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

Automation Gallery said:
Interesting twist, now WT are game to collaborate:confused:

Waterfront Toronto ‘keen to collaborate’ on Port Lands

Waterfront Toronto is moving ahead with its Port Lands plan, saying it would be happy to collaborate with a city agency pushing a mall-and-monorail vision of waterfront development
More....http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1051931--waterfront-toronto-keen-to-collaborate-on-port-lands
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When the odds are stacked against you, it's often better to work with the opposition and try to mitigate the damage.
 
jje1000 said:
When the odds are stacked against you, it's often better to work with the opposition and try to mitigate the damage.
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Indeed, WT are a 'creature' of the City (and Feds and Province) so they can hardly tell one of their three 'bosses' to f*** off. WT are doing what any sensible person would do and seeing if what the Ford(s) proposes can be adjusted so as not to ruin the existing plan and maybe, miracle of miracles, improve it and make it happen faster.
 
Automation Gallery said:
Interesting twist, now WT are game to collaborate:confused:

Waterfront Toronto ‘keen to collaborate’ on Port Lands

Waterfront Toronto is moving ahead with its Port Lands plan, saying it would be happy to collaborate with a city agency pushing a mall-and-monorail vision of waterfront development
More....http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1051931--waterfront-toronto-keen-to-collaborate-on-port-lands
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was hoping to see. Let Waterfront Toronto continue to do the excellent work it's been doing, including naturalizing the Don River and adapt land uses to those proposed by the current Mayor. Whatever happens, Ford will no longer be Mayor when all this stuff is built anyway.
 
jje1000 said:
When the odds are stacked against you, it's often better to work with the opposition and try to mitigate the damage.
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Hasn't *all* of what's actually guided City Hall over the past months had that damage-mitigation card up its sleeve? I'm sure that's what's led "moderate Fordites" to support him all along--not so much out of Ford acolytism, as out of concern that the alternative (anarchy) is worse. IOW supporting him (thus far), and trying to wheedle a "generic right-of-centre mayorship" circumstance out of it--knowing, too, that a lot of Ford's most vociferous critics would have been just as vociferous at Smitherman were it to be a strict Smitherman-Pantalone race. Just as they were vociferous re Tory vs Miller, Lastman vs Hall, etc.

Of course, you can only go so far with an incompetent. But thus far, they've still been trying, because "anarchy is worse".
 
Automation Gallery said:
Interesting twist, now WT are game to collaborate:confused:
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The whole thing has been collaborative from the start. With the city, province, and federal government as their three bosses they have to be. WT has modified plans for the provinces Pan Am Games, the city's desire for waterfront office space in the first phase, the public's desires at design sessions, etc. The Ford brothers are the ones who are obviously not in a collaborative mood when behind closed doors they talk to developers, throw together renderings of an alternate vision, etc without any consultation. The city has always set a large part of the direction of WT. Any land use plan has to go to the city for approval.
 
If, due to some not totally unheard of geological bump, the entire Portlands area dropped 50 feet into Lake Ontario it would save the City untold millions and cost an insurance company the value of a grocery store and a Film studio, the only 2 properties worth insuring in the area.

A couple of agencies that spend tons of money to achieve little and are not answerable to anyone would be out of work, boo hoo. The City would be rid of the headache of trying to make a silk purse out of this pig's ear and could concentrate their time on more urgent projects.

I know it ain't going to happen but what a neat solution.
 
spider said:
A couple of agencies that spend tons of money to achieve little and are not answerable to anyone would be out of work, boo hoo. The City would be rid of the headache of trying to make a silk purse out of this pig's ear and could concentrate their time on more urgent projects.
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Problem: A silk purse can be made out of this particular pig's ears. It has clearly been demonstrated with the developments going on at the East Bayfront.
 
spider said:
A couple of agencies that spend tons of money to achieve little and are not answerable to anyone would be out of work, boo hoo.
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They have achieved a lot, read the list of projects completed and underway. They have turned $800M in investments into more than a billion in land assets and more than a billion more in private investments. They are already ahead.

They are answerable to everyone. They have three levels of government they are answerable to, and they have received direction from the general public through numerous open houses and design sessions. Most plans were design competitions, not closed door "lets build what this secretive agency wants".

With Waterfront Toronto you get a plan and an agency which through a cycle of investments, recovery through sales, and reinvestments will ensure the plan gets built. With the Ford plan you get a vision of a possible waterfront, then turn it over to the private sector to build what makes sense to them and cross your fingers that somehow it aligns with the pretty pictures of the vision. It isn't even a choice between two differing visions of the waterfront since Waterfront Toronto gets its direction from the public and the city, it is a choice of having a public agency in charge of making sure the vision becomes a reality and benefits the public, or selling assets up front and putting blind faith in the public sector to build something we would like.
 
spider said:
If, due to some not totally unheard of geological bump, the entire Portlands area dropped 50 feet into Lake Ontario it would save the City untold millions and cost an insurance company the value of a grocery store and a Film studio, the only 2 properties worth insuring in the area.

A couple of agencies that spend tons of money to achieve little and are not answerable to anyone would be out of work, boo hoo. The City would be rid of the headache of trying to make a silk purse out of this pig's ear and could concentrate their time on more urgent projects.

I know it ain't going to happen but what a neat solution.
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Did someone fart?
 
Hi Toronto! I'm just a lowly ET student doing lots of research on the waterfront and I'd like to point out a few things you can pass on to your Councillors

This has been updated with some extra sources in relation to the content. I'd like to take a moment and just talk about Fords plan and all of its shortfalls in general which seems to be outlined here:
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1048988--waterfront-plan-is-not-doug-ford-s-yet

  • The "events quay" seems like a cool idea right? well perhaps it would be if you didn't place it directly in the path of prevailing winds coming off the lake, the waterfront Toronto plan accounts for this and places wind shadows and wind breaks on the western most side of the port lands, who wants to hang out at a place like this?: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ACG6lH-LdJA/TQ0KDXZbs6I/AAAAAAAAA0Q/Fd1d-Mmyiyg/s1600/anchorage2.jpg

  • The "flood prevention" area doesn't address a single issue with the accepted standard for floods in Ontario, in fact nearly every proposed building according to this plan sits on a flood plain because of this brilliant idea, the whole point of re naturalizing the don was to reduce the size of the flood plain by nearly 150ha creating a large amount of valuable real estate and opening up the river for recreational use.

  • Permeability, this plan is doomed from the start, it will become a ghost town before you know it, there are exactly two access points placed on the map for the estimated 25000 people (waterfront Toronto numbers). Even assuming you would be building more bridges etc. this is not an appropriate place for large buildings and a commercial center. Geologically it would be a nightmare to build anything more than 4 or 5 stories (you can look up the soil density tests in the EA).

  • Currently there are portions of the port lands that are unusable for any development as there is hazardous waste that is prohibitively expensive to remove (eg. requires pyrolysis) or just unable to remove without causing a disturbance.


  • The Toronto port lands are classified as floodplains, unlike in the United States and other countries where the typical approach is to build levies, it is unlawful to develop floodplains for certain land use (eg. pretty much anything proposed by Ford)

  • An environmental assessment of the properties in question regarding this new development would take probably in the neighborhood of 5+ years due to the variety of land use suggested. This isn't including the still remaining environmental remediation that needs to be carried out.

  • The plan suggested does not address one of the biggest issues with the Don River as it empties into lake Ontario, its current course causes it to drop all sediment at the Keating channel which requires dredging multiple times yearly costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.


This list of items is bound to grow as I continue this research, and I intend on writing letters to the newspapers, any suggestions of things I may have missed or need to clarify please let me know. Also if you can confirm the existence of the magic wand the Ford's seem to have let me know so I can be saved all the trouble.

A few more sources regarding this:

There are over 2 million cubic meters of soil that need to be washed, cleaned and brought up to MOE standards, this is something that isn't just a suggestion, It is required by law before you erect any sort of permanent structure. This takes decades.
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From here:http://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/comments/k90kf/hi_toronto_im_just_a_lowly_et_student_doing_lots/

These are potentially things that may get lost in the shine and glamour of Ford's plan.
 
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neubilder said:
Drop the "'lowly' ET student" bit. Engaging in rigorous research to defend the waterfront from the Ford's foolish plunders is a vital and noble cause. The Fords need to be shut down from all angles, and student research is a good one. Get your work out there!
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Oh, this wasn't me. I found his research and right or wrong, these facts needed to get out there.

Also, backroom visioneering with a 77-year old:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...n-says-only-rob-ford-listened/article2161750/
 
I read this article by Sue-Ann Levy: http://www.torontosun.com/2011/09/02/waterfront-toronto-leaking-cash

Wow. I had heard her name mentioned a number of times in this forum but I hadn't read anything from her until now. She belongs on Fox News, not a Canadian news paper. I thought the Sun was for the quick and dirty version of the news, not for purposely misleading the public. She suggests that the Harper government funded the projects that were built on the waterfront. Newsflash, an agency was created with the promise of $500M from each level of government and that money wasn't transferred on day one, it has been transferred in pieces, like the money for those parks. Did she think an agency with no land and no money was going to deliver value? Then she criticizes Waterfront Toronto for not doing as well as the TPLC which built Corus in terms of developing commercial space. Newsflash again, Waterfront Toronto's mandate is the creation of public infrastructure and parks and the sale of land assets for development. Waterfront Toronto isn't in the business of building condos, building commercial space, building retail, etc. That is what private enterprise is for. That is like complaining TCHC hasn't built as many runways as the Toronto Port Authority, therefore put the Toronto Port Authority in charge of public housing. She purposely pretends to not know what Waterfront Toronto's mandate is.
 
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