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

I think the MZO densities are fairly reasonable (though, I've been sharply critical of the undemocratic approach of using an MZO in the first place.) There is a housing crisis and you can't build on 75% of the land in the city. Until they change zoning city wide, density is going to be a priority. Also, this neighbourhood, when complete, is probably a little shy of the critical mass necessary to animate the width of the streets and the amount of public amenity.

I'm personally a fan of the concept with the tall central tower from a massing/urbanism perspective. That being said, all of these concepts are monumentally better than what was attempted by the provincial government. It helps having these ideas out there to set public expectations. It makes it that much harder to bull through corrupt nonsense.
 
Ward8 said:
I think the MZO densities are fairly reasonable (though, I've been sharply critical of the undemocratic approach of using an MZO in the first place.) There is a housing crisis and you can't build on 75% of the land in the city. Until they change zoning city wide, density is going to be a priority. Also, this neighbourhood, when complete, is probably a little shy of the critical mass necessary to animate the width of the streets and the amount of public amenity.

I'm personally a fan of the concept with the tall central tower from a massing/urbanism perspective. That being said, all of these concepts are monumentally better than what was attempted by the provincial government. It helps having these ideas out there to set public expectations. It makes it that much harder to bull through corrupt nonsense.
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100%. It's a ghost town.
 
ProjectEnd said:
100%. It's a ghost town.
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I can't say I agree with that characterization. The area is maybe 30 percent complete. I do think that they've built the public infrastructure suited to a dense neighbourhood with only moderately dense buildings. Even if this block is developed to the least dense proposal the community wont end up as a ghost town. It also wouldn't live up to it's potential.
 
I'd generally agree. The roads are *way* too wide and, while a nice amenity, the linear park only serves to push things further apart. At the end of the day, it's a neighbourhood designed entirely by 'Urban Design Guidelines', and is the kind of thing in which we see should the inherent mistakes and avoid in the future.
 
I think it's very premature to say the community is a ghost town. The vast majority of retail along front street isn't even open yet. And there are so many more buildings on the way to be completed over the next 5 years. It's also hard to judge "ghost town" during covid because people have less places to go. During last summer, this area did not feel like a ghost town especially on weekends.
 
ProjectEnd said:
100%. It's a ghost town.
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This is an absurd assertion.

A) Two buildings just completed and are still being in the process of being occupied. Many retail outlets are not occupied, including the anchor tenant grocery store.

B) Three tall towers are under construction south of Mill Street and another is just topping out along Front (not yet occupied), Blocks 3, 4, and 7 have been approved.

C) Several major lots are still vacant and will include significant housing, including the largest lot yet along Corktown Common.

There can be more density, yes, but saying the area is a ghost town... like are we purposefully ignoring the plan and what is being built? It’s more dense than many neighbourhoods.
 
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Yeah, we spent quite a bit of time there this summer, and although there was obviously a damper on everything due to Covid, it's not a ghost town. There are always kids out playing in the splash pad, the patios at the Aviary, Sukho Thai and Tabouleh always had people on them, lots of people coming and going at Dark Horse. It's obviously not as busy as it's going to be when everything is finished (and having the grocery store there will help a lot) but it's lively enough while being comfortable for all the families with kids that are starting to move in.
 
DSC said:
We know you tend to hyperbole, but, even coming from you, this is an amazingly wrong statement. It is certainly not Bloor and Yonge or Dundas Square but it's a busy and getting busier residential area
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The west Don lands themselves are not exactly bustling. I don’t think Ghost Town is too far off as of today.

it’ll be busier upon build out but not crazily so, at least at the densities planned prior to the MZOs. The MZO introduces probably 1,000 additional units above the initial plan which will go a long way to animating the area. Especially since a subway line is coming.

ultimately the are has arguably the best public realm of any neighborhood in the city. It’s a shame to waste that on relatively few people.
 
innsertnamehere said:
it’ll be busier upon build out but not crazily so
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It will, at minimum, triple in population, likely much more. That doesn't include any development slated to happen south of the railroad tracks. I agree with some of the issues regarding how this area was developed, but I also think that "ghost town" is hyperbole. I think there are valuable lessons that should be applied to other masterplanned communities, both good and bad.
 
mcornett said:
This is an absurd assertion.

A) Two buildings just completed and are still being in the process of being occupied. Many retail outlets are not occupied, including the anchor tenant grocery store.

B) Three tall towers are under construction south of Mill Street and another is just topping out along Front (not yet occupied), Blocks 3, 4, and 7 have been approved.

C) Several major lots are still vacant and will include significant housing, including the largest lot yet along Corktown Common.

There can be more density, yes, but saying the area is a ghost town... like are we purposefully ignoring the plan and what is being built? It’s more dense than many neighbourhoods.
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DSC said:
We know you tend to hyperbole, but, even coming from you, this is an amazingly wrong statement. It is certainly not Bloor and Yonge or Dundas Square but it's a busy and getting busier residential area
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I'm definitely not down there every day, but I was there between 5 and 10 times in the past year and I never got the sense that anything was happening. Perhaps 'ghost town' is too harsh, but it's certainly somewhat lifeless. There's not enough of a sense of enclosure to feel like anything is happening. If the streets were tightened up and the buildings felt like they were forming space, rather than just existing within it, it would have been fine at the current heights. Now it all just feels like glorified pad retail in an open mall parking lot.
 
ProjectEnd said:
I'm definitely not down there every day, but I was there between 5 and 10 times in the past year and I never got the sense that anything was happening. Perhaps 'ghost town' is too harsh, but it's certainly somewhat lifeless. There's not enough of a sense of enclosure to feel like anything is happening. If the streets were tightened up and the buildings felt like they were forming space, rather than just existing within it, it would have been fine at the current heights. Now it all just feels like glorified pad retail in an open mall parking lot.
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I dunno...in the anecdotal, I like that quietness of the place whenever I've been down there. Which gives me incentive to hang there more...especially in that park on the mound. <3
 
On density.. Toronto packs all its growth into a few places. We know this. So let’s compare two new neighbourhoods.

The West Don Lands plan is for 6000 units on 80
acres. In South Etobicoke, 2150 Lake Shore plan is for 7446 units on 27.6 acres.

WDL will have one quarter the density. And vastly better transit, vastly better amenities, all walkable to King and Bay.

How does this make sense?
 
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I enjoy the generous public space along the streets. It feels like an area planned for a big metropolitan city as opposed to a metropolitan built form awkwardly and uncomfortably crammed into a small town street grid. There's plenty of room for wide sidewalks, trees and landscaping, patios, and bike lanes. All the while, they generally kept the roadways narrow. The buildings could be replaced organically with higher-density construction over time.

If you don't leave enough room for public life at the outset of planning an urban neighbourhood, a city may have to go hundreds of years before it can secure the land from private landowners. The cost also becomes tremendous. Witness the lack of streets in downtown Toronto that have wide sidewalks, bike lanes, and healthy street trees in one space. Downtown Toronto generally wasn't laid out with enough room for the public realm of a metropolitan city.

With that said, some of the side streets in this new neighbourhood seem unnecessarily wide and without a sense of intimacy. Sometimes, the public realm seems poorly framed by the buildings. Most importantly, there isn't much commercial space and not much commercial vitality. It's far from perfect. However, before the pandemic, pedestrian traffic was decent and increasing.
 
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AlexBozikovic said:
On density.. Toronto packs all its growth into a few places. We know this. So let’s compare two new neighbourhoods.

The West Don Lands plan is for 6000 units on 80
acres. In Sothe 2150 Lake Shore plan is for 7446 units on 27.6 acres.

WDL will have one quarter the density. And vastly better transit, vastly better amenities, all walkable to King and Bay.

How does this make sense?
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It's the Toronto way of "planning". We jam density in places where infrastructure cant accommodate all the density (ie: Liberty Village, Humber Bay, Mimico), and under develop in areas that can accommodate greater intensification (ie: Warden/St.Clair, Kennedy/Eglinton, Eglinton/Allen). Then we wonder why we have the problems that we have, and continue to neglect the areas that are jammed with density.

As for this area, it could certainly warrant more density, but I dont think mass amounts of density on the Foundry site would be appropriate as it would just be overbearing on the historical context of the site.
 
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