Toronto Pinnacle One Yonge | 345.5m | 105s | Pinnacle | Hariri Pontarini

Two, this unsustainable pace of development has landed us with a lot of forgettable crap to put it mildly and most of it has a short life span before it needs massive correction; windows being a big concern. I love tall and really really tall buildings, but not at any cost.

While there are many legitimate issues with the quality of buildings going up in the city, truncated buildings does not equal better development. There is nothing wrong with height or density at this location.
 
Well said - and look closely at these pictures and you will notice two of the biggest frauds in local politics seated in the centre of each group. God help us is Chow is ever elected Mayor of Toronto. If Chow becomes Mayor you can expect to see a lot of developments like this snuffed out. This is the moron who pledged to kill the Island Airport which today pumps $2 Billion a year into the Toronto economy and provides 1700 direct and 4000 indirect jobs all inside Toronto city limits! Hopefully by the time the next election rolls around - should Chow chose to challenge Ford the sympathy vote that she currently enjoy's will have completely diminished.

+1000
 
Sounds like fear-mongering to me. She'd likely do a lot of good things to improve residential development in this city including the inclusion of affordable housing in a city that most of us find increasingly unaffordable for just about anyone. Improving and altering our approach to development isn't the same thing as "snuffing out" development.

Not fear mongering. As the picture above proves Chow is firmly on the side of the NIMBY's (she is sitting in a private living room of one of them). If she were Mayor any meddling on her part to "improve" the development process would no doubt involve setting strict limits on heights of buildings so as to appease her NIMBY constituents. This will have the effect of snuffing out the current building boom. As for affordable housing I don't doubt that this is an issue close to her heart. The Layton's have long had an affinity for subsidized living accommodations, but the fact is without money from the Province there is little a Mayor of Toronto can do to build more affordable housing. Mandating that developers of ultra-luxurious waterfront condo's set aside a certain number of subsidized units (such as was required of Tridel for the 10 York development by that idiot Adam Vaughan) is the most wrong-headed approach to the shortage of affordable housing that I can think of.
 
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Not fear mongering. As the picture above proves Chow is firmly on the side of the NIMBY's (she is sitting in a private living room of one of them). If she were Mayor any meddling on her part to "improve" the development process would no doubt involve setting strict limits on heights of buildings so as to appease her NIMBY constituents. This will have the effect of snuffing out the current building boom. As for affordable housing I don't doubt that this is an issue close to her heart. The Layton's have long had an affinity for subsidized living accommodations, but the fact is without money from the Province there is little a Mayor of Toronto can do to build more affordable housing. Mandating that developers of ultra-luxurious waterfront condo's set aside a certain number of subsidized units (such as was required of Tridel for the 10 York development by that idiot Adam Vaughan) is the most wrong-headed approach to the shortage of affordable housing that I can think of.

Well maybe ship all these bleeding hearts to Cuba, where they can feel more at home
 
Fear mongering.

would no doubt involve setting strict limits on heights of buildings so as to appease her NIMBY constituents
Crap speculation.

This will have the effect of snuffing out the current building boom.
Really.

such as was required of Tridel for the 10 York development by that idiot Adam Vaughan
Setting the issue of bias against subsidies aside, this was cleared up that they are rentals, not subsidized housing.


I'm starting to think there is something to this Kouvalis-sock puppet idea. Suddenly, out of nowhere, (with the possible exception of the bygone AreBe) there's a set of crude, rude newbies dumping the same repetitious crap all over the place. The notion that anyone could have an eye for architecture and urbanism and also support the grossly infantile likes of Ford seems unlikely.
 
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Crap speculation.

It's hardly "crap speculation" as it is based on fact. There's a picture of her sitting with a bunch of NIMBYs at a private party celebrating their "victory" of shaving a few meters off Ten York. Yeah, definitely speculation.

Setting height-limits sure put a stop to the Vancouver building boom.

Most of us don't want to see Toronto turn into Vancouver. How Vancouver's citizens allow their councillors to bully them around by enforcing their ideas of what is aesthetically pleasing is beyond me (then again, we'd powerless to stop our councillors too were it not for the OMB - something I'm afraid the new premier might scrap). FYI, Seattle's skyline looks a hell of a lot better than Vancouver's. That just goes to show how ignorant, and narrow minded these councillors are.

People such as Wong-Tam opposing large development due to "shadowing" and obstruction of "view vistas" need to move to Vaughn. Last time I checked, cities with large skyscrapers actually had a tourism sector entirely based on their tall buildings.
 
It is indeed crap of a very low odure, because the post was about setting 'strict building heights' that would 'end the current building boom'. Apocalyptic wording for taking a few floors off a building - something done all over the city. There are no plans to rework the entire city's planning to satisfy someone's fears of a leftist bogeyman.

As for the second part - yes, you avoided the quote, and are arguing for your own vision of fatuous aesthetics. Vancouver is growing rapidly, and so is Toronto. Vancouver's planning has led to it's being one of the world's most livable cities. The building booms have not stopped in either city, nor are they about to, unless there is a shift in the larger economic climate, or a further decline in our livability index partly due to the international embarassment that is our current mayor. Your seemingly mandatory name-insertion of Wong-Tam is unwarranted. Do you have any idea how modern city planning works here, or its history?
 
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I wasn't suggesting that NIMBYs would end the building boom at all. Please reread what I wrote, and what I quoted. Where did I say that NIMBYs will end the building boom? Your denial that Chow would fight taller projects is absurd. Especially considering her picture at a private party in celebration of knocking a few meters off Ten York. If that alone doesn't tell you that she empathizes with NIMBYs, then I don't know what will.

Wong-Tam wasn't a random name insertion. Her ideals are very similar to Chow's, and she has more than once appeased NIMBYs by demanding decreased building heights where such action isn't necessary. The most recent example is her opposition of 50 Bloor's height due to "shadowing concerns" over Jesse Ketchum PS. There are public schools in big cities that are incorporated into buildings. They have no yard at all. Expecting every school downtown to have a giant field full of trees and sun is ridiculous, especially when that is basically the only school with such an issue. If the parents/kids aren't happy with it, there are hundreds of other schools in Toronto that are nowhere near any highrises.
 
Or you could move to Puerto Rico instead?

Setting height-limits sure put a stop to the Vancouver building boom.

Believe me, if I could speak Spanish better, I would ask for a transfer. Wait... was this comment intended for me? :p
 
OK, so you are not defending Peeper's linked argument, and you did not agree with this quote:
If Chow becomes Mayor you can expect to see a lot of developments like this snuffed out.
"+1000". Though you're right, you didn't say that height limits will kill the current building boom, you just don't want Toronto to be planned in a way you don't like. I'll just go with your last post.

So, basically you just want to complain because a councillor is doing their job for the people - the people - in their ward, and throw a lot of shade about the lefties by implication. Alright. As for the second part of your post about Wong-Tam, your opinion of her actions is completely subjective, and the latter part is ill-argued. If that school, as you say, is the only one with such an issue, than Wong Tam was right to work to resolve it in alignment with commendable planning policies.
 
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I'm starting to think there is something to this Kouvalis-sock puppet idea. Suddenly, out of nowhere, (with the possible exception of the bygone AreBe) there's a set of crude, rude newbies dumping the same repetitious crap all over the place. The notion that anyone could have an eye for architecture and urbanism and also support the grossly infantile likes of Ford seems unlikely.

I dunno, some of them (like AG) have been around for a while longer; though maybe just salivating for a crew of "fellow travellers".

I'd say it's just the nature of the Interweb beast, as a nice place for "angry white male" types (even if they're neither white nor male) to vent their spleen and feel like they're on top of the world...
 
DtTO:

Since you are at Cityplace, I am genuinely curious about your take on the original proposal at Block 31 and the local councillor's involvement in said project, and whether that outcome was "just".

As to Ten York - the iterative planning process arguably produced a superior end product - and if lopping a few floors off didn't reduce density (and that density is desirable), on what grounds is one to say that this is a poorer outcome? One's taste for height? Sorry, since when is striving for height alone goal for planning? Or if I flip the idea around - one produces a taller tower with less density - how is that a superior end result on the merit of height?

AoD
 
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While there are many legitimate issues with the quality of buildings going up in the city, truncated buildings does not equal better development. There is nothing wrong with height or density at this location.

Wasn't really speaking of this development specifically. I was speaking in general as to the unsustainable pace of development ( in the city).
 

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