cd concept
Senior Member
You've done it all in photos Koops! Now we need a flyby around downtown . Showing the new look and hieght of this building and YSL Tower when possible. This is exiting thanks again for your work.
Toronto Union Centre | 298m | 54s | Westbank | Bjarke Ingels Group
Fritter
Active Member
Is this an interdimensional portal to the great beyond? 
HousingNowTO
Senior Member
Back at Council next week with (only) One-Million in Section-37 for "Off-Site Affordable-Housing"... interesting to see how they split the Five-Million in Section-37 funds --- and how the allocations reflect the City's Priorities.
ITEM - http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2021.CC36.5
ITEM - http://app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgendaItemHistory.do?item=2021.CC36.5
TossYourJacket
Senior Member
City Council: "Public Art will solve the housing crisis!"
I mean, I'm always glad to see investment in public art, but when we're putting more money into that than affordable housing, it makes the city seem really out of touch.
The Preservationist
Active Member
Man, if I remember correctly the Scotia Bank Tower development had to contribute about 6 million in 1980s dollars to affordable housing... Please feel free to correct me if my memory does not serve me well..
Northern Light
Superstar
The public art policy is linked below:
https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/9090-aoda-public-art-guidelines.pdf
It aims at 1% of estimated building value.
I think it's fair to ask whether that's the right formula; though, in fairness, the City has multiple, overlapping priorities all of which need funding.
While housing needs more money, I'm not really keen on tying that to developments in terms of cash-funding, as it's somewhat unpredictable/volatile and that makes planning/construction challenging.
Even within the context of funding art though (or parks, or housing) too much seems ad hoc. Such that when money does arrive, it's simply shifted off to a bank account to await being used to defray costs
on a project the City will otherwise undertake at some undetermined point in the future.
I think that's rather ass-backwards.
First you should decide what you need; then you should finance it and build it.
How do we know how much money to raise when we don't have a prescribed list of projects with a budget?
This is what leads to:
Under-sized parks that aren't very functional
Public Art that isn't particularly interesting or grand and has no maintenance fund
Housing money that may well be used to renovate existing TCHC stock that would have been renovated anyway, and these dollars simply reduce the City's debt or allow tax revenue to be spent elsewhere.
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HousingNowTO
Senior Member
Gaaaah, the City of Toronto archives are CLOSED during Covid, so there's no way to pull that 1980's paperwork (and check the details) before the next Council meeting.... :-(
concrete_and_light
Active Member
How are we only getting $6 million for affordable housing out of projects this significant? Will hardly do anything relative to the scale of the crisis we're facing as a city and seems like it would be a rounding error of a tiny amount in the budget of a project as big and expensive as this surely will be.
HousingNowTO
Senior Member
We're not getting $6-MILLION... The City is only getting $5-MILLION (Total) in Section-37 funds on this project... and the City are choosing to spend $4-MILLION of that on other things... so, only $1-MILLION is left for "Off-Site Affordable-Housing"...
yin_yang
Active Member
Sorry, what affordable housing crisis? I have amazing housing and I make minimum wage. My housing costs $850 a month and is market rate, pretty affordable if you ask me.
concrete_and_light
Active Member
Oops my misreading — and that's so much worse! I had a bit of a BlogTO moment there saying Toronto was "getting" something that it wasn't.
Northern Light
Superstar
I don't have a cash value for the housing...........but here's the Scotia Plaza benefit:
Northern Light
Superstar
This link (from whence I acquired the above info)..........gives you a nice look at S.37/S.45 precedents over a 30-year window from 1988-2018. *** ( actually before that based on the data in the document)
Highest Housing Benefits, raw numbers:
2M (indexed), by-law 42-1987
2.8M, by-law 44-1988 (Brookfield Place)
3.075M, by-law 173-1988, 100 Yonge (This is Scotia Plaza)
5M, By-laws 1280-2018, 1281-2018 (East Harbour)
* note, that the end of the by-law is the 4-digit year in which it was passed.
* I omitted the by-laws related to TCHC redevelopments as they would not carry similar precedent value.
*3.075M in 1988 constant dollars would be 6.115M in 2021. (used Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/)
Highest Housing Benefits, raw numbers:
2M (indexed), by-law 42-1987
2.8M, by-law 44-1988 (Brookfield Place)
3.075M, by-law 173-1988, 100 Yonge (This is Scotia Plaza)
5M, By-laws 1280-2018, 1281-2018 (East Harbour)
* note, that the end of the by-law is the 4-digit year in which it was passed.
* I omitted the by-laws related to TCHC redevelopments as they would not carry similar precedent value.
*3.075M in 1988 constant dollars would be 6.115M in 2021. (used Bank of Canada Inflation Calculator: https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/inflation-calculator/)
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Northern Light
Superstar
Conditionally approved by the OLT, in a decision issued January 11th, 2022.
Height 54s/300M
Per:
Full decision conditions:
Height 54s/300M
Per:
Full decision conditions:
travis3000
Active Member
Nice little update on this one. So we have an approval, now we just need a tenant!