Toronto Minto Westside | 68.88m | 20s | Minto Group | Wallman Architects

Pet me again and I might bite.

The area is transitional. It transitions between the higher buildings now being allowed in the Entertainment District and everything else around it. You make it sound like you think the Freed and Sorbara and other mid-rise buildings in this area are all going to imminently replaced by skyscrapers, but if that's so, it's a long way off in the future when they can take down the current crop of midrises with disintegrating ray guys. To think otherwise is folly.

You may be fixated by tall buildings like some wide-eyed yokel seeing the financial core for the first time, but there are other ways to do dense urbanity. You might like to travel sometime, broaden your horizons. No major city is just towers everywhere, not even Manhattan. Go see the world, learn something, and then come back and tell me more about this neighbourhood.
 
25 storeys. NOT that tall NOT a skyscraper. I remember the "stop the minto Eglinton" campaign. Look how that ended. Im not saying i want bathurst and front transformed into an expansion of cityplace, but all this over 25 storeys? only reason i even got involved in this thread is because people are denying this is nimbyism.
You can call me a wide eyed yokel all you like but i would rather be a yokel obsessed with tall buildings than a crybaby nimby fighting them.
Broaden my horizons? you are the one fighting a development maybe you should broaden your own.
 
For lovers and haters of tall buildings - whenever you are ready to take a break from yelling at each other, you might want to check out this exhibit on the subject that just opened at Harbourfront.

And more directly on topic - I think the "nimbys" here have done a pretty good job at making their case here, particularly in relation to the "you are going to lose, so therefore you must be wrong and should stop whining" argument. I say this even though I still think that this, of all the potential sites in King-Spadina west of Spadina, is probably the single best site for a moderately tall building. This might be a case where the standard "nimby" height-squashing actually does lead to a more appropriate building for the nighbourhood, as only a few floors less for both podium and point towers puts it into a pre-established height context.
 
Great tension-diffusing vocabulary ben. I guess only time will tell what is in store for this corner. either way arguing on UT isnt going to get us anywhere on a clear difference of opinion.
 
someMidTowner said:
To say this ISNT an example of NIMBYism shows no understanding of the term. You are essentially saying "not in my back yard" except throwing in a twist that this neighbourhoods history is significant (hmmm you mean like all of downtown?) Neighbourhoods are rezoned every week and this city is growing at an exponential rate. I understand the point of view that people are opposed to tall buildings in their neighbourhood (aka back yard)....but saying this isnt NIMBYism is laughable at the least.

(yay 1st angry condescending post)
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"(yay 1st angry condescending post)"

You left out a few other adjectives.

This is about seeking coherent, well scaled, good urban design and planning for the neighbourhood. Residents and city planners don't want an anomalously high tower in a district with a well established mid-rise fabric, but to call this NIMBY'ism is Fordian logic at best. (for an example of Fordian logic see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsLpnZs-NGA )

You know what else King Westers don't want in their back yard? Incineration plants, prisons, wallmarts...

Simple-mindedly striking off opposition by shouting nimby is like Ford calling anyone who opposes him a 'pinko commie'.
 
WiddleBittyKitty said:
Pet me again and I might bite.

The area is transitional. It transitions between the higher buildings now being allowed in the Entertainment District and everything else around it. You make it sound like you think the Freed and Sorbara and other mid-rise buildings in this area are all going to imminently replaced by skyscrapers, but if that's so, it's a long way off in the future when they can take down the current crop of midrises with disintegrating ray guys. To think otherwise is folly.

You may be fixated by tall buildings like some wide-eyed yokel seeing the financial core for the first time, but there are other ways to do dense urbanity. You might like to travel sometime, broaden your horizons. No major city is just towers everywhere, not even Manhattan. Go see the world, learn something, and then come back and tell me more about this neighbourhood.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods. One of them is comprised of skyscrapers. Most of the downtown neighbourhoods are not. There are some nodes and axis where highrise density is appropriate, but in the bulk of Toronto's neighbourhoods it is not. This is the case with all of the best planned N.A. cities, as well as most of Europe.
 
neubilder said:
Exactly.

Toronto is a city of neighbourhoods. One of them is comprised of skyscrapers. Most of the downtown neighbourhoods are not. There are some nodes and axis where highrise density is appropriate, but in the bulk of Toronto's neighbourhoods it is not. This is the case with all of the best planned N.A. cities, as well as most of Europe.
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Around the downtown core there is a band of low-value structures sitting on high value land (eg: Church street, Elm&Edward, Spadina and points west): land-value based taxes are unaffordable for low densities, and inevitably, higher density is the answer. While this site never sat in the parking lot 'dead zone' that especially characterizes this type of area, it is close, and this intensification is inevitable. Rather than a long discussion on height/density, this discussion should be (as exemplified in many comments) about quality.
 
Land value is dictated by what amount of density can be built and sold on it. It's precisely the contravention of the local plan to continually exceed the density/height limits which elevates land values: developers are willing to pay more because they expect to push the envelope and get away with it. If a strict limit was decided on and enforced, the land values would also be limited by what's known to be possible.
 
^^^College Park: yes, the proposed design is a crime against architecture. lets focus on that. it looks so sterile that I doubt it could support human life... certainly not street life.
 
currently the TTC DOWNTOWN MAP is bordered by parliment, dupont, and Bathurst. I would like to suggest that this area should not have height limits as it is the core of the city. How can someone in this area argue that the height is out of proportion with the rest of the area and be ok with random towers in the park in the suburbs of Toronto. Or maybe that too is a issue for them so instead we should have 2 floor sprawl starting from spadina to niagra falls and from jarvis to kingston. In the future it could be that the TTC DOWNTOWN MAP and what we think of as the core will expand to EGLINTON, to DUFFERIN and to the DVP.
 
By your definition, the Annex and half of Cabbagetown are also fair game. Clearly, these sort of policies need to be tweaked on the neighbourhood level, not by drawing big squares on a large scale map.

The neighbourhood in question here is not "2 floor sprawl" but mostly established midrise buildings, many of which are quite beautiful and compose coherent and consistent streetscapes along Wellington, King West, and a bunch of other streets.
 
BobBob said:
By your definition, the Annex and half of Cabbagetown are also fair game. Clearly, these sort of policies need to be tweaked on the neighbourhood level, not by drawing big squares on a large scale map.

The neighbourhood in question here is not "2 floor sprawl" but mostly established midrise buildings, many of which are quite beautiful and compose coherent and consistent streetscapes along Wellington, King West, and a bunch of other streets.
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If YORKVILLE was and is FAIR GAME, anything is! Residents of Cabbagetown or the annex can try to fight it but as long as developers keep knocking on doors and offering lucritive amounts for their land, eventually there will be a seller. MY favourite street in Toronto is DRAPER street. Its located just down the street from this proposal. Streets like this should be able to exist. However it should be occupied by the extremely rich who can pay the crazy tax it should be taxed based on its land value. IF the city were able to build more buildings downtown, it would result in less congestion which would save money, cause more people to walk, which would result in less needed to be spent on the TTC, it would result in more units which would create more tax income. All these things are a win for the city. Im not against low rise. But it should be for the ultra privledged. I am also not against midrise. However Midrise is more appropriate in the suburbs then the city.

BTW using NEW YORKS Manhatten low rise districts as a example of what TORONTO can be like doesnt exactly work in favour of the residents. TOWNHOUSES in manhatten are 10-20 million. If it were even 3-12 Million in this area the taxes alone would make people move out.
 
Lots on Draper Street do not have crazy land value, because you can't build towers there due to heritage protections. If you were able to build towers there, they would have higher land value, and Draper Street wouldn't exist in its present form.

It sounds like we can agree that there is some value to applying a degree of protection to certain "character" areas.
 
I think that people understand if a building is UGLY or if it is completely out of place. However with Cityplace and liberty village so close, it appears that one would have a hard time arguing that this is out of context. Also with reference to places like cabbagetown or the annex, the reality is that both those places have low rise housing which are in much better shape then this neighbourhood "draper street excluded". As a result most people see these towers as a reviatlization of a forgotten area. Most people dont understand why one would feel that this will ruin the neighbourhood when most would see this neighbourhood as something that is in need of revitalization. In other words IT CANT GET WORSE... Personally I think this is close enough to 3 major intersections (QUEEN, KING, FRONT and Bathurst). As a result the density is justifiable. Especially since I too am one who thinks that this area could use some love.
 
BobBob said:
Land value is dictated by what amount of density can be built and sold on it. It's precisely the contravention of the local plan to continually exceed the density/height limits which elevates land values: developers are willing to pay more because they expect to push the envelope and get away with it. If a strict limit was decided on and enforced, the land values would also be limited by what's known to be possible.
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That is exactly the problem with TOs land use policies. Developers know that with enough money and perseverence they will often get their way. The mechanism that makes this possible is the OMB because it circumvents and often makes a mockery of good planning principals.

There are countless cities where, immediately next to the CBD, there are low density, high value districts that are not under constant threat of revelopment. And that is because in these cities it would be sacrelidge to trash everything for the sake of 'progress'. Planning (and attitudes) in Canada seem to be stuck in the 50's when it comes to city building.

Boston: Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Tremont. As soon as you leave the core there are unbroken districts with historic neighbourhoods with well scaled modern infil. This is some of the highest land value there is, and it's lowrise, midrise or less. And it's not under any threat of redev't.

Chicago: Most highrise is concentrated in the 'Loop'. There are tons of contiguous neighbourhoods (Wicker Park, Ukranian Village...) surrounding it that are all lowrise and completely charming. Modern infil is in the form of smaller scaled lowrise that respects the context and history.

Seattle: You don't see any facadectomies happening in Pioneer square. Belltown, which is closer to downtown than King West is almost entirely midrise and lowrise, and not threatened by highrise redev't.

Europe: Except for certain districts designated as highrise, European city centres are almost entirely mid and low rise, except for the odd church. If there is gonna be a tower, it is often a one-off. They have the planning controls to enforce this and attitudes to match. The laissez faire speculation that plagues Toronto is all but absent.
 
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