Toronto 250 University | 155.76m | 47s | Northam | Arcadis

Amare said:
I always say this jokingly but at this point it's probably true; the only buildings that are safe from development in this city are: Queen's Park, Old City Hall, and City Hall. Everything else is pretty much ripe for development in this wild wild west of a city.
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It's not a given that those buildings are safe. Some yahoo 30 years from now will decide that they're ugly, obsolete, and sitting on valuable land. 90% of these 'heritage' buildings end up at the city dump. They save one exterior wall and call it preservation. What's stopping developers from going even further down the road?

I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually just print an image of the heritage facade and glue the print on to whatever new building they construct. We preserved it! You can see what it looked like, can't you'? We already have 'hardwood' floors like this (they're photo copies of real hardwood floors glued on to boards) so it's not much of a stretch.
 
Facedectomy, which has been going on all over North America, is not heritage preservation, period. Saving the street facing skin of a building and calling it preservation, is stretching the word way beyond its true meaning.
There doesn't appear to be any way to stop it, unless the city changes its policy. It's sad to see some of these beautiful old buildings being stripped down to the facade, heritage lost forever.
 
If they can designate a building as heritage, can they not include a caveat that says the whole building, and not 5% of it. Giving a building heritage designation, and then allowing 95% of it to be torn down is not preservation. It's discouraged, but not prohibited.
Here is an excerpt from the city's Heritage Register.

27. Where it is supported by the cultural heritage values and attributes
of a property on the Heritage Register, the conservation of whole
or substantial portions of buildings, structures and landscapes
on those properties is desirable and encouraged. The retention of
facades alone is discouraged.

Her is a link to the city's Heritage Register Planning Policy


www.toronto.ca/city-government/planning-development/heritage-preservation/heritage-register/
 
bmiller said:
If they can designate a building as heritage, can they not include a caveat that says the whole building, and not 5% of it. Giving a building heritage designation, and then allowing 95% of it to be torn down is not preservation. It's discouraged, but not prohibited.
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The way the process typically works is that HPS undertakes two distinct phases of work, which it generally prefers to do consecutively. The first is establishing the statement of significance, which is intended to answer questions like "what here is of cultural or physical value?", which precedes the second phase, where they tackle questions like "is the proposed intervention an appropriate treatment given the findings of the first phase?"
 
I think another question that should also be asked though, quite simply, is what would have likely happened at the OLT? I don't know. I am curious whether anyone knows how provincial policy and the plan for the GGH, AND the official plan, which would be mixed use here, would interact with heritage designations. Thoughts?

My guess is the OLT might override heritage regulation here, but I am open to other perspectives.
 
ADRM said:
The way the process typically works is that HPS undertakes two distinct phases of work, which it generally prefers to do consecutively. The first is establishing the statement of significance, which is intended to answer questions like "what here is of cultural or physical value?", which precedes the second phase, where they tackle questions like "is the proposed intervention an appropriate treatment given the findings of the first phase?"
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As with much of what HPS does, this is wrong-headed.

For a start; a heritage designation should, by default, protect an entire building.

If HPS feels that an unsympathetic addition or a non-descript back space could be removed without harm, they can and should explicitly state that at the time of designation, leaving that alteration as possible.

There is much that HPS seeks to preserve that it ought not to; and there is much it ought to that has been wholly or partially lost.

Under-funding is part of it; Councillors mis-using HPS resources to fight intensification doesn't help either; but HPS itself both mis-allocates resources and either misses the fundamental of preservation, or turns a blind
eye for pragmatic reasons. None of that is ok.
 
Urban-Affair said:
I think another question that should also be asked though, quite simply, is what would have likely happened at the OLT? I don't know. I am curious whether anyone knows how provincial policy and the plan for the GGH, AND the official plan, which would be mixed use here, would interact with heritage designations. Thoughts?

My guess is the OLT might override potential heritage regulation here, but I am open to other perspectives.
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You have so split things up here.

First is the Designation itself. OLT is the appeal body for that. However, OLT will generally defer to experts in the field.

In the case of designation itself; you can't consider a prospective development, so far as I know.

That's a different appeal.

Once designated, the matter is one of arbitrating what is allowed to occur to a designated property.

Again, a huge part of this is the 'Statement of Significance'. After all, if the OLT approved a designation (and/or it wasn't appealed); then generally that statement must be deferred to.

But it isn't sacrosanct.

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Something that I don't believe is explicitly addressed in our heritage statutes is how a building over top of a building may detract from the original.

But I haven't read the applicable laws and may stand to be corrected on that.

A Heritage Conservation District designation which addresses everyone's favourite 'neighbourhood character' might be used to play a role in defining some limits; but at best
that only works if a building is within such a district.

That's probably something that needs to be addressed in legislation.

Likewise, 'Adaptive re-use' can be a good thing; but there may need to be some meat on that bone defining its limits within a designated structure.
 
Final Report, Approval Recommended, to the next meeting of TEYCC:


A summary of the changes over the life of the proposal (most of which I documented on the previous page)

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@interchange42, the height in the title requires adjusting.

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Additional notes: 2 car share spaces and 1 bikeshare station required through SPA

S. 37 appears light, due to ~5M credit for the connection to the subway station that will be constructed.

Balance of funds:

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