Toronto Etobicoke Civic Centre | 75.82m | 16s | CreateTO | Henning Larsen
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innsertnamehere
Superstar
This site will be a huge waste if built to that density.
leave it to Toronto to build hyper dense tower blocks along the 427 and sparse stub towers right next to the subway.
leave it to Toronto to build hyper dense tower blocks along the 427 and sparse stub towers right next to the subway.
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
Honestly, so disappointing. Underwhelming.
We should fire-sale all municipal assets at Six Points to the private sector and incorporate affordable housing into the sale agreement, just like what Infrastructure Ontario did with the West Don Lands sites.
We should fire-sale all municipal assets at Six Points to the private sector and incorporate affordable housing into the sale agreement, just like what Infrastructure Ontario did with the West Don Lands sites.
concrete_and_light
Active Member
Immediately next to polluting highways in barren car-dependent areas on unsafe, unwalkable streets is where we shove all the people can't afford single family homes in the city, it's disgraceful.
That said I don't think it's necessarily bad to have this kind of density next to subways — not everywhere needs to or should be skyscrapers — but we just have to densify the streets of homes in the areas near them as well if that's what we want to do.
Amare
Senior Member
Not that i'm arguing with you on this point, but the problem with this city is that we over-develop where it's not warranted, and under-develop where it is warranted. Then the city wonders why there is X, Y, and Z wrong.
The answer is right in front of them, but they keep repeating the same idiotic mistakes over and over again. Why would you under-develop right next to a major transit hub and "city centre", and then have proposals for denser builds 2 km south on The Queensway for example?
That's the kind of madness which makes you question the "planning" that goes on in this city.
AlexBozikovic
Active Member
The problem here is that the city is doing the development. City planning is in charge; therefore the project more or less follows the city’s ridiculous zoning. I’ve written about this: link
Amare
Senior Member
Great article, it describes the issues in easy to follow and relatively simple terms.
City Planning in this city is just a nauseating, and convoluted mess.
The core takeaway is—as has been evident since HousingNow got going—that we are stuck as the City Council—isn't willing to have one its bodies (CreateTO) working against zoning rules. Essentially, this is a political problem: Councillors have log seen blanket up-zonings as deleterious to their chances of being re-elected. If a coalition of private citizens mounted a successful PR campaign to convince Councillors to vote for either going after up-zonings for all the HousingNow sites en masse (which could be faster), or at least that CreateTO be allowed to pursue up-zoning in each case, then we'd have a way out. I believe Tory told the media early on that they'd go with existing zoning though, to be able to build quickly. Sure, it'll speed things up, but it'll waste potential in every case. I think they should bite the bullet of a mass up-zoning for the bulk of HousingNow sites ASAP, let a few trickle through first to get the program underway, but boost these sites now and be prepared to add others as they are identified. We need a champion or two or three to push this.
42
ProjectEnd
Superstar
As you say @interchange42, HousingNow and its organizing champion, Mark Richardson, are doing great work to get the City to realize the potential they're squandering. They got additional units included in all of the Stage 1 sites and are working with CreateTO and Planning on the Stage 2 sites now. Stay tuned for progress on those ones in the next couple of months.
junctionist
Senior Member
Alternately, the province could step in and legislate changes itself. While potentially unpopular among some NIMBYs, more flexible zoning could lead to more housing supply and less strain on the provincial coffers to fund subsidized housing as a form of affordable housing for able-bodied people. The Ford government's developer support base would probably approve.
It's a policy direction that's never going to replace subsidized housing because subsidized housing also helps people who are physically and mentally incapable of obtaining market housing. But by doing nothing about promoting affordable housing in the GTA, the province's exposure to the social costs of a lack of affordable housing for ordinary able-bodied people will only increase.
A Torontonian Now
Senior Member
If the political will were there, this is a situation where I believe the province need not legislate - if the city asked, they would gladly grant an MZO. Then there would be no delay to zoning changes.
While this is far from an ideal way to resolve the issue, it would be effective. Sometimes broken solutions are the best way to get around broken systems.
junctionist
Senior Member
I doubt the city will make it happen on its own, since its politicians don't want to lose the votes of NIMBYs.
dudedmc
New Member
How many of you live in the area? I moved here in the mid 90's because it wasn't densely populated and there was so much greenery. This whole development is making want to leave here as soon as I can, I rather see this density in the downtown core and not so much here. There will be so much traffic and more drivers that shouldn't be on the road.
Little off topic but I saw a land lease sign from pinnacle on shorncliff property so there maybe a some stalling with the condo boom.
Little off topic but I saw a land lease sign from pinnacle on shorncliff property so there maybe a some stalling with the condo boom.
concrete_and_light
Active Member
I don't live there now, but I grew up near the area and spent my early adulthood there and I'm a bit unsure what greenery you see as being lost. The previous Six Points area was a terrifying, confusing, and completely unwalkable highway-style interchange — not a friendly environment at all and I don't remember much green there amid it. And similarly, all the development along Dundas around there is mostly just replacing parking lots and blazing sun-drenched or frigid wind-swept concrete deserts. Despite some of the new buildings themselves being questionably designed, the reconfiguration of this area seems like it will add more greenery and human-scale space if anything. Maybe there's some green spaces we're losing that I'm not remembering/not aware of though.
ADRM
Senior Member
Looks like you're new-ish here, so, first off, welcome. But it's important for you to understand (for the sake of future forum discussions in which you engage) that you're not going to get a lot of love here with this perspective, which pretty solidly fills at least a few squares of the NIMBY bingo card. The short story is that if we applied your logic everywhere, we would built literally no housing anywhere. Obviously, that's not tenable, so we need people to either just drop this line of argument, or move away. The latter suggestion can sound a bit pejorative, but it's not really intended to be -- who am I to tell someone how to think or feel -- densification is simply a fact of life in major metropolitan centres (it is in fact in many ways the defining feature), so if you don't like that reality you're just going to have to move somewhere else.
There are much more productive channels through which to direct this totally reasonable and understandable frustration: for example, writing and visiting (or Zooming) your councillor, MPP, and MP to advocate for policies and infrastructure that relate to things like traffic calming, parking standards, and those which can help to shift transportation mode share away from single-occupancy motor vehicles. Opposing new housing is not the right outlet to accomplish your stated goal.