Toronto 2180 Yonge | 247m | 65s | Oxford Properties | Hariri Pontarini

there's 100,000 people moving to the GTA every year adding to an already difficult housing shortage
and yet we seem to be completely against both urban sprawl AND the only alternative - high-rise buildings.
What exactly was achieved by cutting 5 floors off the tallest building?
It seems to me that transit was a priority here at some point and yet for some unknown reason we want
to reduce proposed density at the crossroads of two major transit lines??
Sometimes it seems we spend an exhaustive amount of time and energy championing causes that won't
help in the least with issue of housing or urban planning - just people using issues as a soap box to get attention
or votes.
 
The designs of the two southernmost towers look more jumbled and cheap, with ugly cutouts and jenga boxes etc.

The previous render showed more elegant tapered NY style stepbacks. This new one looks like a clunker.
As I mentioned earlier, it was said in the meeting not to get hung up on the architectural expression at this point. Early days.
I'm excited about the density, too. But when you see this kind of metropolitan density next to seemingly endless blocks of single detached houses, it feels like something is wrong.
Yup, time to densify the homes, and it looks like that possibility may finally be opening up soon.

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there's 100,000 people moving to the GTA every year adding to an already difficult housing shortage
and yet we seem to be completely against both urban sprawl AND the only alternative - high-rise buildings.
What exactly was achieved by cutting 5 floors off the tallest building?
It seems to me that transit was a priority here at some point and yet for some unknown reason we want
to reduce proposed density at the crossroads of two major transit lines??
Sometimes it seems we spend an exhaustive amount of time and energy championing causes that won't
help in the least with issue of housing or urban planning - just people using issues as a soap box to get attention
or votes.

I agree. But if our zoning was more reasonable, the 5 floors cut off here could have become a small condo or apartment building (or a handful of such buildings) on one of the single-detached home side streets, and we wouldn't be in crisis mode.
 
^This. I was going to say something very similar. There is space for 'missing middle' and midrises in the solution. It doesn't have to be SFD housing next to 100 storey towers.
Agreed. Even fighting for townhouses on anything that's not an avenue or apartment neighbourhood is a battle....just look at the Saville on the Roe project. Or the Keewatin townhouse project. I'd love to see midrises going up along Duplex up to Lawrence, and elsewhere, but our zoning has been, up until just a couple days ago, very restrictive. I'm not even sure when the new housing bill approved by city council (I believe) will be enacted.

EDIT: I do like SFH neighbourhoods, heck Leaside is probably my favourite neighbourhood in the city, but it doesn't make sense to keep these places frozen in amber or become cannibalized by McMansions if they can't be upzoned and densified like they should be.
 
I agree. But if our zoning was more reasonable, the 5 floors cut off here could have become a small condo or apartment building (or a handful of such buildings) on one of the single-detached home side streets, and we wouldn't be in crisis mode.

Many locations that are already zoned for low rose condos aren’t being developed. If there was money to be had making low rise condos, developers would be all over it.
 
I think there is money to be made in low-rise - lots of it, even. Developers have to catch up to that fact. There's nothing about the community of developers in this city that marks it as cutting edge or particularly contemporary - they have to catch up, too! The city is evolving and we'll see more mid-rise along our arterials. It's already happening and it will intensify. Not everyone wants to be perched up in a tower that's under-serviced by an insufficient number of elevators.
 
Many locations that are already zoned for low rose condos aren’t being developed. If there was money to be had making low rise condos, developers would be all over it.
My understanding - as an outsider who has read/listened to a bit - is that this is a complex problem. Part of it is the result of rules by TO Planning and existing zoning limits. Part of it is that contractors don’t want to take on midrise projects, and charge a premium to do so (it’s unclear to me why that’s the case). And part of it is that the land costs in parts of the city don’t make the economics work out - even if zoning were easier, envelopes better and timelines faster.
 
I'm excited about the density, too. But when you see this kind of metropolitan density next to seemingly endless blocks of single detached houses, it feels like something is wrong.
Regardless of the current zoning laws, I just can't see the low density to the SW remaining for decades into the future, rather a mimicing of what has happened to the SE. Two subway lines within a 10 minute walk will bring change.
 

New plans have come to light for a massive new community at Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue after significant community feedback. Developer Oxford Properties revealed the reworked vision for its Canada Square project at a community Zoom meeting in early December, along with Hariri Pontarini Architects.

The new plan includes a huge new public park that is more than double the size of what was previously proposed in 2020, up from 1,800 square metres to 4,200, as well as five highrise towers ranging from 45 to 65 storeys tall that will be home to up to 2,700 new residents, a new public square and a glass-ceiling promenade complete with retail.

The new plan aims to create a “quilt” that easily transitions between urban and natural elements, Oxford said, after the community said there should be a larger public park and central gathering space.

The plan also includes a levelled plaza with stairs at the southwest corner of Yonge and Eglinton to a TTC and LRT entrance. Oxford said they are in talks with Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic District School Board on potentially including a school in a 5,000-square-metre community space.

A school was one of the main features the plan lacked. Last year, Shelley Laskin, the TDSB trustee for Ward 8, Eglinton-Lawrence and Toronto–St. Paul’s said a new elementary school in midtown is a critical piece of infrastructure, especially given the rapid population growth in the area and on this specific site.

“Students that will reside in these dwellings cannot be accommodated at Eglinton Junior PS,” she said, adding that elementary students may need to be bussed out of the community to other elementary schools.

Local councillor Josh Matlow, who attended the virtual meeting, said that the new plan is “night and day” from the old one, and Oxford has achieved “real and meaningful progress.”

He said Oxford listened to the community feedback by increasing the size of the park and plaza, and the plan now feels more open to the adjacent streets rather than closed off. “There’s so, so many improvements to [the plan],” Matlow said. “I really got to give it to [Oxford].” There are still improvements to be made, though, Matlow said.

Although the proposed public square, Canada Square, is roughly the size of Yonge-Dundas Square downtown, Matlow feels the comparisons should end there and the space should be vibrant rather than a pad of cement.

“Toronto has a shameful legacy of reaching for the height of mediocrity,” Matlow said. “We have an opportunity to do so much more here.”

“We want to have everything on the table,” he said.

City of Toronto staff will next create a report on the proposal, which will then be sent to the city’s planning committee and next to council for it to be voted on.

The construction would be done in three phases, beginning with a 65-storey tower near 2200 Yonge St. and the plaza, followed by the public park, square and three more towers, and then finally the fifth, a 55-storey tower in phase three.

The building at 2200 Yonge St. will be kept in the updated proposal, in keeping with one of the priorities of Oxford pertaining to a consideration for embodied carbon and sustainability that stemmed from the dialogue with the community.

Matlow did point out that construction on the property won’t begin until the LRT is finished, and, as he recently revealed from Metrolinx documents, there is no concrete plan of when that will be.

“That’s going to be a big issue,” he said.
 
From the article linked above by @AlbertC , a few highlights, and my thoughts:

The new plan includes a huge new public park that is more than double the size of what was previously proposed in 2020, up from 1,800 square metres to 4,200, as well as five highrise towers ranging from 45 to 65 storeys tall that will be home to up to 2,700 new residents, a new public square and a glass-ceiling promenade complete with retail.

Huge? I mean, it's a good size for the site, and much larger than it was, but let's be clear 4200m2 is basically 1 acre of parkland; huge is not a reasonable descriptor.

Oxford said they are in talks with Toronto District School Board and Toronto Catholic District School Board on potentially including a school in a 5,000-square-metre community space.

As suspected.

***

Timeline below:

City of Toronto staff will next create a report on the proposal, which will then be sent to the city’s planning committee and next to council for it to be voted on.

The construction would be done in three phases, beginning with a 65-storey tower near 2200 Yonge St. and the plaza, followed by the public park, square and three more towers, and then finally the fifth, a 55-storey tower in phase three.

Love this Matlow quip: (it's harsh, and a bit too much, but makes its point well)

“Toronto has a shameful legacy of reaching for the height of mediocrity,” Matlow said. “We have an opportunity to do so much more here.”
 
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An acre of new parkland at Yonge & Eglinton is huge. Context matters. Land value matters.

We'll have to disagree here. Not that context doesn't matter; of course it does. But by that argument a 2-storey home is 'huge' if it built next to a post-war bungalow. Doubtless many neighbours would agree;
and it would be a fair thing to say it's unusually tall/large for its context; but I'd be looking at the typical application we look at here at UT which even for midrise is 3 or 4x taller, never mind a hirise and saying 2s just isn't huge.

You needn't compare to the CN Tower, nor in the case of Parks to Rouge Park or High Park. But taken in the context of over 1,700 parks in the City, it's nowhere near the top 100 or even 200 in size.

That's not to suggest it's not a good gain, or entirely reasonable for the site. I just don't think huge is a reasonable word, in any context.
 
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An acre of new parkland at Yonge & Eglinton is huge.

We're at the meeting point of two rapid transit lines here, in an area with high density, even without the new buildings here. for this area, an acre of new parkland is a huge gain.

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An acre of new parkland at Yonge & Eglinton is huge.

We're at the meeting point of two rapid transit lines here, in an area with high density, even without the new buildings here. for this area, an acre of new parkland is a huge gain.

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A huge gain yes, but not a huge park.

LOL
 

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