Re. RHC. My concern is that it appears that the development plan was created as the raisan d'etre for the subway plan. As much as both plans sort of developed at the same time and or parallel to each other it is difficult to shake the perception that the RHC plan was created just so that the subway could be justified. In all honesty is there any document (Places to grow act, etc, etc) that specifies that RHC/Markam MUST build 30, 40, 50 story towers in order to meet mandated density targets? Could this density be spread out more evenly, as with the avenues plan which shows (for example) eglinton ave could be intensified with 5 - 10 story developments along it's entire length vs pockets of 30-40 story surrounded by single family homes.
This is both a chicken/egg question and a self-answered question.
There IS a larger corridor/nodes policy in effect...
http://candc.york.ca/
Yonge Street is a corridor, this is a node. (Highway 7 and Bathurst Street are among the other designated corridors in the area.) The development along both is not mutually exclusive, quite the contrary really. BUT they are trying to concentrate density at the transit. If you want to intensify and not just add a ton of people in cars, you need to have transit as the raison d'etre or you're solving one problem and creating another.
The plan isn't a raison d'etre for the subway and, really, the idea of building TOD in this area goes back something like 20 years. Don't forget there is already GO right here and YRT and the new Viva BRT and the planned Transitway. That's all there even without the subway. The fact that it's on Yonge Street, just a few miles north of the current terminus makes it seem a rather obvious extension to me; it's the final piece of the puzzle and when you look at a map, with all those lines converging, the subway stopping just short really does seem like a missing link.
They don't
have to concentrate so much development in these areas because of the subway but, really, how can we not want them to? Vaughan (IMHO) barely met the density targets for VMC and that's why they're opening more sprawling development. Going above the targets - saying, "Give me a subway and I'll give you a kind of suburban development you haven't seen!" - is what we want. I can't say "they can do this," but I can definitely say I think it's a good thing to try.
I was being specific to jobs. Many, many, many on this board said lack of jobs in those centers regardless of density is a good reason why subways would not have been built in NYCC and shouldn't go to STC. Althought I'm not disputing the future density of RHC, what are the job projection for that centre?
Job projections are 15K for RHC (so 1:1 ratio) and another 15K for Langstaff (so a 1:2 ratio).
One other thing I'd add is that there is a complex phasing regime for Langstaff. If they aren't hitting targets (in terms of density and jobs, and modal share), the next phase doesn't go forward. Maybe a developer can get around that down the road, but that's what's on paper.
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