Will Richmond Hill Centre ever actually look like that? This looks like another pie in the sky redevelopment proposal like Vaughan Centre which will fail.
Saying that Vaughan Centre will fail is rather premature. Extensive planning work has been done, and transit is being built today (subway + Viva BRT). There are several condo towers under construction, some of which will be finished when the subway goes into service. KPMG is also building their new headquarters there too. Time will tell whether it will succeed, but lets not forget that North York centre also started from nothing.
Compare this to Yonge & Sheppard or Yonge & Bloor which are actually desirable areas and could easily see lots of residential and commercial growth in the future. I know Yonge & Sheppard only has 1 office building under construction right now but it could easily become much larger in the future with lowered commercial taxes and the Sheppard subway extension.
Toronto has struggled for a long time to attract commercial growth, especially in the suburbs. It's not as simple as lowering commercial taxes. If you read this interesting
report you will be a lot more informed about the challenges we face.
As for the Sheppard subway, I'm getting tired of debating this. The subway was justified based on unrealistic growth projections in North York and Scarborough Centre, which never materialized. Here are the
hard numbers.
Employment in 1986:
- NY:
29,400
- SC:
14,400
Back then planners predicted that by 2011:
- NY:
93,400
- SC:
65,000
^^This was used to justify the sheppard subway
And this is what actually happened:
- NY:
30,200 (very little growth, mostly residential)
- SC:
13,700 (jobs were actually lost)
This is why sheppard is considered a failure, not because the subway is unfinished. We built it and they did not come, therefore the ridership is not there.
Until these sky high employment numbers are reached, people need to stop talking about the Sheppard subway. North York having 2 subway lines + highway access did very little to increase jobs, so there's no reason to expect anything to be different by completing this subway today.
It doesn't seem like that development would ever be successful. The development is cut in two by the 407 so there are a lack of pedestrian connections, and the 407 and freight trains on the Richmond Hill line are noisy. There also seems to be a lack of planned schools, shops (other than the big box stores this development is supposed to replace) or other amenities. Somehow I think you would have to cover part of the 407 (insanely expensive and not part of the plan) to make this area at all desirable.
There are actually two separate developments. The red area is
Richmond Hill Centre, and the blue area is
Langstaff Gateway which is actually in
Markham (not
RH).
- Each development will be carried out independently by each municipality
- Both will have their own separate subway station
- Both will be self sustaining communities, independent from each other
- The two developments will be linked to each other by new roads over/under the 407, so there's no need to cover part of the 407. It's lot like the financial district and south core, which are both separated by the rail corridor but are connected by streets under the rail corridor.
- You say that office developers want to be near the highway, and then you also say this development will fail because of the highway? The 407 and trains are noisy, but that hasn't stopped people from living next to those things in NY, SC, downtown, and many other areas. Big deal
- Why do you say there's a lack of planned schools, shops, other amenities? It's all in the master plan.
)The intensification is totally there and there's actually some decent street life along Yonge; they just didn't get the jobs. That's a big catch, I grant you, but the wall of condos going up along Yonge is a big part of what they wanted to achieve. Getting the jobs will be the big challenge for RHC and Langstaff. The residential is much less of a concern if the transit is there.
