Toronto 66 Charles East | 35m | 9s | Aspen Ridge | BDP Quadrangle

[sopes]

Aspenridge has an application to add height to the detached home immediately west of this site at 66 Charles Street East. 9 storey building with ~8 metre separation from the Charles at Church.

https://www.toronto.ca/city-governm.../?id=5330811&pid=230012&title=66-CHARLES-ST-E

 

[Northern Light]

Thanks to @sopes for the tip off.

One Render:

Site Plan:

Ground Floor Plan:

Parking; 0

Elevator Ratio ( 2 elevators, 16 units may be the best ratio we've seen, 12.5 elevators per 100 units

****

I get the idea here, but I'm inclined to say 'no' to this one.

One reason only, the separation distance to the units on the building to the east (the subject of this thread)

This is what they get to stare at, a mere 8M from their balconies. A blank wall. This will virtually wipe out any access to daylight for the applicable units.

Stats from the Cover Letter:

Link: https://www.toronto.ca/city-governm...nt/application-details/?id=5330811&pid=230012

 

[Doppleganger]

As a stand-alone, I love this, but I'm surprised the same developer as the Charles next door would even try and get this one through, considering it will essentially destroy the sellability of those lower units facing that blank wall. On a better site, this would be an absolute winner and is just the kind of infill we need.

 

[xy3]

Talk about Beauty & The Beast !!

 

[thecharioteer]

At least there's room to hang laundry from the condo. Those units could become Toronto's version of the Tenement Museum.

 

[egotrippin]

I'm curious how/why did they put balconies on 628 Church so close to the lot line like that? I really like this proposal in terms of scale (and it has colour!) but it seems the potential of that lot is wasted now. Or if it's built as proposed those are going to be some miserable units as pointed out earlier.

 

[Northern Light]

Site Plan Application is in for this one:

Application Details

www.toronto.ca

@Paclo

One high quality render is included:

 

[UtakataNoAnnex]

...it will be one of the brights bits of colour in a sea of white and Toronto grey towers.

 

[rdaner]

Love it! You could do this on basically any suitable street in the country. Btw this is BDP Quadrangle.

 

[rdaner]

Thanks to @sopes for the tip off.

One Render:

View attachment 509724

Site Plan:

View attachment 509725


Ground Floor Plan:

View attachment 509726


Parking; 0

Elevator Ratio ( 2 elevators, 16 units may be the best ratio we've seen, 12.5 elevators per 100 units

****

I get the idea here, but I'm inclined to say 'no' to this one.

One reason only, the separation distance to the units on the building to the east (the subject of this thread)

This is what they get to stare at, a mere 8M from their balconies. A blank wall. This will virtually wipe out any access to daylight for the applicable units.

View attachment 509727


Stats from the Cover Letter:

View attachment 509728

Link: https://www.toronto.ca/city-governm...nt/application-details/?id=5330811&pid=230012

Many buildings from 1850s on had similar arrangements and they worked out fine. And they could always add transom windows if need be. We have to start being more creative in our designs as density increases and the lack of an acceptable view/direct sunlight from a side room is hardly a problem!

And I am so excited by this that I made an IG reel to spread the news!

 

[jmi22]

Many buildings from 1850s on had similar arrangements and they worked out fine. And they could always add transom windows if need be. We have to start being more creative in our designs as density increases and the lack of an acceptable view/direct sunlight from a side room is hardly a problem!

And I am so excited by this that I made an IG reel to spread the news!

This kind of housing typology is a large part of what makes NYC so iconic, I spent a large part of my trip last year walking around mouth agape at the beautiful streetwalls in SoHo and the lower east side. As much as I love the proposal I don't think staff would be out of their minds for refusing it due to the neighboring balconies, although I don't see it as a major concern.

 

[Chris R.]

Honestly, just throw some windows on the sides. Peeps in s city can buy drapes. I live in a house but my windows on my 1870s west wall have exactly 2' to the lot line where a chain link fence separates our property from the neighbour's well used back yard. There's no place on my ground floor I can be naked without a towel on or blinds closed. It's a part of city living!

 

[Northern Light]

Many buildings from 1850s on had similar arrangements and they worked out fine. And they could always add transom windows if need be. We have to start being more creative in our designs as density increases and the lack of an acceptable view/direct sunlight from a side room is hardly a problem!

And I am so excited by this that I made an IG reel to spread the news!

View attachment 580700

Privacy issues aside, you're increasing the floods from today.........

You can't keep wiping out every inch of greenspace w/o consequence...........the water has to go somewhere, and when you leave it nowhere to go.......it pools.......on roads, lawns and paths......and floods housing and offices and stores causing billions in damages.

My concern is less w/this particular proposal than it is unbridled enthusiasm for building on every inch of open space as if that were even remotely a good thing. Its not.

 

[jmi22]

Privacy issues aside, you're increasing the floods from today.........

You can't keep wiping out every inch of greenspace w/o consequence...........the water has to go somewhere, and when you leave it nowhere to go.......it pools.......on roads, lawns and paths......and floods housing and offices and stores causing billions in damages.

My concern is less w/this particular proposal than it is unbridled enthusiasm for building on every inch of open space as if that were even remotely a good thing. Its not.

I would argue that hyper dense urban centers, ala Manhattan, are flood protection by preventing the building on of floodplains with impermeable surfaces upstream by sprawl. But that's a lot to get into in a dev thread lol.

The 'hardening' of a lot of core areas is a concern but I think a policy of greening the streets and making them more porous can do a lot of the water retention that backyards used too.
Charles Street here is wide enough at the moment to facilitate a car parked on either side of the street and one active travel lane in the center, which works seeing as it's one way. With the surplus of off street parking being created in the area by recent devs, getting rid of on street parking is a real possibility.

Placing bio swells like this great one on Robert Street where parking used to be accommodated along the length of Charles would reverse the trend of permeable surfaces disappearing. Combine that with the one travel lane no longer being laid down with asphalt, but instead pavers, that allow water to filter through.
Intensification is inevitable and defiantly poses new challenges but really I think it may finally force us to see streets as anything other than strips of pavement which will make the city better in the long run.

 

[Northern Light]

I would argue that hyper dense urban centers, ala Manhattan, are flood protection by preventing the building on of floodplains with impermeable surfaces upstream by sprawl. But that's a lot to get into in a dev thread lol.

The 'hardening' of a lot of core areas is a concern but I think a policy of greening the streets and making them more porous can do a lot of the water retention that backyards used too.
Charles Street here is wide enough at the moment to facilitate a car parked on either side of the street and one active travel lane in the center, which works seeing as it's one way. With the surplus of off street parking being created in the area by recent devs, getting rid of on street parking is a real possibility.

View attachment 581058View attachment 581060
Placing bio swells like this great one on Robert Street where parking used to be accommodated along the length of Charles would reverse the trend of permeable surfaces disappearing. Combine that with the one travel lane no longer being laid down with asphalt, but instead pavers, that allow water to filter through.
Intensification is inevitable and defiantly poses new challenges but really I think it may finally force us to see streets as anything other than strips of pavement which will make the city better in the long run.

The upstream issue is a real one, but is too large and off-topic for this thread.

I'm happy to support your idea for Charles St. and in fact have already gotten the City to at least try out some of these types of ideas, though not here, yet.

As I noted, i don't really take that much of an issue w/this proposal as a one-off; my problem, is with the unbridled enthusiasm for tens of thousands more.........

That is something you can't offset by narrowing one, ten or even 200 hundred side streets, and that is just to 'stay in neutral' not to achieve an ecological and climate/weather resilient city.

It's the extremism; which I consider no less a problem from YIMBY than I do NIMBY. Thoughfulness and nuance are always required, flat-out yeses and nos are equally problematic. Also, is this development conditional on reconstructing Charles in the fashion you outlined? (no), and whose paying for it to happen when the City has a capital deficit of more than 20B over the next decade, and that's again w/o all the 'nice to haves'?

Sure, you can build more IF........ absolutely........but then must make the 'if' a reality, not an idea, approved, planned, designed, funded, constructed.