Toronto West Don Lands: Blocks 17 & 26 | 141m | 43s | Aspen Ridge | Core Architects

I would miss these structures. It would be a missed opportunity. It would be missed as an art centre, a food market, a community centre, an entertainment venue plus a destination for others. I agree these aren’t the Pyramids but they should be put to good use. This has nothing to do with the lack of affordable housing. Period.
 
kweku said:
I have been following news and all the fights about this developments and it's about time to provide my few cents here.
I am on board with maintaining heritage structures around the world for future generations to learn about the history of humanity.

But these foundry structures are NOTHING that would be missed if they are demolished to make way for affordable housing.
Remember, HUMANY itself is at risk if we cannot provide affordable housing for the unfortunate in society.
We could lose the opportunity to educate some children who could otherwise have places to stay, study, and possibly become future architects

I personally don't believe that majority of people opposing tearing down the structures have any interests in maintaining architectures
They are in REALITY people who are afraid to see poor people move to their neighborhoods due to affordable housing.

Lets STOP the HATE, Let's STOP the entitlements and the nonsense in the name of preserving heritages.
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Others have already addressed why you’re so generally wrong, but to add another point, the West Don Lands and Corktown already incorporate a lot of affordable housing — they were built to do so after the Pan Am Games, unlike many other communities in this City. There are several TCHC buildings to the immediate north and thriving lower income and disability communities.

None of this is to say there’s too much affordable housing nearby, simply that the neighbourhood is no stranger to the concept and wholly embraces it. We all want more, done on a reasonable scale, with some heritage preservation in an area that is otherwise full of new condos, all without the lies and lack of transparency from the government. If you knew anything, you’d know that the province just wanted to clear the site without any thought to preservation so it could wedge in massive towers of 18, 36, and 43 stories with 90% to be sold at market rates, all to benefit a developer. That’s what the community is fighting against.
 
It also seems to me if you allow this government to tear down a heritage structure with the vague promise of "affordable" housing, we'll end up likely with neither a heritage structure nor actual affordable housing.

And at the risk of stating a more partisan view: Never trust a Conservative government that seems to grow a social conscious over something magically overnight, because it likely has nothing to do with having a social conscious. Rather using it as a convenience to push forward a more unsavoury agenda. Also see: Wedge issue.
 
DSC said:
The City has now posted a Report on this that will go to Council tomorrow. It makes interesting reading, especially page 8 which lists what the Province FAILED to do. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2021/cc/bgrd/backgroundfile-163205.pdf
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In other words, the province under Doug Ford gets an...

giphy.gif

From link.
 
concrete_and_light said:
Absolutely delicious on page 8 of the above document to see the province's negligence to follow the requirements of the law itemized like a failing report card.
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But according to kweku's logic, failing report cards are the work of biased elites with no regard for the unfortunate in society.
 
kweku said:
I have been following news and all the fights about this developments and it's about time to provide my few cents here.
I am on board with maintaining heritage structures around the world for future generations to learn about the history of humanity.

But these foundry structures are NOTHING that would be missed if they are demolished to make way for affordable housing.
Remember, HUMANY itself is at risk if we cannot provide affordable housing for the unfortunate in society.
We could lose the opportunity to educate some children who could otherwise have places to stay, study, and possibly become future architects

I personally don't believe that majority of people opposing tearing down the structures have any interests in maintaining architectures
They are in REALITY people who are afraid to see poor people move to their neighborhoods due to affordable housing.

Lets STOP the HATE, Let's STOP the entitlements and the nonsense in the name of preserving heritages.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you meant well in your post, but it makes some pretty large assumptions that I don't think most people would agree with. Speaking for myself, I am not in the real estate business. I just don't want to see some great buildings torn down for no reason, when they could be integrated into whatever is built on the site - affordable, mixed, or otherwise.
 
Lyphe said:
I'm sure you meant well in your post, but it makes some pretty large assumptions that I don't think most people would agree with. Speaking for myself, I am not in the real estate business. I just don't want to see some great buildings torn down for no reason, when they could be integrated into whatever is built on the site - affordable, mixed, or otherwise.
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Does anyone know what the affordable housing percentage is slated to be for this area ? Do developers make as much profit with the strong affordable housing component ? Is it seen as a restriction for them ? I suppose a clean site would seem to be attractive to potential builders.
 
Council just passed the Wong-Tam motion about this (from Planning & Growth Committee). All in favour except Young Mr Ford (and Paula Fletcher who seemed to be doing something else and did not respond to calls from staff to vote.). The City will be in court on next hearing. Not clear (to me) if the City will repay the St Lawrence Neighbourhood Assn who put up the cash to go to court last week because the City could not move fast enough. (Yes, that's obviously a problem that needs to be addressed!)
 
old boy said:
Does anyone know what the affordable housing percentage is slated to be for this area ? Do developers make as much profit with the strong affordable housing component ? Is it seen as a restriction for them ? I suppose a clean site would seem to be attractive to potential builders.
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I'm having a hard time finding much.

Kristyn Wong-Tam tweeted about the foundry lot being 264 units but I can't find how many total, just that there's also a 34 and a 40-43 storey tower going up with no affordable units in them.

Adam Wilson tweeted that the "almost 1,000 units" of affordable housing figure is spread over the three MZOs.

It's feeling like the low teens and not the 20% that I thought waterfront Toronto was working towards.
 
DSC said:
Council just passed the Wong-Tam motion about this (from Planning & Growth Committee). All in favour except Young Mr Ford (and Paula Fletcher who seemed to be doing something else and did not respond to calls from staff to vote.). The City will be in court on next hearing. Not clear (to me) if the City will repay the St Lawrence Neighbourhood Assn who put up the cash to go to court last week because the City could not move fast enough. (Yes, that's obviously a problem that needs to be addressed!)
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*Only* Ford? Not even joined by Holyday or any of the other usual suspects? And *Mikey*, who was supposedly more next-generation moderate than his uncles? Wow, that's telling...
 
Between the reasons of Justice Corbett and the information in the Report that was adopted by Council, it seems clear now that the Province was acting illegally.

What makes this odd is that they could have prepared the requisite heritage assessments and provided them to the City and then gone ahead with demolition. They either were incompetent in failing to take these steps, or intentionally circumvented the law to avoid the scrutiny they expected from preparing and providing the requisite assessments. Either way, this is a very bad look on the Province.

This also makes it clear how critical the quick legal action taken by the Friends of the Foundry via the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association was in saving these buildings. Without the timely legal action, the demolition would be much further along now, and the illegality of the Province may not have come to light until it was too late.

Bravo and thank you St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association. You have done the city a real service.
 
Ottawan said:
Bravo and thank you St. Lawrence Neighbourhood Association. You have done the city a real service.
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Yes, it was extremely fortunate that the SLNA is a properly registered not-for-profit, that they have some funds and that they had the will to act and did so so quickly. (Former SLNA President Suzanne Kavanagh leading the charge.) Though their area does NOT include the Foundry, Judge Corbett agreed that because they are very close (their area ends at Parliament Street) they DID have an interest. If this site had been in MANY other areas of the City I doubt any local group could have been found to bring the injunction.

This raises two serious questions:

1. Why is the City apparently incapable of moving fast enough to authorise staff to request interim injunctions? (It seems to require a Special Meeting of Council.) and

2. Will the City be able to reimburse SLNA for their expenses? It seems very unfair that a small neighbourhood association needs to draw on their VERY small reserves to do this work. The Go-Fund-Me $$ will help but ....
 
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