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

allengeorge said:

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

https://www.blogto.com/city/2024/06/toronto-artificial-river-aerial/ Thank you Jack! 🍻
urbantoronto.ca urbantoronto.ca

If I understand the above correctly, and this plan:


Most of the streets will be 20m ROW, with the exception of Cherry, Munition and Commissioners which will all be 40m?
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Street ROW (building face to face, not roadway)

New Cherry 42M
Commissioners 40M
Most of Villiers * 32.2M
Munition 30M
Centre - 20M
A portion of Villiers* 20M
Old Cherry 18M

*****

Also, you keep complaining about street walls not as tall as NYC, but almost all of Villiers is taller, its mostly 6-10s.

Have a close look, its right there:

1718987640660.png


So since you keep calling for more, you're saying double the streetwall height of Boston or NYC is still not enough.

I have a very real problem with that.

****

Can we narrow the ROWs? Yes.

But to do so we must lower the streetwall heights to the exact same as the ones you like, which will reduce population density. We can't actually make that density back up, because the bulk of the ROW on most streets isn't far cars but people; and in order to shrink the sidewalks, for the most part, you have to cut the number of people.

I don't know why you won't address the issue that the neighbourhood you espouse in NYC is 2/3 the density proposed at Villiers. This is public math, you can google it all.
 
Alex is going off on Paula Fletcher on Twitter about Villiers, and it made me think about this clip I watched last night (ymmv).

Nobody wants to buy overpriced studios with stunning views of your neighbour’s floor to ceiling window (and vice versa) go figure. So there’s a glut on the market (even before next year’s mortgage apocalypse).

Soooo, “buildings are too far apart” and “not dense enough”- my question is, how is the solution to those issues creating places where people actually want to live? Because lord knows there’s been plenty of big picture planning talk- without consideration of the actual living experience.

Cool. Let’s say Villiers is fully pedestrian and buildings four metres apart. Everything is 60 storeys. We’ve ticked all the popular urbanist boxes. Is living there any good?

 
Northern Light said:
Great pic, though lets let others see it w/o the click:

View attachment 574311

First, on the ROW, building face to building face, its 18M (16M from fence to fence).

Second, Curb to Curb, roadway is 9M.

Third, I take no issue w/streetwalls this height, 3.5s; everything in Villiers is already this tall (proposed), others are arguing for much taller streetwalls than these. I'm find w/streetwalls up to 3s on mews and 4s facing streets.



So Perry Street, overhead view first:

View attachment 574323

Ok.....can we talk about the absence of towers here and how this is much lower density than Villiers?

****

ROW (building face to face) is ~14M

Curb to Curb is 7.5M for the most part.

****

Now for Streetview:

View attachment 574324

Hmm, that looks like its working super well........ lots of cars, truck parked on the sidewalk blocking that accessible width..... insufficient space for a fire truck......



Lets bring this one forward too:

Aerial first:

View attachment 574327

ROW: ~17M

Roadway: ~7M

View attachment 574325

Observations: Zero Towers; less dense than Villiers, lots of on-street parking, no cycling facilities, sidewalks do not meet accessibility standards due to trees and encroachments.

I looked up the population density of Hell's Kitchen as a whole. Its 103,000 per mile2 which is 39000 per km2.

Villiers is proposed to be 59,000 per km2, or 50% denser than Hell's kitchen.

****

I think people keep confusing feelings and anecdotes with math....

We can build Villiers similar to this, but we will have to cut the density by 1/3 and eliminate bike lanes, and build a subway.
Click to expand...

Great read, Northern, and puts the density of Villiers in context to other model urban neighbourhoods.
 
Northern Light said:
Also, you keep complaining about street walls not as tall as NYC, but almost all of Villiers is taller, its mostly 6-10s.
Click to expand...

That’s a very good point, and I should have noticed that.

Northern Light said:
So since you keep calling for more, you're saying double the streetwall height of Boston or NYC is still not enough.

I have a very real problem with that.
Click to expand...

Honestly, my issue is that there is this…doctrinairism…around maximum streetwall height that I truly find off-putting. I don’t think it’s as ‘settled science’ as it’s made out to be. It’s subjective - and I’m actually totally ok if it’s presented as such. But it’s not: it’s painted as if it’s a natural law that cannot be questioned.

Northern Light said:
I don't know why you won't address the issue that the neighbourhood you espouse in NYC is 2/3 the density proposed at Villiers. This is public math, you can google it all.
Click to expand...

That’s a very good point, and it alleviates a lot of my concerns around the planned density here. I’m wrong to paint the current plan as not dense. I simply hope that care is taken with the public realm by individual developers so that the precinct is successful to live in.

Finally, thank you for taking the time to respond, and in such depth. You could have simply brushed me off, but you engaged respectfully - I appreciate that, and I learned a lot.
 
allengeorge said:
Honestly, my issue is that there is this…doctrinairism…around maximum streetwall height that I truly find off-putting. I don’t think it’s as ‘settled science’ as it’s made out to be. It’s subjective - and I’m actually totally ok if it’s presented as such. But it’s not: it’s painted as if it’s a natural law that cannot be questioned.
Click to expand...

Aesthetic preferences are not science per se.

But the amount of sunlight and precipitation required to sustain large trees is science and is known.

Equally, the amount of room required for currently legal mobility aids or strollers is also known, not subjective, we could discuss changing requirements to limit the size of some of these......arguably, but there are limits.

We can buy smaller fire trucks and snow plows, and install snow melt systems, all do-able, but we aren't, we don't have those, and we can't plan as if we do, until we do.

Its not nearly as arbitrary as you make it seem. Streetwalls can be higher, but you trade other things away to get that, and if you want that and a narrow ROW, you're asking for something most people wouldn't want and would come with multiple adverse impacts and/or costs.

I, for one love 3-4s street walls with modest front greenery, pedestrian priority, and roads as narrow as practical, but you have to virtually ban cars, which requires a subway line, which Viliers does not have. You have to reduce density by eliminating towers, so that the sidewalks /shared streets function well, with reduced crowding. But that's not Villiers, and that will not be Villiers, and I'm honestly concerned its too dense as proposed and will not function as hoped for because of the absence of a subway, and I take real issue with people aggressively pushing density without assuring the necessary infrastructure is planned for, and without being clear on what's being traded away to achieve it.
 
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Off topic, but I would just like to remark at how informative and thought-provoking the discussions are in this thread (and of course elsewhere on UT). I'm just a random schmoe with an opinion, but who knows nothing about urban planning or civil engineering or public policy. I do live and work along the waterfront and pass through the Port Lands every day, so having access to documents and reading the ensuing exchanges have been very insightful. A big thanks to everyone for their contributions!
 
Traycer said:
Off topic, but I would just like to remark at how informative and thought-provoking the discussions are in this thread (and of course elsewhere on UT). I'm just a random schmoe with an opinion, but who knows nothing about urban planning or civil engineering or public policy. I do live and work along the waterfront and pass through the Port Lands every day, so having access to documents and reading the ensuing exchanges have been very insightful. A big thanks to everyone for their contributions!
Click to expand...
Hear hear!
 
hawc said:
Cannes is another good example. Tall building walls. Not a car in sight. Villiers should have the density of Cannes. Otherwise, boom... future St. James Town.

View attachment 574273
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I doubt that can be built in France, today, for a myriad of reasons.

While a charming, intimate low-rise neighbourhood would be nice, these are all much lower density than what is planned for Villiers.

Here is another approach that could be used for redeveloping the portlands. I'm sure it would be more charming, but it is less dense.

 
ADRM said:
View attachment 574847
Click to expand...

Great contribution.

This one pic caught my attention.........ahem, bus shelters. I'm sure they are in the plans, but the road and trail are open, and there is no other shelter available (under a building canopy etc.) in the area.
 
rdaner said:
I am going to put this here as a bridge to The
Island will be somewhere in The Portlands.

www.blogto.com

Toronto to finally consider a bridge to the islands after years of ferry headaches

Residents and leaders have been discussing the idea of a bridge to the Toronto Islands for years, but with the city's ferry service seeming more pa...
www.blogto.com www.blogto.com
Click to expand...
The source is BlogTO and the chance of this being funded in my (or our) lifetimes is remote in the extreme.It would probably be cheaper to build a tunnel from Billy Bishop under the runways!
 
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