NeilV
Active Member
I didn't realize the East boundary was Duncan. That would explain why 19 Duncan, 150 Pearl, and 100 Simcoe are also exempt from the height restriction.
Toronto Nobu Residences Toronto | 156.66m | 45s | Madison Group | Teeple Architects
- Thread starter yyzer
- Start date
Automation Gallery
Superstar
Yes and no...the City didn't mind proposed buildings being a bit under 200m to 157m from University to Duncan but i'm sure they're not too pleased having them get taller again west of the Entertainment District, that was not the plan
stjames2queenwest
Senior Member
Canada house is not on the west side of Spadina, it is however south of Wellington.
concrete_and_light
Active Member
The original clothesline rule is admirable and may have produced a nice urban space in an alternate reality where Toronto had any sort of active political leadership, a culture of reasonable standard of quality development, and the transit/zoning/opposed homeowners political situation in other areas of the city allowed gentle density elsewhere.
But that window of opportunity has passed and the city seems out of touch with reality. The tabletop skyline exists and is going to get worse. Is the city endorsing this now? Is the city working on new policy to address this reality in a productive way and create a new plan? Is the city in denial? Has the city given up? Does the city think it's too late to change things? Has the city thought about this at all? Does the mayor have any thoughts?
It's really impossible to tell because I follow this stuff pretty closely and even as an interested citizen I hear zero communication about these types of urban planning issues from the city.
The problem here is very obvious: the reality gap between what the city wanted and what the OMB approved has created a situation where we're on the path to a full tabletop skyline made up of inelegant buildings built on a budget to maximize return on investment.
Is the city going to do anything about it? Because the path we're on seems like the worst option compared to the lost hope of a gentle clothesline transition or a possible future district of skyscrapers, varied in height, with policy to encourage more care taken at ground level and in building quality.
But that window of opportunity has passed and the city seems out of touch with reality. The tabletop skyline exists and is going to get worse. Is the city endorsing this now? Is the city working on new policy to address this reality in a productive way and create a new plan? Is the city in denial? Has the city given up? Does the city think it's too late to change things? Has the city thought about this at all? Does the mayor have any thoughts?
It's really impossible to tell because I follow this stuff pretty closely and even as an interested citizen I hear zero communication about these types of urban planning issues from the city.
The problem here is very obvious: the reality gap between what the city wanted and what the OMB approved has created a situation where we're on the path to a full tabletop skyline made up of inelegant buildings built on a budget to maximize return on investment.
Is the city going to do anything about it? Because the path we're on seems like the worst option compared to the lost hope of a gentle clothesline transition or a possible future district of skyscrapers, varied in height, with policy to encourage more care taken at ground level and in building quality.
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condovo
Senior Member
^^^Why so bleak? The tabletop skyline also can be seen as evidence of the city's success. Tons of people want to live here. That's a great thing. Hopefully, the new LPAT regime will take care of the OMB's worst excesses.
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TheKingEast
Senior Member
Mainly due to our transit system woes.
concrete_and_light
Active Member
When I say "the city" I mean the city administration, not the city like Toronto the place and the people. I love Toronto and its growth is super exciting to me. It just seems like the city administration is mostly absent in terms of managing and promoting its growth. The clothesline plan didn't work out. What's the new plan? It's been a while since it's been clear the old plan failed. Since this has now become a skyscraper district despite the city's efforts to stop that, I think they should accept that reality and encourage *taller* buildings in order to break up the tabletop and hopefully get some better quality buildings through a more productive development process.
I also don't want to sound like I'm being negative about Nobu. It just happens that this very frustrating city planning issue has come up in this great conversation here in the thread. Despite this state of affairs, I think Nobu looks like it could be one of the best buildings in the area and I'm looking forward to how it will activate Mercer street, in particular because the building will make the street so dense. We don't have many streets with this kind of extreme urban density in Toronto and, while I certainly wouldn't want them everywhere, I like them and I'm very excited to have one here.
When we want to refer to the municipal government, we capitalize it as City. If we leave it lower case, we're talking about how things are going here, etc.
You sound like you believe that the tabletop applies over the entire city. It only applies in the Entertainment District. In terms of other plans, the City can only operate within its jurisdiction. While it cannot overrule OMB decisions, it has beefed up its planning control through things like the High-rise Guidelines. Theoretically the City will have more say through the LPAT system on future projects… but we have yet to see how the LPAT process works out in real world decisions. It'll take a few years and several tests of the new system to get a good feel for how everything shifts to take it into account.
There's not much room for politics with individual projects, but if a mayor or councillor were to try to build support for changes in the law or official plans, we might eventually see new possibilities for development.
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concrete_and_light
Active Member
Interesting! Thank you for this response — lots of food for thought — and for the help around capitalizing City.
I do know that the tabletop only applies in the Entertainment District, but the Entertainment District is quite large and seeing some of the most significant development in the entire city, so it feels like quite a significant issue for the City to not address. We're in this unfortunate situation that nobody really likes where all the buildings in the area are ending up basically the same height leading to a claustrophobic unpleasant experience because of the un-nuanced OMB precedent decision-making process. It doesn't seem to be what's best for residents (who want a pleasing — not imposing — place to live, work and spend time), the City (who I presume want to do city planning not just based on one-size-fits-all precedent rulings), or developers (who I'm sure would love to build taller if they could) and it seems like a better compromise could be achieved for the future of this part of the city with political will.
I am interested in new policy to encourage better development, not trying to change specific projects. There may be something I don't understand, since there's a lot of areas of specifics here that I'm not familiar with, but could the City introduce a new official plan for the area that now accepts the reality on the ground of this whole area being a skyscraper district and specifically allowing and encouraging taller buildings in certain parts of the district that meet certain requirements (at major nodes, setbacks, shadowing, etc.)? Something like that is what I'm advocating for, although I don't know all the procedure and legislative specifics around how that type of goal could be accomplished.
I think the City's response, realizing that they have little ability to enforce "clothesline" type skyline silhouettes across whole areas (the OMB looks at it more from a property owners rights POV—if the place across the street or down the block was granted height X, then that should be your right to build that tall too), instead they've established the High-rise Guidelines which describes maximums based on lot size. The Guidelines recently helped kill a tabletop-height building at Adelaide and Charlotte, so they are effective on a small site. The Guidelines will not get us great architecture on their own though, just keep buildings from completely overwhelming their surroundings.
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Yegger
Active Member
Buildings of similar heights (re: tabletops) don’t necessarily invoke an oppressive or imposing urban form. I’d argue that setbacks from the street, stepbacks as a tower rises, separation distances, maximum floorplate allowed, podium+street level treatment and general public space provisions all contribute way more to the openness and experience at ground level. I say this with Vancouver in mind, where buildings are all in the 120-130m range with no virtually no plots left to be developed in yaletown and downtown south. Yet the sun still manages to reach the streets. I’m not sure that will be the case in the entertainment district in the near future.
maestro
Senior Member
Thin 120 metre towers spread out on townhome podium is an odd massing and ultimately, doesn't achieve the densities or the look expected of a vibrant downtown. I prefer towers that start out wide and gradually thin out as they rise. (i.e. Manhattan's wedding cake) I'm not surprised mass market developments are shifting out to Burnaby and Coquitlam.
maestro
Senior Member
Chances are you not going to notice the table top skyline entertaining in the district. Why is the aesthetic so important?
Red Mars
Senior Member
Pics taken Nov 29, 2018
got it right
Active Member
Thank you for the updated pics. I've been wondering what is happening on this project. Much appreciated.