Crap like this is why the idea of selling off public lands for development instead of the city themselves building is gaining popularity.
I support the idea of the City building housing itself...........but just so we're clear the reason for delay here was the absence of CMHC financing.
Now, i think the City were unwise in the extreme to put out a bidding process for the sites where neither the City had, nor were the developers required to show they had financing in place to win.
That's just a bizarre way to do business.
That said, the feds just announced 20B in new CMHC backed mortgages for purpose-built rental, student and seniors housing today, so that should get this moving if people aren't asleep at the switch.
During a worsening housing crisis the city has a blank slate to build on a subway station and one of the two towers is half the height of shit they built across the street 50 years ago?????
Yes it is/was; however, it's not as simple as you may think. Criteria related to zoning, separation, construction etc. all change as height increases. This impacts the number of units per floor, and the cost per ft2 of building.
The 11s building is much larger per floor than it would be, were it larger than 12s. In other words, the building has about the same yield in unit count as designed, as it would at twice the height; except at twice the height it would cost more to build.
There is room to nitpick the edges, including the height of the taller building; but at the same time, site was optimized relatively well.
