Toronto CampusOne Student Residence (was University Place) | 79.85m | 25s | Knightstone | Diamond Schmitt

The neighbourhood would be affected in the same way that plopping a 40 storey tower onto the Danforth would be -- it is completely out of keeping in scale, and would loom over the entire low-rise neighbourhood to the south and east. I also imagine that the current residents might not like having 1300 undergrads suddenly appear in their neighbourhood as well -- the proposed density is way out of proportion to the current area.
 
Tulse said:
The neighbourhood would be affected in the same way that plopping a 40 storey tower onto the Danforth would be -- it is completely out of keeping in scale, and would loom over the entire low-rise neighbourhood to the south and east. I also imagine that the current residents might not like having 1300 undergrads suddenly appear in their neighbourhood as well -- the proposed density is way out of proportion to the current area.
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Uh, what? This location is basically part of the U of T campus (with U of T owning several buildings on the south side of College St already).
 
Sure UofT owns some of those buildings, but most of those are not residences, and this project would add a huge number of students. I don't think it is deniable that 1300 more residents in this concentrated area would be a large change -- it would in any primarily low-rise residential neighbourhood.
 
Tulse said:
The neighbourhood would be affected in the same way that plopping a 40 storey tower onto the Danforth would be -- it is completely out of keeping in scale, and would loom over the entire low-rise neighbourhood to the south and east. I also imagine that the current residents might not like having 1300 undergrads suddenly appear in their neighbourhood as well -- the proposed density is way out of proportion to the current area.
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Yes, it's out of proportion. That's a given. It would "loom over". Yes, obviously, that's the entire premise of this debate. My question is, what would the tangible negative impacts be?

With respect to the influx of students into the neighbourhood, I don't see how that is a problem. The students would primarily be flowing from College Street north into the university and east-west along College Street. I'd welcome the additional foot traffic on College. There's no reason that they'd start arbitrarily flooding the quiet residential streets to the south. In fact, many of those houses are filled with students anyway, so if anything the nearby residence might have the effect of vacuuming some students out of the surrounding neighbourhoods. Furthermore the local businesses along College and Spadina would surely love the resultant boost in sales. I'm sure that the local residents who own and operate those shops would be quite happy.

With respect to the scale, two things: First, all of the shadowing would fall north onto the university grounds. If U of T is backing the proposal, then they clearly don't have an issue with that. Secondly, with respect to overpowering the street life, though some of the buildings on this street are beautiful, it would be grossly inaccurate to compare this stretch of College to the Danforth. There's little activity or life that takes place on College between Spadina and University aside from students walking to and from school or the Pita Pit. It doesn't have a vibrancy that comes close to being comparable to that of the bustling Danforth. There are a few crummy shops and Einstein's patio, then a bunch of stone and brick facades that don't interact with the street. To me it makes much more sense to compare this situation to the effect of placing a condo on a dreary stretch of the club district (minus the clubs).

From what I can tell, the only legitimate issue that people have is the precedent that this would set for the neighbourhood, and that's a different debate all together.
 
I usually scoff at precedence arguments but this is one case where I think it does have some weight. On three sides, U of T butts up against neighbourhoods that we'd like to more or less keep as they are, and there's little room left on the fourth, along Bay, for a tower like this. Something's got to give. Whether this is a U of T project to squeeze more dollars out of its students by expanding the residence pool or a private project to grab these dollars, reducing U of T's enrollment is actually a good option.

Tulse said:
Then I'm not sure what your original point was -- is it that all these projects have taken up all the spots for a project of this size?
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Yes. That's a big reason why U of T has expanded the actual footprint of its campus over the past few years. (It's also shrinking at Vic and St. Mike's, but whatever...that's not technically U of T jurisdiction).

There's only so much more 'stuff' U of T can add amongst existing buildings without traipsing all over the campus' public/open space or demolishing something that would be very problematic to lose (not just for heritage reasons, but for the sheer logistics of playing musical chairs with departments and lecture halls). Most of the easy infills have been done and most of the buildings/sites worth losing have been lost.
 
Not to get this off-topic, but this proposal would make a lot more sense to be located where OISE is currently situated on Bloor. The OISE building is in such rough shape it would cost more to renovate than to tear down and start fresh.

Perhaps OISE would move out to UTSC or UTM to a new home there, where there is more space. But like scarberianhatru said, they would need a building and space there first before they move.
 
scarberiankhatru said:
Whether this is a U of T project to squeeze more dollars out of its students by expanding the residence pool or a private project to grab these dollars, reducing U of T's enrollment is actually a good option.
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I'm inclined to agree with this. U of T shouldn't be expanding its enrollment; if it feels it has to, why not just expand UTM and Scarborough even faster than is already the case?
 
That is more or less the rumoured, long-term vision of David Naylor, to turn the downtown campus into a grad-only campus, and disperse the undergrads to Scarborough and UTM. As an example, during the four years I worked at UTSC enrolment doubled, from 5000 to 10,000, and given the new round of building going on there (plus the Pan-Am facilities), it will probably hit 15,000 by 2015 or thereabouts. So this process is already happening.
 
Even if the St. George campus sheds some of its [tens of thousands of?] commuting undergrads, either by sending them to UTM and UTSC or by reducing enrollment in general, they'd still want/need more residence spaces A) if they let in more non-GTAers and B) if they want more money. A conveniently gets them more B.

Most would choose Ryerson/York over UTM/UTSC, though, or just leave the city (Guelph, Western, Waterloo, etc., etc.). Actually, U of T could evolve into something like the University of California system, and UTM could break free and thrive and absorb some of the St. George undergrads through choice, but UTSC would have a much harder time and would mostly get people who were basically forced to go there because they lived too far from UTM. UTSC's programs and student body could change drastically, though.
 
They're definitely diverting students to UTM and UTSC, but they're not making St George grad-only. That doesn't make any sense at all.
 
York is also grievously over-enrolled. With the exception of their far-flung parking lots near Steeles, they are rapidly running out of land to build on. Their library, athletic, and student services capacity are also swamped, designed for a student body one-third the current size. They desperately want a medical school (they're just now opening their new engineering building) which they probably won't get, and like U of T, are increasingly highlighting their graduate programs and making the undergrad experience even worse than it is now. Like U of T also, they really should be reducing enrolment, but a longstanding rumour *there* was that York was assembling parcels of land in Newmarket for a third campus...
 
York is running out of land? It's been a while since I've been up that way, but I remember the campus as a huge windswept wasteland with a few clusters of buildings -- there always seemed to be tons of space to me.
 
UTSG, UTM, and UTSC all expanded due to the double cohort and to general rises in university enrollment. Actual "diversion" of undergrads hasn't really started yet, but it could if grad program expansions push undergrads out of downtown. Have any departments or programs actually moved to UTM/UTSC or is the growth there just that, growth [of existing programs]?

Newmarket is basically full now, but if York was ever looking at another campus in Newmarket, it was probably eyeing the most inaccessible field they could find along Bathurst.

With this proposed residence, though, if it's an independent residence, it might end up being filled largely with Ryerson, OCAD, George Brown, etc., students.
 
Tulse said:
York is running out of land? It's been a while since I've been up that way, but I remember the campus as a huge windswept wasteland with a few clusters of buildings -- there always seemed to be tons of space to me.
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They've been building fast. I graduated in '98, and hadn't returned until a visit last year to see a show at the AGYU, and couldn't believe how much had changed. Large chunks of the campus were unrecognizable.
 
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