Because the city will need to rezone these towers in the park so the owners can redevelop the areas around them. This is another way the owners will pay for the retrofit.
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Tower Renewal Program: apartment buildings to receive energy retrofit
- Thread starter deerparker
- Start date
Because the city will need to rezone these towers in the park so the owners can redevelop the areas around them. This is another way the owners will pay for the retrofit.
maestro
Senior Member
^no re-zoning is needed to retrofit the buildings
As to intensifying the parks, that's a whole other can of worms due to what lies beneath them parks. P.S. starts with "park" and ends with minimum requirements.
As to intensifying the parks, that's a whole other can of worms due to what lies beneath them parks. P.S. starts with "park" and ends with minimum requirements.
jks
Continuous Lurker
Mayor's Tower Renewal
One of Miller's better policies. It was announced in late August 2008, but unfortunately, there seems to be no more motion on the issue. I think if this goes through, it could really change the face of Toronto forever. After all, we do have a LOT of those rental apartment blocks from the 60s and 70s, and I really look forward to them being fixed.
In the meantime, this is the official website:
http://www.towerrenewal.ca/
From the website, the first four properties of the pilot project are:
-2667 and 2677 Kipling Ave (two 460-unit, 23-floor towers)
-215 Markham Rd. (192 units, 18 floors)
-200 Wellesley St. E./275 Bleecker St. (711 units, 30 floors/ 322 units, 22 floors)
-175 Shaughnessy Blvd. (18 floors, 139 units)
The goals are to:
* create local green jobs
* increase on-site small-scale retail and markets
* upgrade green space around the buildings
* provide improved space for neighbourhood interactions
* install solar, wind and geothermal energy and green roofs
* increase water conservation and on-site management of waste
* increase the demand for locally-produced green and cleantechnology
* foster community gardens and urban agriculture at the sites
One of Miller's better policies. It was announced in late August 2008, but unfortunately, there seems to be no more motion on the issue. I think if this goes through, it could really change the face of Toronto forever. After all, we do have a LOT of those rental apartment blocks from the 60s and 70s, and I really look forward to them being fixed.
In the meantime, this is the official website:
http://www.towerrenewal.ca/
From the website, the first four properties of the pilot project are:
-2667 and 2677 Kipling Ave (two 460-unit, 23-floor towers)
-215 Markham Rd. (192 units, 18 floors)
-200 Wellesley St. E./275 Bleecker St. (711 units, 30 floors/ 322 units, 22 floors)
-175 Shaughnessy Blvd. (18 floors, 139 units)
The goals are to:
* create local green jobs
* increase on-site small-scale retail and markets
* upgrade green space around the buildings
* provide improved space for neighbourhood interactions
* install solar, wind and geothermal energy and green roofs
* increase water conservation and on-site management of waste
* increase the demand for locally-produced green and cleantechnology
* foster community gardens and urban agriculture at the sites
slickpete83
Active Member
its nice to be the property owner of those buildings , Miller just comes and gives you free money , so you can upgrade your property and increase your profit
Fucken Miller !!!!!
I'm gonna buy a 2nd old house , and get Miller to come to my house and give me free money to upgrade my house !!!!
and yes i know it will make the city looks better
, but at my expense ( house owner in Toronto )
Fucken Miller !!!!!
I'm gonna buy a 2nd old house , and get Miller to come to my house and give me free money to upgrade my house !!!!
and yes i know it will make the city looks better
, but at my expense ( house owner in Toronto )
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
slickpete:
It's not like the other levels of government doesn't give you "free money" for renovations, in the form of tax credits and the like. I don't hear you offering to be the recipent of complaints from others whose tax dollars have to pay for your benefit?
AoD
It's not like the other levels of government doesn't give you "free money" for renovations, in the form of tax credits and the like. I don't hear you offering to be the recipent of complaints from others whose tax dollars have to pay for your benefit?
AoD
maestro
Senior Member
How exactly is a subsidy free money?!? The owner will still be out of pocket. Not only that, but the city will undoubtably make and save money through these upgrades. For instance, property tax and deferred utility upgrades. I really don't understand some people that can't see the bigger picture beyond their little selfs.
MisterF
Senior Member
They're not parks. They're lawns surrounding apartment buildings on private property.
L
livdb
Guest
Maestro I completely agree with you I think this tower initiative is a much needed project in the city of Toronto and by no means a freebie to landlords. This project will revitalize the buildings, the surroundings, reduce energy use making it greener for Torontonians and lower energy costs for tenants paying utilities.
I think this project combined with the new Transit City plan and the waterfront revitilization will have major positive impacts on the city of Toronto.
I think this project combined with the new Transit City plan and the waterfront revitilization will have major positive impacts on the city of Toronto.
adma
Superstar
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/009726.html
A Suburban Future of Concrete and Gardens -- Nice. Right?
Julia Levitt
April 24, 2009 1:29 PM
Could Toronto's aging concrete high-rises be North America's most promising new frontier for sustainable suburban development? A new City-backed plan is banking on it. The Mayor's Tower Renewal aims to turn the greater Toronto metropolitan area's 1960s apartment blocks into a 21st century resource, around which sustainable, walkable, mixed-use suburban hubs of community and economic opportunity can be built. In so doing, Toronto could create a model of successful density for the rest of the continent, and perhaps for the world.
The plan originated from ongoing research at the University of Toronto, and the work of Graeme Stewart, both as a graduate student and later with ERA Architects. The research recognized the potential value of these nearly 1,000 buildings. The Tower Renewal Project comprises a series of comprehensive recommendations for reviving these concrete housing communities so that they provide the high quality of life they were intended for, using the 21st century understanding of sustainable development. In September last year, the plan was adopted by Toronto's City Council and Mayor David Miller, and in January, the City identified four pilot sites and launched a new corresponding civic department.
The residential density provided by the apartment towers has been a big asset to Toronto. In the post-WWII era, these towers dominated new housing construction in the first-ring suburbs – some as far as 40km from the urban center. In 1968, Buckminster Fuller recognized the high-rises as "a type of high-density suburban development far more progressive and able to deal with the future than the endless sprawl of the U.S." Today, Toronto's metro area boasts an average density of 26.5 units/hectare – denser than comparable North American metro areas (including New York), and even ahead of sustainability leader Vancouver.
But the post-war development didn't do density right, and the shortfalls are now becoming clear. The towers are reaching the end of their original lifespans, and have become some of Toronto's biggest energy sieves, with leaking windows and woeful insulation. The neglected, inefficient buildings now house Toronto's most impoverished residents, many of them new immigrants. And because of outdated residential zoning, residents find themselves in a paradox of dense sprawl: apartment communities with as many as 30,000 residents remain isolated from grocery stores, green space and other basic community amenities. To an outsider, the towers seem poised to become a 21st century version of Cabrini-Green, the Chicago housing project (now undergoing redevelopment) which in the 1990s became synonymous with the worst problems associated with low-income housing and urban density: drugs, violence, gangs, poverty and physical deterioration.
But the towers already have nearly everything they need to become the opposite: a model for sustainable, prosperous, bright green urban density. The sturdy housing structures are surrounded by green space (as much as 80 percent of each property is devoted to open parkland), and arranged closely enough to provide ideal nodes for public transit and mixed-use development. The difference between failing and winning here is just a matter of using the pieces correctly.
The first step is to bring the buildings up to date. "The benefit is, these buildings were built like tanks. They could last for several more generations, so tearing them down doesn't make any sense. It would cost a lot more to tear them down, both economically and socially, than to just re-invest and make them work," says Stewart.
The City will achieve an enormous reduction in carbon by retrofitting the aging towers for energy efficiency with overcladding of walls and balconies, new windows, updated HVAC and mechanical systems, and even possibly newer green building options like geothermal heating, solar water heating and photovoltaics, living roofs, stormwater retention and graywater recycling. Dr. Ted Kesik, professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, is leading the effort to research specific retrofit technology.
Though the refitting could cost $4 to $5 million per building, the cost of replacing a 20-story tower apartment is between $50 and $60 million, according to a report prepared by Kesik, ERA and others. Upgrades could cut energy costs for each building by as much as half, and the report predicts they will pay for themselves within 10 to 12 years.
The next step: improving the space. ERA wants to solve the problem of isolation by replacing the bland lawns that surround so many of these properties with the amenities that will turn the apartment communities from economic and service deserts into oases. According to some ideas they propose in their Mayor's Tower Renewal Opportunities Book, these untapped green spaces could be cultivated as urban food and native plant gardens (like the Federation of City Farms has done for years in the UK). Changes to outdated zoning laws would also open up many other options for this spaces: public recreation, space for district energy or on-site wastewater management systems, or space for new housing, retail and other mixed-use development that would allow landlords to recoup the cost of retrofitting towers, and enable residents to work and shop without commuting.
"Right now neighborhoods offer residential density, but they're employment and service deserts," says Stewart. "The idea that to solve it, you would add more density seems sort of strange -- and I think that's going to be the biggest point of contention to the neighboring areas -- but at the same time, during early engagement with the communities, people are saying, 'I'd like a grocery store,' 'I'd like to be able to open up a small business.' It almost seems like a no-brainer. The fact that these neighborhoods have been ignored and stayed the same for so long is actually what's weird about them."
Over the next two years, the architects, planners and other decision-makers involved with the Tower Renewal will turn the four pilot sites into models for as many of the proposed changes as possible. At the end of the trial, they will propose a set of recommendations for changing City zoning codes and regulations – policies that have been unchanged since the 1960s – to govern smarter and more sustainable development of the many dozen similar apartment communities across the region.
That brings us to the project's final leg, which is institutional. The people behind the Tower Renewal, including those in the Mayor's office, are betting on its big-picture potential to change the city bureaucracy, and its approach to region-wide policy and preparation for growth. The decisions for the apartment communities -- from energy planning to land-use codes to transit planning -- normally segregated among many departments, will be housed under one roof in an attempt to make the project run smoothly and to achieve measurable results.
Measurement will be key, because about 80 percent of the buildings are privately owned. Stewart and others know that in order to convince owners to invest millions into upgrading their properties -- yet still maintain affordable housing -- there must be the promise of a return, whether from energy savings or new development opportunities. And Stewart says there is also potential to work with third-party partners like the Clinton Foundation or C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group on funding opportunities, or on new loan products to help encourage efficiency and neighborhood upgrades (for more ideas for financing retrofits in the private building sector, see our recent interview with Ed Mazria.)
Though Toronto's concrete neighborhoods are a unique problem in North America, this type of post-war housing is widespread in Europe and the former Soviet Union. Cities like London, Moscow and Berlin have already gone through the process of updating and integrating their own apartment blocks, and the Tower Renewal team has built connections with planners in those cities through their involvement in the C40.
"We're in a lucky position to be able to cherry-pick the best ideas," Stewart says.
A Suburban Future of Concrete and Gardens -- Nice. Right?
Julia Levitt
April 24, 2009 1:29 PM
Could Toronto's aging concrete high-rises be North America's most promising new frontier for sustainable suburban development? A new City-backed plan is banking on it. The Mayor's Tower Renewal aims to turn the greater Toronto metropolitan area's 1960s apartment blocks into a 21st century resource, around which sustainable, walkable, mixed-use suburban hubs of community and economic opportunity can be built. In so doing, Toronto could create a model of successful density for the rest of the continent, and perhaps for the world.
The plan originated from ongoing research at the University of Toronto, and the work of Graeme Stewart, both as a graduate student and later with ERA Architects. The research recognized the potential value of these nearly 1,000 buildings. The Tower Renewal Project comprises a series of comprehensive recommendations for reviving these concrete housing communities so that they provide the high quality of life they were intended for, using the 21st century understanding of sustainable development. In September last year, the plan was adopted by Toronto's City Council and Mayor David Miller, and in January, the City identified four pilot sites and launched a new corresponding civic department.
The residential density provided by the apartment towers has been a big asset to Toronto. In the post-WWII era, these towers dominated new housing construction in the first-ring suburbs – some as far as 40km from the urban center. In 1968, Buckminster Fuller recognized the high-rises as "a type of high-density suburban development far more progressive and able to deal with the future than the endless sprawl of the U.S." Today, Toronto's metro area boasts an average density of 26.5 units/hectare – denser than comparable North American metro areas (including New York), and even ahead of sustainability leader Vancouver.
But the post-war development didn't do density right, and the shortfalls are now becoming clear. The towers are reaching the end of their original lifespans, and have become some of Toronto's biggest energy sieves, with leaking windows and woeful insulation. The neglected, inefficient buildings now house Toronto's most impoverished residents, many of them new immigrants. And because of outdated residential zoning, residents find themselves in a paradox of dense sprawl: apartment communities with as many as 30,000 residents remain isolated from grocery stores, green space and other basic community amenities. To an outsider, the towers seem poised to become a 21st century version of Cabrini-Green, the Chicago housing project (now undergoing redevelopment) which in the 1990s became synonymous with the worst problems associated with low-income housing and urban density: drugs, violence, gangs, poverty and physical deterioration.
But the towers already have nearly everything they need to become the opposite: a model for sustainable, prosperous, bright green urban density. The sturdy housing structures are surrounded by green space (as much as 80 percent of each property is devoted to open parkland), and arranged closely enough to provide ideal nodes for public transit and mixed-use development. The difference between failing and winning here is just a matter of using the pieces correctly.
The first step is to bring the buildings up to date. "The benefit is, these buildings were built like tanks. They could last for several more generations, so tearing them down doesn't make any sense. It would cost a lot more to tear them down, both economically and socially, than to just re-invest and make them work," says Stewart.
The City will achieve an enormous reduction in carbon by retrofitting the aging towers for energy efficiency with overcladding of walls and balconies, new windows, updated HVAC and mechanical systems, and even possibly newer green building options like geothermal heating, solar water heating and photovoltaics, living roofs, stormwater retention and graywater recycling. Dr. Ted Kesik, professor in the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, is leading the effort to research specific retrofit technology.
Though the refitting could cost $4 to $5 million per building, the cost of replacing a 20-story tower apartment is between $50 and $60 million, according to a report prepared by Kesik, ERA and others. Upgrades could cut energy costs for each building by as much as half, and the report predicts they will pay for themselves within 10 to 12 years.
The next step: improving the space. ERA wants to solve the problem of isolation by replacing the bland lawns that surround so many of these properties with the amenities that will turn the apartment communities from economic and service deserts into oases. According to some ideas they propose in their Mayor's Tower Renewal Opportunities Book, these untapped green spaces could be cultivated as urban food and native plant gardens (like the Federation of City Farms has done for years in the UK). Changes to outdated zoning laws would also open up many other options for this spaces: public recreation, space for district energy or on-site wastewater management systems, or space for new housing, retail and other mixed-use development that would allow landlords to recoup the cost of retrofitting towers, and enable residents to work and shop without commuting.
"Right now neighborhoods offer residential density, but they're employment and service deserts," says Stewart. "The idea that to solve it, you would add more density seems sort of strange -- and I think that's going to be the biggest point of contention to the neighboring areas -- but at the same time, during early engagement with the communities, people are saying, 'I'd like a grocery store,' 'I'd like to be able to open up a small business.' It almost seems like a no-brainer. The fact that these neighborhoods have been ignored and stayed the same for so long is actually what's weird about them."
Over the next two years, the architects, planners and other decision-makers involved with the Tower Renewal will turn the four pilot sites into models for as many of the proposed changes as possible. At the end of the trial, they will propose a set of recommendations for changing City zoning codes and regulations – policies that have been unchanged since the 1960s – to govern smarter and more sustainable development of the many dozen similar apartment communities across the region.
That brings us to the project's final leg, which is institutional. The people behind the Tower Renewal, including those in the Mayor's office, are betting on its big-picture potential to change the city bureaucracy, and its approach to region-wide policy and preparation for growth. The decisions for the apartment communities -- from energy planning to land-use codes to transit planning -- normally segregated among many departments, will be housed under one roof in an attempt to make the project run smoothly and to achieve measurable results.
Measurement will be key, because about 80 percent of the buildings are privately owned. Stewart and others know that in order to convince owners to invest millions into upgrading their properties -- yet still maintain affordable housing -- there must be the promise of a return, whether from energy savings or new development opportunities. And Stewart says there is also potential to work with third-party partners like the Clinton Foundation or C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group on funding opportunities, or on new loan products to help encourage efficiency and neighborhood upgrades (for more ideas for financing retrofits in the private building sector, see our recent interview with Ed Mazria.)
Though Toronto's concrete neighborhoods are a unique problem in North America, this type of post-war housing is widespread in Europe and the former Soviet Union. Cities like London, Moscow and Berlin have already gone through the process of updating and integrating their own apartment blocks, and the Tower Renewal team has built connections with planners in those cities through their involvement in the C40.
"We're in a lucky position to be able to cherry-pick the best ideas," Stewart says.
dt_toronto_geek
Superstar
Comparing Toronto's aging apartment tower stock to the Cabrini-Green neighbourhood is a bit of a stretch.
smuncky
Senior Member
Jane’s Walk - Towers on the Ravine
Day: May 3rd
Time: 11 am
Start Location: North Kipling Community Centre, at 2 Rowntree Rd, Kipling and Rowntree Road, North of Finch
End Location: Albion Centre Food Court
Home to thirteen thousand living in nineteen towers, it is one of Toronto’s largest apartment clusters. Arranged along the Humber Valley, these towers sit in an almost agrarian setting. The result is what may be the uniquely Toronto phenomenon of the ‘Tower on the Ravine’.
Twenty kilometres from downtown, the area’s apartment clusters have nearly three times the density of a downtown neighbourhood like the Annex. Home to same number as Port Hope Ontario, the area is a city within a city.
On May 3rd, a walk has been organized in this remarkable area of Toronto, hosted by ERA Architects, along with geographers, community leaders, city staff and more. The tour will focus on the tower neighbourhood and its relationship to the Humber Valley. It will also discuss the potential evolution of this neighbourhood through the lens of the Tower Renewal Project – an initiative promoting vibrant, self-sufficient and sustainable apartment neighbourhoods across the region. More information can be found here.
All are welcome.
http://spacing.ca/wire/2009/04/27/janes-walk-towers-on-the-ravine/
Day: May 3rd
Time: 11 am
Start Location: North Kipling Community Centre, at 2 Rowntree Rd, Kipling and Rowntree Road, North of Finch
End Location: Albion Centre Food Court
Home to thirteen thousand living in nineteen towers, it is one of Toronto’s largest apartment clusters. Arranged along the Humber Valley, these towers sit in an almost agrarian setting. The result is what may be the uniquely Toronto phenomenon of the ‘Tower on the Ravine’.
Twenty kilometres from downtown, the area’s apartment clusters have nearly three times the density of a downtown neighbourhood like the Annex. Home to same number as Port Hope Ontario, the area is a city within a city.
On May 3rd, a walk has been organized in this remarkable area of Toronto, hosted by ERA Architects, along with geographers, community leaders, city staff and more. The tour will focus on the tower neighbourhood and its relationship to the Humber Valley. It will also discuss the potential evolution of this neighbourhood through the lens of the Tower Renewal Project – an initiative promoting vibrant, self-sufficient and sustainable apartment neighbourhoods across the region. More information can be found here.
All are welcome.
http://spacing.ca/wire/2009/04/27/janes-walk-towers-on-the-ravine/
Whoaccio
Senior Member
"Urban food" is a bad idea, as are most of the pseudo-environmental proposals for the empty areas surrounding tower blocks. The division of labor and agricultural specialization is a pretty fundamental aspect of our society. There is no way a small farm of a few hectares could compete with commercial agriculture (average farm size in Sask. is 600ha) in cost or quality. The environmental benefits would be minimal as well. Small plots would lead to inefficient use of resources like fertilizer and irrigation while mechanization would be impossible. Barring mechanization, more work will have to be done manually which, though it sounds organic, is far more energy intensive. There may be a niche for 100-mile-organic-fairtrade-low-income-farmer-made tomatoes, but I would stress "niche." Aesthetically, farms are pretty unremarkable. If people are isolated currently, surrounding them with tomatoes wouldn't improve anything, and these fields would be empty for the winter months anyways.
Best to develop the areas as commercial spaces. My preferred development would be a kind of condo-mall like Pac Mall. The prevailing design of these areas makes me feel that "European style" retail streets are impractical. Zoning requirements shouldn't try to force this. At worst no one would bother developing pedestrian centric shops along decidedly suburban arterials. At best we might get a situation similar to Bay St, lots of unremarkable chains. Canada gets cold as hell, no one will walk any significant distance in the suburbs. Indoor markets with fairly reasonable parking would be the best use of land. District energy schemes or similar utilities could be designed into this as could further residential.
adma
Superstar
My assumption is that we shouldn't even look at this too much through a market/labour-oriented "agri-business" prism: this is more along the lines of allotment-plot gardening--and if you're to knock it for its so-called inefficiency, you might as well suggest that *anyone* who grows (or motivates others to grow) grapes or tomatoes or basil or raspberries in their front or back yard is misguided.
And aesthetically, to take one example, I think the allotment-plot zone in High Park is terrific, in its shaggy and strangely European way. The only strike against it is that some clod there may have inadvertently sparked that poisoned-dog calamity last summer...
Whoaccio
Senior Member
I used to grow tomatoes & berries in my backyard, but squirrels and raccoons took most of the harvest. Anyways, if people want to grow stuff for general recreation that is one thing. Having the City going around and toying with the zoning code in order to promote it seems unnecessary and counter productive. I don't have to think too abstractly to picture a situation where the City would zone a small patch for agriculture, which nobody would have an interest in using, thereby precluding other developments which may have a use. Certainly sounds familiar given how the City deals with some industrial properties. One nice thing about the older commie blocks is that they usually have good balcony space. With a little bit of effort, most casual gardening could take place there with poor man hydroponic rigs.
(Some people do take urban agriculture seriously as a food supply. Most people who do small scale gardening don't, but there is an increasingly visible trend towards a mashup of left wing dietary fads. This is misguided}
High Park is a park. It is meant to be verdant, an oasis of nature so to speak. One of th main impetuses for this Tower project is that tower clusters have too much open green space. Community farming wont fix that. If anything it could worsen it, as people wouldn't be able to cross over previously barren fields for fear of trampling plants.
MisterF
Senior Member
There's nothing "European" about urban mixed use shopping streets. There are thousands of them in North America, and they thrive in "cold as hell" Toronto and colder cities around the world.