Toronto 2444 Yonge Street | 114.27m | 31s | First Capital | Hariri Pontarini

Automation Gallery said:
Yeah but out of those 400 to review how many are over 100 yrs old, does this city not look at heritage designation by age and prioritize it?,
or do they just go around identifying mediocre 60s-70s stuff and throw it all into the mix??
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Well, that's a question of prioritizing some aspects of heritage preservation over others (i.e. not all would agree that older is always better), which is subjective, so I don't think it's completely fair to say "bureaucrats messed up because this one should've been obvious."

The biggest problem here, to me (other than the loss of a historically significant building), is that a councillor's first inclination was to blame thinly stretched bureaucrats whose budget she's acted against increasing, and whom she knows cannot defend themselves by virtue of their position (Keesmaat herself is in a unique position in that regard because of her public profile). It's just irresponsible and, frankly, mean-spirited.
 
ADRM said:
Well, that's a question of prioritizing some aspects of heritage preservation over others (i.e. not all would agree that older is always better), which is subjective, so I don't think it's completely fair to say "bureaucrats messed up because this one should've been obvious."

The biggest problem here, to me (other than the loss of a historically significant building), is that a councillor's first inclination was to blame thinly stretched bureaucrats whose budget she's acted against increasing, and whom she knows cannot defend themselves by virtue of their position (Keesmaat herself is in a unique position in that regard because of her public profile). It's just irresponsible and, frankly, mean-spirited.
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And people actually wonder why so many City departments are so understaff,... if you deal with City departments you'll see most city staff tends to be younger and still green looking for experience,.... so many experienced City staff have left the City long ago to join professional consulting firms or even 905 municipalities,.... why? simple they get treated like human being there,....


As for the Heritage designation,... even though councillor Christin Carmichael-Greb is incompetent,... some of the blame should also fall on this ward's previous councillor, Karen Stintz,... who was always too busy looking after her own self interest instead of her ward constituents. This building was 110 years old,... as soon as any building hits a 100 years old it should have gotten the Heritage designation and protection - heck 100 years isn't even a requirement,... many much younger structures get Heritage Designation. The local ratepayers association and local BIA also had plenty of time to so something over the last 10 years,....
http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=104752cc66061410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD
 
This demolition is an outrage. I'm totally pissed off and losing faith in Toronto. There was enough impetus to act on this a couple of years ago. The politicians in this town just plain suck.
 
TonyV said:
This demolition is an outrage. I'm totally pissed off and losing faith in Toronto. There was enough impetus to act on this a couple of years ago. The politicians in this town just plain suck.
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I agree, and yet the people in the ward kept on choosing sucky politicians.

AoD
 
ShonTron said:
To be fair, 83% of the electorate didn't choose the incompetent Tory-backed incumbent.
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How many of the other ward candidates that got votes were terrible too? What about the fact that the previous councillor was Karen Stintz, and that Tory got some of the highest percentage of votes in this area over Olivia Chow. AoD is right, voters here need to do better. Because clearly they are not a fan of progressive politicians.
 
salsa said:
How many of the other ward candidates that got votes were terrible too? What about the fact that the previous councillor was Karen Stintz, and that Tory got some of the highest percentage of votes in this area over Olivia Chow. AoD is right, voters here need to do better. Because clearly they are not a fan of progressive politicians.
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I wouldn't go as far - besides, supporting preservation doesn't equate to supporting progressiveness by default - I can see the NIMBY crowd supporting that stance as a foil against densification and "those other people".

AoD
 
Not to delve too deep into politics here but I don't really see the political angle. You could argue that heritage preservation is more aligned with conservative values anyway.

The real crime here is not the loss of a 110 year old building. The real crime is that in the last 109 years we have build very little worth preserving including almost without doubt the structure that will be eventually filling this lot.
 
salsa said:
How many of the other ward candidates that got votes were terrible too? What about the fact that the previous councillor was Karen Stintz, and that Tory got some of the highest percentage of votes in this area over Olivia Chow. AoD is right, voters here need to do better. Because clearly they are not a fan of progressive politicians.
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There were three very solid candidates.

Adam Tanel was a lawyer who seemed fairly competent. Dyanoosh Youssefi was that progressive voice you would have wanted and she came 3rd with nearly 14%. JP Boutros was also a very competent candidate with lot sof experience in City Hall.

There were many whackjobs running too, but they didn't get nearly as much attention. You even had Michael Coll, who I swear was just running based on the fact that Josh Colle is the councillor in the Ward next, and that Michael Colle is an MPP for the Lawrence area.

Carmichael-Greb got the Stintz endorsement (after Stintz said she would not endorse anyone) and then the Tory endorsement after John Carmichael endorsed Tory. Many people in the riding said that they did not or almost did not vote for Carmichael-Greb solely based on the fact that Stintz endorsed her. Karen Stintz is pretty hated in the ward after her second term. Ward 16 did not take kindly to her playing mayoral politics and thought she abandoned the ward in her aspirations.
 
TrickyRicky said:
Not to delve too deep into politics here but I don't really see the political angle. You could argue that heritage preservation is more aligned with conservative values anyway.

The real crime here is not the loss of a 110 year old building. The real crime is that in the last 109 years we have build very little worth preserving including almost without doubt the structure that will be eventually filling this lot.
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The political angle here is that this local councillor could have voted for additional planning staff to help with the heritage backlog. She voted against it.
 
DonValleyRainbow said:
The political angle here is that this local councillor could have voted for additional planning staff to help with the heritage backlog.
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Would more staff have cleared the backlog? Probably not - they would've made a dent in it at best. The political angle here should be that the province doesn't do enough to protect buildings with pending heritage designation. At the very least, the province should give cities more time to issue demolition permits if the application goes in after the city's issued its notice of intent, so that the city has enough time to finish the process that could designate it.
 
Both things badly need to happen: Heritage Preservation has to have more staff, and the Province needs to get serious about architecture with new legislation.

No, we'll never get enough new staff to totally clear the backlog, but why should that stop us from wanting to make a dent in the list?

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