Toronto Lower Don Lands Redevelopment | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

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I love how the flyover manages to capture someone driving in the bike lane in the first ten seconds

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Thanks all for the attention to my piece last week. I’ll make a few points and duck out.

1. Villiers is not close to the densest big project in Toronto. Ignore the 20ha river parks, and it is 450 dwellings per ha and 4 FSI gross. Most if not all of the big private masterplans in Toronto exceed those numbers, many of them by a lot. And they lack the presence of the river parks, an incredible amenity.

2. 45% of the neighbourhood (8.8/19.4) is roadway. That’s why the neighbourhood is not in fact very dense. The math is punishing.

3. No one has ever made a clear defence of that design decision. Where is the rationale? Where are the precedents? What I’ve heard, including on here, is basically: big streets are nice and the West Don Lands is great.

That’s nowhere near rigorous enough to explain a decision to spend several hectares of the most valuable land in the country.

I also think it’s wrong. The good things about the WDL are Corktown Common and arguably two blocks of the Front St promenade. It’s car-heavy with a lot of dead space. One of its main components, Lawren Harris Square, is a complete failure.

I see sloppy, undisciplined thinking, both about design and about the potential use value of this land, and it makes me sad for the lost potential. YMMV.


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AlexBozikovic said:
Thanks all for the attention to my piece last week. I’ll make a few points and duck out.

1. Villiers is not close to the densest big project in Toronto. Ignore the 20ha river parks, and it is 450 dwellings per ha and 4 FSI gross. Most if not all of the big private masterplans in Toronto exceed those numbers, many of them by a lot. And they lack the presence of the river parks, an incredible amenity.

2. 45% of the neighbourhood (8.8/19.4) is roadway. That’s why the neighbourhood is not in fact very dense. The math is punishing.

3. No one has ever made a clear defence of that design decision. Where is the rationale? Where are the precedents? What I’ve heard, including on here, is basically: big streets are nice and the West Don Lands is great.

That’s nowhere near rigorous enough to explain a decision to spend several hectares of the most valuable land in the country.

I also think it’s wrong. The good things about the WDL are Corktown Common and arguably two blocks of the Front St promenade. It’s car-heavy with a lot of dead space. One of its main components, Lawren Harris Square, is a complete failure.

I see sloppy, undisciplined thinking, both about design and about the potential use value of this land, and it makes me sad for the lost potential. YMMV.


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Thanks, Alex, I appreciated your column and Twitter threads on Villiers Island. We agree on some items, while diverging on others.

Quick question:

2. 45% of the neighbourhood (8.8/19.4) is roadway. That’s why the neighbourhood is not in fact very dense. The math is punishing.
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Does the 45% figure include the land used for the LRT lines, bike lanes or private roads? I'll admit I've found it difficult to ascertain the total HA of Villiers between the channel, parks and roads.

Also, how does this 45% figure compare to the West Don Lands, or say, Liberty Village?
 
AlexBozikovic said:
Thanks all for the attention to my piece last week. I’ll make a few points and duck out.

1. Villiers is not close to the densest big project in Toronto. Ignore the 20ha river parks, and it is 450 dwellings per ha and 4 FSI gross. Most if not all of the big private masterplans in Toronto exceed those numbers, many of them by a lot. And they lack the presence of the river parks, an incredible amenity.
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This is not correct. This includes the river valley lands.

The FSI of the developable parcels is 7.7. But that is misleadingly low.

That includes the provision of non-river valley parklands, and a site for a school that has an FSI of 2.2

Here's the actual FSI on a block by block basis: (in Pink)


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AlexBozikovic said:
2. 45% of the neighbourhood (8.8/19.4) is roadway. That’s why the neighbourhood is not in fact very dense. The math is punishing.
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Please cite a source for this.

Roadway is a percentage of ROW and that distinction needs to be made. ROW includes pedestrian exclusive and pedestrian priority streets, describing those as roadway is simply not reasonable. (one can debate the size of the ROW, no problem there, but let's be clear and not confuse this with space devoted to cars)

AlexBozikovic said:
3. No one has ever made a clear defence of that design decision. Where is the rationale? Where are the precedents? What I’ve heard, including on here, is basically: big streets are nice and the West Don Lands is great.

That’s nowhere near rigorous enough to explain a decision to spend several hectares of the most valuable land in the country.
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There are lots of defenses, both official, in print to which I have linked and more which I have made here.

AlexBozikovic said:
Lawren Harris Square, is a complete failure.
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This is fair. LHS was questionable at best conceptually (it's small, awkward and surrounded by roads) but the actual design, such as it is, is abysmal, and clearly hasn't worked.
 
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AlexBozikovic said:
Thanks all for the attention to my piece last week. I’ll make a few points and duck out.

1. Villiers is not close to the densest big project in Toronto. Ignore the 20ha river parks, and it is 450 dwellings per ha and 4 FSI gross. Most if not all of the big private masterplans in Toronto exceed those numbers, many of them by a lot. And they lack the presence of the river parks, an incredible amenity.

2. 45% of the neighbourhood (8.8/19.4) is roadway. That’s why the neighbourhood is not in fact very dense. The math is punishing.

3. No one has ever made a clear defence of that design decision. Where is the rationale? Where are the precedents? What I’ve heard, including on here, is basically: big streets are nice and the West Don Lands is great.

That’s nowhere near rigorous enough to explain a decision to spend several hectares of the most valuable land in the country.

I also think it’s wrong. The good things about the WDL are Corktown Common and arguably two blocks of the Front St promenade. It’s car-heavy with a lot of dead space. One of its main components, Lawren Harris Square, is a complete failure.

I see sloppy, undisciplined thinking, both about design and about the potential use value of this land, and it makes me sad for the lost potential. YMMV.
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I think the big disconnect here is that it, unfortunately, it will be a pretty heavily car dependent neighbourhood, probably somewhere between Humber Bay Shores and Liberty Village, so the road space will be required. There will be no mass-transit, except for a TLRT (Toronto LRT and the compromises that brings), one day, probably. To properly plan the neighbourhood you want, we would likely have to start with an Ontario Line spur leading to it day one, but, we don't live in a universe where that would happen.
 
evandyk said:
For comparison, what other "local streets" in downtown Toronto are 20 metres wide? What are the widths of the ROWs in Canary?
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Tannery Road is 20M as are most smaller streets in Canary.

The narrowest local streets are 18M in Canary.

Mill is ~25M

Front is 42M

*****

A sampling of other streets:

George Street in the St. Lawrence area is ~16M

Scott Street, beside the STLC is ~20M

Brunel Court in City Place is ~20M
 
Northern Light said:
Tannery Road is 20M as are most smaller streets in Canary.

The narrowest local streets are 18M in Canary.

Mill is ~25M

Front is 42M

*****

A sampling of other streets:

George Street in the St. Lawrence area is ~16M

Scott Street, beside the STLC is ~20M

Brunel Court in City Place is ~20M
Click to expand...

This issue reminded me of the early debate over ROW at Regent Park - TFS was stated as the primary reason why even the narrowest ROWs are as wide as they are.

AoD
 
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