still haven’t offered an argument other than “homeowners wouldn’t like it”. So I’m sorry, but I feel compelled to call a spade a spade. You are a NIMBY apologist for the rich, landed class.
 
ookpik said:
I’m sorry, but I feel compelled to call a spade a spade. You are a NIMBY apologist for the rich, landed class.
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And I feel compelled to recommend that you refrain from such childish comments. The arguments that were being presented by daniel_kryz would have applied to situations where the adjacent properties to a tall building were low-rise social housing. Issues such as light, view, privacy and shadowing are built-form issues that transcend tenure.

Zoning bylaws emerged at the beginning of the 20th century to a large extent for health reasons given that the most economically disadvantaged members of society (such as recent immigrants) were reduced to living in tenements with almost zero setbacks from adjacent buildings, windowless rooms, no views or sunlight and minimal air circulation. Same with non-residential buildings. The New York Zoning By-law of 1916 was implemented to prevent the built-form excesses of the massive Equitable Building of 1913 and to tie height to angular planes and width of streets, a concept that resulted in the classic “wedding-cake” architecture so beloved today. More importantly, it addressed issues of public health and quality of life and these concepts are embedded in almost all official plans today.

I believe that any fruitful discussion about the merits of a project has to ultimately deal with the issue of impact on the immediate context (which is why I posted a picture of the Sherry-Netherland in the 1920’s, where I think the impact was minimal and in fact improved the streetscape). References to renters vs. homeowners or rich vs. poor are meaningless. The focus should be on built-form, good architecture and design excellence.
 
The Tenement museum in the Lower East Side is excellent if you want to see the history and conditions that caused things like zoning and public health departments to be established in the early 20th century in New York. Some truly appalling living conditions.
 
thecharioteer said:
Zoning bylaws emerged at the beginning of the 20th century to a large extent for health reasons given that the most economically disadvantaged members of society (such as recent immigrants) were reduced to living in tenements with almost zero setbacks from adjacent buildings, windowless rooms, no views or sunlight and minimal air circulation.
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OK, maybe in New York, but this is a pretty selective reading of the history of zoning. Almost a decade before New York brought in their zoning regulations, LA was using zoning to separate housing from industry -- and also to prevent proliferation of Chinese laundries. Lots of other cities were using zoning for even more explicitly racist purposes. Race and class have always been intertwined in zoning policy, and modern zoning is largely about preserving the sanctity of single-family low-rise neighbourhoods that have become enclaves of the wealthy. "Neighbourhood character" as enshrined in zoning was never just about the physical form of development. How else can you explain the barriers to converting a single-family-home into a duplex or triplex or prohibitions on secondary suites with doors that face the street?
 
References to renters vs. homeowners or rich vs. poor are meaningless. The focus should be on built-form, good architecture and design excellence.
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Sorry but you absolutely can't have one conversation without having the other. Yes, we should be focusing on design excellence, but we can't ignore how policies in Toronto are stacked in favour of those who have wealth or land.
 
DavidCapizzano said:
Sorry but you absolutely can't have one conversation without having the other. Yes, we should be focusing on design excellence, but we can't ignore how policies in Toronto are stacked in favour of those who have wealth or land.
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However.....when one looks at the maps in the Official Plan (https://www.toronto.ca/city-governm...elines/official-plan/official-plan-maps-copy/), the swath of yellow for Neighbourhoods is the same yellow used in Rosedale, Forest Hill, the Annex and Lawrence Park as the yellow used in "priority neighbourhoods". While the wealthiest neighbourhoods certainly have more ability to fight development, the planning principles within the OP regarding Neighbourhoods are (I believe) applied equally throughout the city, particularly when they are in a more non-political environment such as the OLT.

What is ironic in this discussion is the fact that most of the big development fights of the 1970's that resulted in the current thinking of neighbourhood "preservation" were those involving poorer neighbourhoods fighting demolition for "high-rises", such as North St. Jamestown, the "Hydro Block" on Henry Street or Trefann Court. Also remember that post-war, Rosedale itself was seeing many homes demolished for low-rise apartment buildings, and large houses converted to rooming houses. In fact, when one refers to planning policies "stacked in favour of those who have wealth and land", how does one explain the mini-expressway known as the Clifton Road extension that cut a swathe through the heart of Rosedale in order to connect Mt. Pleasant (at that time only running north of St. Clair) to Jarvis Street?

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