Toronto 2 Queen West | 34.44m | 7s | Cadillac Fairview | Zeidler

I'm sorry but no parking for residential buildings is just bad planning. It shouldn't be allowed for buildings above a certain number of units. It is not progressive, and does not make a city more liveable. We can discuss and be flexible about the number of spots per unit. I own residential property in the central city. You need about 1 parking spot in my experience for every 4 units even if none of your tenants have cars. That's right, even if no one has a car. That is because if you add up the sum of repairmen , deliveries, temporary parking, visitor parking, etc. any less than one spot per say four residential unit will start to create a parking deficit that will begin to impact the surrounding area. So unless the neighbourhood has surplus parking even car-less tenants need some number of spaces for the building to be parking neutral.

So if you scale up my theory to a large building you may not need a 1 - 4 ratio maybe it's 1-8 but the underlying issue still holds.
 
TrickyRicky said:
I'm sorry but no parking for residential buildings is just bad planning. It shouldn't be allowed for buildings above a certain number of units. It is not progressive, and does not make a city more liveable. We can discuss and be flexible about the number of spots per unit. I own residential property in the central city. You need about 1 parking spot in my experience for every 4 units even if none of your tenants have cars. That's right, even if no one has a car. That is because if you add up the sum of repairmen , deliveries, temporary parking, visitor parking, etc. any less than one spot per say four residential unit will start to create a parking deficit that will begin to impact the surrounding area. So unless the neighbourhood has surplus parking even car-less tenants need some number of spaces for the building to be parking neutral.

So if you scale up my theory to a large building you may not need a 1 - 4 ratio maybe it's 1-8 but the underlying issue still holds.
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Very well, then. Where do you propose to put this parking, and where do you propose to put the entranceway?
 
I wonder if it's possible to set aside some parking spaces from the Eaton's Centre's parking garage for use by the tenants of this tower. For shoppers looking to park, there's always plenty of space under Yonge-Dundas Square.
 
Ramako said:
I wonder if it's possible to set aside some parking spaces from the Eaton's Centre's parking garage for use by the tenants of this tower. For shoppers looking to park, there's always plenty of space under Yonge-Dundas Square.
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I would imagine that is likely to be the compromise.
 
Hipster, I haven't looked at the details of this project. The compromise Ramako suggests might make sense. I don't even know if Cadillac-Fairview intends to own and operate this project for the long-term. My comment was more addressed at, and reacting to, the general idea that eliminating parking is somehow progressive. Parking is an asset not a liability. It could be that we are forcing projects to contain too much parking, or that the number of parking spaces needed per residential unit is dropping. But in the real world, buildings are as much a process as a physical structure. We discuss physical asthetics and building height predominantly in this forum but I would argue an issue like parking is actually more important than either of these considerations. I would invest in a building that was ugly or too short or too tall, but I would never invest in a building without parking.
 
Parking is not important. You're directly on top of the subway and right off a commonly used streetcar line. I don't think there will be much trouble RENTING out these units - yes, this is a rental project. Some of you guys keep forgetting that.
 
devjohnson said:
Parking is not important. You're directly on top of the subway and right off a commonly used streetcar line. I don't think there will be much trouble RENTING out these units - yes, this is a rental project. Some of you guys keep forgetting that.
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Who says people that rent condos don't own vehicles? What good will the subway/streetcars do them if they work in the in the suburbs, or have friends and family they out there that they want to visit? You're assuming that people that rent here have no need to leave downtown.
 
^ Every home involves a trade off. Some don't have balconies, some are next to noisy roads, some don't allow pets, some don't have in-suite laundry, some don't have air conditioning, some don't have gas stoves, some don't have walk-in closets, some don't have hardwood floors, some don't have convenient access to the subway, some don't have a decent kitchen fan, some don't have a view...

In every case, you know full well what the trade offs are when you rent a place, and you make a decision: you either don't rent there, or you rent there and find a way around it. There's nothing different in this case.
 
One Nut Kruk said:
Who says people that rent condos don't own vehicles? What good will the subway/streetcars do them if they work in the in the suburbs, or have friends and family they out there that they want to visit? You're assuming that people that rent here have no need to leave downtown.
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well no, hes assuming that people who need a car can rent elsewhere.
 
Exactly. There's no reason that people living directly above a subway and in walking distance to almost everything one could want need parking. People should be allowed to choose to live without parking at the centre of the city.
 
I can see the younger generation choosing not to own a car, as they will be faced with lower wages and higher cost of living. People will learn how to adapt to city life without a car.
 
Those servicing and loading spaces are meant for garbage trucks and moving vans, and will only be accessible via the Eaton Centre's commercial loading area.

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Instead of requiring each building to have private spaces for the exclusive use of tenants and vistors, why not consider the availability of public parking in the immediate area. Right now each development is reviewed within a vaccum. (Although the Development Permit System that Keesmaat is pushing for may change that). All of the legotimate concerns that TrickyRicky mentioned could be allayed if the publically available parking in the Eaton Centre was included. Tenants of 2 Queen West that require a plumber or delivery can get this service the same way office tenants in 20 Queen West get them.
 
arvelomcquaig said:
Exactly. There's no reason that people living directly above a subway and in walking distance to almost everything one could want need parking.
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You really think so many people have such limited lives? No friends, family, or jobs outside of downtown, no desire to go up north... no need for a vehicle for grocery shopping etc...


arvelomcquaig said:
People should be allowed to choose to live without parking at the centre of the city.
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Last I looked, people were allowed to do this.
 
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