Toronto Ridiculous NIMBYism thread

[stanko]

Town of Oakville has spent $5.3 million on Glen Abbey fight so far
Cakers will defend this

 

[narduch]

Town of Oakville has spent $5.3 million on Glen Abbey fight so far
Cakers will defend this

Woodbridge residents are fighting a residential development at a golf course too.

My favorite part is that their slogan is Keep Vaughan Green. As if a golf course is good for the environment

 

[salsa]

Cabbagetown is back.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1068514956960772096

 

[christiesplits]

Toronto Star: Lot severance requests divide neighbours in Long Branch
Tess Kalinowski
Thu., May 2, 2019

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...equests-divide-neighbours-in-long-branch.html

He stands on one side of the lot-splitting issue that has divided the Long Branch community.

He is part of a loose-knit group of residents called Vibrant Long Branch. They argue that outdated zoning restrictions and neighbourhood opposition are subverting their property rights and thwarting intensification at a time when the city and province are trying to house more people in neighbourhoods served by higher order transit, such as the streetcars and GO trains that stop in Long Branch.

On the other side, backed by Councillor Mark Grimes, is the Long Branch Neighbourhood Association. It is fighting the redevelopment of residential lots saying it threatens their community’s character and trees.

Grimes (Ward 3, Etobicoke-Lakeshore) refused interview requests from the Star but in a statement cited “intense development pressure” in the community.

 

[jje1000]

America’s Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals.

The demise of a California housing measure shows how progressives abandon progressive values in their own backyards.

And there is no end in sight to such crushing success. At every level of government, our representatives, nearly all of them Democrats, prove inadequate and unresponsive to the challenges at hand. Witness last week’s embarrassment, when California lawmakers used a sketchy parliamentary maneuver to knife Senate Bill 50, an ambitious effort to undo restrictive local zoning rules and increase the supply of housing.

It was another chapter in a dismal saga of Nimbyist urban mismanagement that is crushing American cities. Not-in-my-backyardism is a bipartisan sentiment, but because the largest American cities are populated and run by Democrats — many in states under complete Democratic control — this sort of nakedly exclusionary urban restrictionism is a particular shame of the left.

Then there is the refusal on the part of wealthy progressives to live by the values they profess to support at the national level. Creating dense, economically and socially diverse urban environments ought to be a paramount goal of progressivism. Cities are the standard geographical unit of the global economy. Dense urban areas are quite literally the “real America” — the cities are where two-thirds of Americans live, and they account for almost all national economic output. Urban areas are the most environmentally friendly way we know of housing lots of people. We can’t solve the climate crisis without vastly improving public transportation and increasing urban density. More than that, metropolises are good for the psyche and the soul; density fosters tolerance, diversity, creativity and progress.

Yet where progressives argue for openness and inclusion as a cudgel against President Trump, they abandon it on Nob Hill and in Beverly Hills. This explains the opposition to SB 50, which aimed to address the housing shortage in a very straightforward way: by building more housing. The bill would have erased single-family zoning in populous areas near transit locations. Areas zoned for homes housing a handful of people could have been redeveloped to include duplexes and apartment buildings that housed hundreds.

Reading opposition to SB 50 and other efforts at increasing density, I’m struck by an unsettling thought: What Republicans want to do with I.C.E. and border walls, wealthy progressive Democrats are doing with zoning and Nimbyism. Preserving “local character,” maintaining “local control,” keeping housing scarce and inaccessible — the goals of both sides are really the same: to keep people out.

“We’re saying we welcome immigration, we welcome refugees, we welcome outsiders — but you’ve got to have a $2 million entrance fee to live here, otherwise you can use this part of a sidewalk for a tent,” said Brian Hanlon, president of the pro-density group California Yimby. “That to me is not being very welcoming. It’s not being very neighborly.”

Opinion | America’s Cities Are Unlivable. Blame Wealthy Liberals. (Published 2019)

The demise of a California housing measure shows how progressives abandon progressive values in their own backyards.

www.nytimes.com

If we can consider neighbourhoods to be ever-evolving organisms, this obsession with `neighbourhood character` (aka stasis) essentially strangles neighbourhoods and prevents their continued evolution. Subversive and unexpected elements like the Matador or Kensington Market would never be possible today, which is perhaps a reason why even New Urbanist neighbourhoods will never truly be as exciting or unique as neighbourhoods that have evolved incrementally- they often prevent their built form from evolving with the inhabitants themselves, in the name of the `perfect`.

From another thread:

Another interesting note:

Digging into the History of Housing Affordability: John van Nostrand

John van Nostrand, Founding Principal of SvN, was a presenter in our event this week, Innovations in Housing Affordability. A planner, architect and developer of many decades, he is highly aware of…

www.citybuildinginstitute.ca

 

[tiffer24]

A lot of hysteria over a building in Scarborough that will house 24 women...

Residents in southwest Scarborough say an Indigenous healing lodge planned for their neighbourhood is a bad fit for the area, and is being forced on their community without proper consultation.

"It's related to crime and I don't want the crime rate to go up in my community," Tak Wan, one of the residents who's opposing the project said Monday. "I don't feel it's safe for that kind of facility to be here."

Heather Candon said more condo construction recently has increased the number of cars in the area.

"I don't feel safe in the neighbourhood," she said. "We have serious traffic issues in this neighbourhood."

John Ciccone said he feels so strongly about the issue that he'll move out if the project is eventually cleared by the city.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toro...n-scarborough-neighbourhood-1.5171332?cmp=rss

 

[PinkLucy]

So wait, is it the traffic making it not safe or the healing lodge?

 

[DSC]

So wait, is it the traffic making it not safe or the healing lodge?

I think it is CHANGE (of any kind) that is the problem.

 

[salsa]

John Ciccone said he feels so strongly about the issue that he'll move out if the project is eventually cleared by the city.

Yes, please do. Just don't come to my hood, or else I may have to move out too.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

So wait, is it the traffic making it not safe or the healing lodge?

It’s never their own driving habits, of course.

AoD

 

[SunriseChampion]

"I don't feel safe in the neighbourhood," she said. "We have serious traffic issues in this neighbourhood."

This is just a delusional fabrication. I'm in the area all the time....I'm not sure what is meant by "serious traffic issues" unless it's meant to mean "not really much traffic at all".

Even my schizophrenic friend at the heights of his psychotic breaks couldn't conjure up imaginary traffic issues. Makes me sort of worry about Heather's mental health, tbh.

 

[bobbob911]

No kidding - I've never known traffic on Kingston to be busy east of Birchmount/Warden area.

Now that the size of this project and the fact that its not a correctional facility is becoming more well known, I'd expect opposition to die down significantly. You can well imagine the negative neighbourhood reaction to a new prison being added beside new housing and retail, but this ain't that.

 

[SunriseChampion]

Actually, some might argue that a prison would be better as the security is well enough as to keep the baddies inside at all times with very controlled ingress and egress.

 

[Fritter]

At a public meeting for a subdivision proposal in Port Perry that I attended, a NIMBY neighbour brought up the increased traffic in his argument in opposition. The town planner, in response, pulled the numbers from the traffic study that had been done as part of the development application. The study said there would be X number of new car trips. When the town planner did the math on the spot, it worked out to about 1 new car trip per hour. Oh the humanity of all this new traffic in my neighbourhood!

 

[W. K. Lis]

City of Toronto shuts down popular restaurant patio for having wooden fences.

See link.

For all of the weird, nonsensical reasons city officials have given Toronto business owners when rejecting their patio licenses, "wood" has got to be right up there among the worst.

The owners of TuckShop Kitchen, a homey convenience store and takeout joint known for its sandwiches and burgers, turned to their neighbours in the Junction Triangle on Tuesday with a plea for help.

"We would like to ask the residents who live near DuPont and Edwin Street crossroads to please keep an eye out for a poll that the licensing department will be snail mailing you," reads a message posted by co-owner Robb Eng to a private local Facebook group...

Maybe it were made of "straw" or "brick"?

(Note if searching for this thread, you have to look for "NIMBYism". Not "NIMBY", not "NIMBYISM". The searches are not that smart with Capital LETTers.)