Toronto Church and Wellesley | 101.78m | 31s | ONE Properties | S9

[ADRM]

There are plenty of other things in a person's life to be more outraged about. Demanding a developer change the design of their building is akin to me telling you how to spend your money. I don't love the new design, but I definitely wouldn't be outraged about it.

Except that it's not even remotely akin to that.

Why do people like Barcelona and Paris and Buenos Aires and Stockholm? Because they don't look like Buffalo or Cleveland or Boise or Windsor . Bemoaning a lack of ambition on the part of a developer who is going to make a shit ton of money on a building almost regardless of how it looks is an exercise in wanting a city to look -- in some small way -- more like the former than the latter.

 

[Full Metal Junkie]

#FirstWorldProblems

Why do people like Barcelona and Paris and Buenos Aires and Stockholm? Because they don't look like Buffalo or Cleveland or Boise or Windsor

I'd like to play a devil's advocate here. People like places like Barcelona and Paris and Buenos Aires and Stockholm also in part because they don't look like the slums of Mumbai. This, technically, does make the demand for good architecture a first world problem. In the strictest of senses.

Mind you, that is not to say that the demand for good architecture shouldn't exist. Just saying that @urbanyimby is not technically wrong

 

[WislaHD]

I think it is fine to be upset about a blatant bait-and-switch, especially when certain public realm related items were initially promised to the public for public buy-in.

 

[TonyV]

There are plenty of other things in a person's life to be more outraged about. Demanding a developer change the design of their building is akin to me telling you how to spend your money. I don't love the new design, but I definitely wouldn't be outraged about it.

Heh heh!! What’s your ambition? To run for mayor?
You could consider that. I see no one at city hall arguing for excellence and maximum public benefit from developers who make a huge bundle in this booming town... oh, perhaps there are a couple of glowing exceptions in council.

You would probably fit right in with the “good enough” crowd unless the voting public tires of all of this.

 

[interchange42]

I think it is fine to be upset about a blatant bait-and-switch, especially when certain public realm related items were initially promised to the public for public buy-in.

Bait-and-switch?

So a 17-day LPAT hearing is scheduled for May 2020 (not March), and the City's issues list is 39 items long. This is remarkable for a single condo tower development. 3-week hearings are usually reserved for major planning policy appeals, like appeals of entire Official Plans or Secondary Plans.

I'd love to know the developer's strategy on this. Will they go forward with a long and costly LPAT process that won't be resolved until late 2020 (with no guarantee of approval), or scale down the proposal, or throw in the towel and sell the site outright?

I want to remind everyone that this is not really a bait-and-switch: the City has been fighting this plan from the get-go, so they're actually trying to get something through LPAT here, trying to accommodate the City's wishes.

42.

 

[stjames2queenwest]

Perhaps if the city had not fought against this so hard from the get go it would not have come to THIS? ??‍

 

[bilked]

It’s easy to see how the City’s request for aggressive set-backs from Church could compromise the proposed “steps” space. But the switch from 3XN to G&C sure seems cynical.

 

[Dr. Snoot]

Bait-and-switch?

I want to remind everyone that this is not really a bait-and-switch: the City has been fighting this plan from the get-go, so they're actually trying to get something through LPAT here, trying to accommodate the City's wishes.

42.

I disagree. They proposed something they knew was unacceptable and dangled the carrot of a quality public amenity to try to dupe people into accepting.

Now that they know they won't get what they never should have proposed to begin with, they're yanking the only good thing about the design and substituting the crappiest possible architect.

Maybe not bait-and-switch, but essentially architectural dishonesty or blackmail. Unless I get this massive overdevelopment though, back to thoughtless design for you (as if I ever cared).

 

[interchange42]

I'm not saying there's nothing to worry about here, there really is, but it's also too early to consider what we're seeing now as reflective of a final design. Once they get massing approved though, it'll be up to KWT to push for suitable community benefits, so if you still want that space facing the corner, let her office know.

42

PS; and yes, keep pushing ONE Properties to pull up their socks architecturally (although they're likely totally pissed off with the City for having spent so much on the first design and getting nothing for it.)

 

[ProjectEnd]

I disagree. They proposed something they knew was unacceptable and dangled the carrot of a quality public amenity to try to dupe people into accepting.

Now that they know they won't get what they never should have proposed to begin with, they're yanking the only good thing about the design and substituting the crappiest possible architect.

Maybe not bait-and-switch, but essentially architectural dishonesty or blackmail. Unless I get this massive overdevelopment though, back to thoughtless design for you (as if I ever cared).

Why was it 'unacceptable'?

 

[Dr. Snoot]

Why was it 'unacceptable'?

Whether one agrees or disagrees with it, based on existing policy, which would never allow this type of development.

This has been discussed before, but here it is again:

This isn't the case of existing zoning heights being at odds with policy. The City has relatively recent policies (approved 2013, settled at OMB 2016/2017) specifically requiring low-scale infill to maintain the Church Street Village character.

"[The area policy] identifies that in the Church Street Village Character Area, development should reinforce the core village area as a low to mid-rise pedestrian oriented main street with street related retail uses and narrow retail frontages subject to angular plane provisions for portions of this Character Area. Further, that this Character Area is regarded as a stable area that should experience limited growth, both along Church Street and in the residential areas abutting and surrounding it. As a policy in SASP 382 states, the only development permitted in Mixed Use Areas is sensitive low-scale infill that respects and reinforces the general "

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2017/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-108858.pdf

 

[khris]

This new proposal is absolute garbage. The original one was beautiful, and would have benefited the community.

 

[NoahB]

What's the point of keeping it low rise and 'low growth' when it is experiencing DECLINE by losing the local institutions to banks and chain pharmacies? Right opposite to this building is a Pizza Pizza, Rexal, Hero Burger, and a TD Bank.

The old design might have set a bad precedent in terms of protecting the neighborhood from complete redevelopment, but it also set a good precedent of a condo building *adding* to the community by giving it spaces they would enjoy.

 

[interchange42]

What's the point of keeping it low rise and 'low growth' when it is experiencing DECLINE by losing the local institutions to banks and chain pharmacies? Right opposite to this building is a Pizza Pizza, Rexal, Hero Burger, and a TD Bank.

The old design might have set a bad precedent in terms of protecting the neighborhood from complete redevelopment, but it also set a good precedent of a condo building *adding* to the community by giving it spaces they would enjoy.

If the City had said 'yes' here, then the rest of the area along the street where they are trying to protect the village character is suddenly unprotected: past decisions where a developer only got a certain height because they were providing a community benefit have meant nothing at what was at the time the OMB, the most obvious case having been the Lightbox. It was only allowed to go as high as it does because the cultural facility that TIFF represents was seen as a public good…

but when others wanted to develop nearby and the City said no, the City lost at the OMB and wasn't able to secure particular public benefits from the subsequent buildings in the area. Now nearly everything in that part of the Entertainment District is the same height.

The City does not want a repeat of that at Church & Wellesley.

42

 

[ProjectEnd]

Which is really too bad because there's absolutely nothing wrong with the way things have panned out in the ED post-Lightbox. Lynda sees that loss as a personal scar and anything coming along that might challenge it in a similar way gets an impossibly rough ride now. The even more frustrating thing is that plenty in the department don't view it that way and genuinely want many of the same things that we on this website do.