The new height though goes beyond what the area can handle, according to local councillor Mike Colle.
“Sixty-five storeys is obscene and disgusting,” Colle said. “Right now there is no daylight there, there’s no room to walk on the sidewalk. You can’t get on the subway.”
Colle said the midtown development application was changed a couple of weeks ago and there currently are no laws to limit a tower’s height due to the province amending the TOcore and Midtown in Focus plans in June last year. It was done without consultation from the city and allows
development to outpace infrastructure.
“The province has given [developers] free reign to do whatever they want,” he said. “This type of doubling [in height] is unprecedented.”
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The midtown development is planned steps from Eglinton Station and near the new LRT station that is currently under construction, but Colle said he doesn’t see that making any difference to the density problems in the area.
“Nevermind the LRT, you’ve got to wait for six subway cars to get out in the morning,” he said. “We can’t handle what we have now, how are we going to handle 65 storeys?”
Colle thinks this project will set a new precedent for midtown development, which he said currently has towers around 40 storeys. Since the province’s policy changes, he said it will now be a “free for all,” and he doesn’t have much confidence in city council stopping it, either.
That is because the province has also amended the Ontario Municipal Board, which is now the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal, to give the province the ability to overrule municipal decisions and have the final say.
“We’re going to have a hell of a time trying to stop [this development],” Colle said “All we can do is take [the fight] to the streets — block traffic, whatever the hell we got to do, because the province basically only listens to developers.”