Toronto Rail Deck District | 227.23m | 70s | Craft Dev Corp | Sweeny &Co

Gino29 said:
what green space is being delivered by the developers here?
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You see it below in this image. All the exposed parts of the rail corridors are the areas that the developer is proposing the city fund the deck and the park.

Honestly, this seems like a very paltry park space dedication for such a massive development. They should atleast cover the area up until Spadina Ave for the density they are proposing.
1652818217674.png
 
fanoftoronto said:
You see it below in this image. All the exposed parts of the rail corridors are the areas that the developer is proposing the city fund the deck and the park.

Honestly, this seems like a very paltry park space dedication for such a massive development. They should atleast cover the area up until Spadina Ave for the density they are proposing.
View attachment 400977
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oh i know....i was being facetious. The developer isn't doing anything (or barely anything) to contribute to green space. I don't have an issue with development in this space, per se, but let's not pretend this isn't anything but a money grab by the developers who have never had any intention of any kind of "rail deck park" There is no "happy medium" of housing and green space here as the original commentator indicated that I had quoted...

From the raildeckreset.com website

"Now more than ever, we understand a vision for downtown Toronto should prioritize open public spaces, affordable housing, and improved transit connectivity"​


This plan does not prioritize public spaces or affordable housing.
 
ya the developer should build the decking, if they dont want to build the park then they should do the bare minimum
also not sure if it's standard or not but 25% bachelor studios seem a bit high or no?
also that building closest to the rogers center should defenitely be 30 stories or higher
 
Out of curiosity what is the likelihood the revised plan goes ahead? or is this close to the final plan that is going to be built?

Also can someone link where they are getting these new images and plans from? I can't find it on their site...
 
toronto647 said:
Out of curiosity what is the likelihood the revised plan goes ahead? or is this close to the final plan that is going to be built?

Also can someone link where they are getting these new images and plans from? I can't find it on their site...
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The images are associated with the Application to the City of Toronto, found in the AIC.

Consult the Planning Rationale Document for anything in my post, you can also look at the Architecture file.

The link is here: http://app.toronto.ca/AIC/index.do?folderRsn=DrdfJIhXMtB/0yd9Gl8FYA==
 
Gino29 said:
oh i know....i was being facetious. The developer isn't doing anything (or barely anything) to contribute to green space. I don't have an issue with development in this space, per se, but let's not pretend this isn't anything but a money grab by the developers who have never had any intention of any kind of "rail deck park" There is no "happy medium" of housing and green space here as the original commentator indicated that I had quoted...

From the raildeckreset.com website

"Now more than ever, we understand a vision for downtown Toronto should prioritize open public spaces, affordable housing, and improved transit connectivity"​


This plan does not prioritize public spaces or affordable housing.
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my comment was more so about the master plan itself, which does indeed still dedicated a large amount of space for the park and it results in a fairly high quality park. How it's financed (city vs. developer paying) is not really a part of its overall design.

The developer won't feasibly be able to finance the entire park, and is only legally bound to so much anyway under parkland dedication requirements. Same with affordable housing - this is a private developer, they can't build a 100% (or even 30%) affordable housing development with a multiple-hectare park and turn a profit. How much they can deliver is up for debate, but it's probably not too much more than this.

We can debate how much the developer should be providing as a part of the project, but the whole thing isn't on the table. Even the part they are providing is going to be very expensive, and is actually a fairly decent size park on its own.

This version is a bit of a medium between the city vision of a fully self-financed rail deck park, and the Developer's initial vision of a mega-development with a token rooftop greenspace. That's what I meant.

Ideally I would still prefer the City's initial vision I think, but it doesn't seem to be moving that way. This is a good compromise.
 
innsertnamehere said:
my comment was more so about the master plan itself, which does indeed still dedicated a large amount of space for the park and it results in a fairly high quality park. How it's financed (city vs. developer paying) is not really a part of its overall design.

The developer won't feasibly be able to finance the entire park, and is only legally bound to so much anyway under parkland dedication requirements. Same with affordable housing - this is a private developer, they can't build a 100% (or even 30%) affordable housing development with a multiple-hectare park and turn a profit. How much they can deliver is up for debate, but it's probably not too much more than this.

We can debate how much the developer should be providing as a part of the project, but the whole thing isn't on the table. Even the part they are providing is going to be very expensive, and is actually a fairly decent size park on its own.

This version is a bit of a medium between the city vision of a fully self-financed rail deck park, and the Developer's initial vision of a mega-development with a token rooftop greenspace. That's what I meant.

Ideally I would still prefer the City's initial vision I think, but it doesn't seem to be moving that way. This is a good compromise.
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This is what I found for parkland dedication for new residential developments:
1652888359512.png


0.4 hectares per 300 units with a cap of 10-20% of the site area depending on the size.

In this case, we have 5,754 total units within the development with 377 affordable rental units. Even if we remove the affordable units, we come up with 5,377 total units meaning a parkland dedication requirement of 7.17 hectares of parks.

The proposal currently has parkland of a paltry 1.03 hectares with an extended agreement with the city to increase this to 4.34 hectares. The 1.03 hectares is peanuts compared to the total required parkland dedication. The developer is getting 5,377 market value residential units, which I don't think we properly appreciate. Compared this development to the tallest residential proposal in the city, The One, only has 505 units. This proposal is literally 10 times as massive as The One condos.

Even the extended proposal of 4.34 hectares is only 60% of the required dedication with a 75% of that which is supposed to be funded by the city? The developers are trying to pull a fast one over the city.

I might be reading the city parkland requirements incorrectly, so please correct me where I'm wrong.
 
1/300 rate is almost always never used. You have to look at the % of site area. In this case, 15% of site area would be the applicable parkland dedication requirement for the site.

The net development land here proposed is 34,000sm, and the developer is proposing to construct a 10,000sm public park, or 22% of the total development area. They would additionally convey the remaining park area to the city, though it's not clear if they would convey it at market value or for free, and allow the city to finance the remainder of the park.

Of the total site, which is about 70,000sm, the developer would dedicate over half of it to parkland. They city would have to pay for decking for much of it though.

That is well above and beyond the developer's obligations.
 
Just wondering... what is the likelihood the revised plan goes ahead? or is this close to the final plan that is going to be built? or will there be a lot more changes?
 
toronto647 said:
Just wondering... what is the likelihood the revised plan goes ahead? or is this close to the final plan that is going to be built? or will there be a lot more changes?
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I think the reason no one answered your previous question about this is because it's really hard to estimate at this point. 52%? 38%? It's almost certain that the development will go through multiple additional rounds of iterations but if you're looking for some sort of concrete guess it's going to be tough.
 
Mo York said:
a bit random, but why don't they build on the other side of the rail deck closer to city place where there are already tall buildings in place.
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I believe the positions of vertical support structures were negotiated in 2000 when GO bought the railway corridor from TTR. So the answer is, that's where TTR still has land-rights at ground level.
 
I'd like to add that the development team is not even going to deck and create the central statutory park.
"STATUTORY PUBLIC PARK
Air rights contribution by the Development Team, deck and finishes by the City of Toronto"


1653063118141.png


Does this still fall under parkland contribution if they're only giving the air rights and not actually building the park? Doesn't the developer have the requirement to also build out the park and hand it over to the city?

Furthermore, for the expansions to the rail deck park, it's stated as a "potential contribution by the Development Team". What's stopping them from creating another development block on those areas after this one is completed? They'll be back in the 15% parkland dedication requirement making no major improvement to the currently proposed park.

I am liking this proposal less and less with all the concessions it is taking.
 
fanoftoronto said:
I'd like to add that the development team is not even going to deck and create the central statutory park.
"STATUTORY PUBLIC PARK
Air rights contribution by the Development Team, deck and finishes by the City of Toronto"


View attachment 401487

Does this still fall under parkland contribution if they're only giving the air rights and not actually building the park? Doesn't the developer have the requirement to also build out the park and hand it over to the city?

Furthermore, for the expansions to the rail deck park, it's stated as a "potential contribution by the Development Team". What's stopping them from creating another development block on those areas after this one is completed? They'll be back in the 15% parkland dedication requirement making no major improvement to the currently proposed park.

I am liking this proposal less and less with all the concessions it is taking.
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okay i was only okay with them building it if they built the park but jeezuz talk about being greedy
 
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