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After deliberation, a proposal by Profile Developments' to redevelop a site at 3079 Pharmacy Avenue in Scarborough has been approved by Toronto City Council. On the southeast corner of Pharmacy and Huntingdale Boulevard, Profile originally submitted an application for rezoning the plaza site from retail to residential in 2020. The original proposal for the new development failed to include any retail, which ruffled the feathers of some community members as it would remove a number of local favourites, including an Italian food spot and a West Indian grocer.
The rezoning of the site to permit the new IBI Group-designed development was recently approved, albeit not without changes. The existing one-storey, 1,654m² commercial plaza is still planned to be demolished, to be replaced by four-storey, back-to-back and rear-lane townhouses, which Profile is marketing as Huntingdale Towns. Reduced from the previously proposed 85, a total of 81 residential townhouses are approved to be constructed in three rows, comprising five blocks and having a gross floor area of 9,855m². The bigger change is the addition of 266m² of retail GFA in the proposal, split between four grade level commercial units at the southwest corner of the site fronting onto Pharmacy Avenue. Building entrances for all of the commercial units will be accessible at grade from the street.
City Planning commented in its final report that, "the proposed development, at a proposed density of 1.42 times the area of the lot, is compatible with the surrounding area and a modest intensification of the site."
Approximately 144m² of outdoor amenity space will be built at the northeast corner of the property located on Huntingdale Boulevard. As the green space is smaller than the 10% of the site to be dedicated as parkland — a City requirement — the developer will satisfy the parkland dedication through cash-in-lieu. It has not yet been decided where the money will be spent in the surrounding community.
Access to the site is to be from from Huntingdale Boulevard via a private driveway which has been designed with layby parking, sidewalks on both sides, and generous tree planting areas to extend the public realm with a space that resembles a public street.
A total of 85 parking spaces are proposed at ground level, a reduction from the originally proposed 94. Residents will get 81 spaces, with 4 for visitors, to be contained in a garage incorporated into the built form of the back-to-back townhouse block. In addition, 69 bicycle parking spaces will be provided on site.
The City agreed that the proposal is in keeping with the intent of the Toronto Official Plan, granting its approval. The City commented that the development, "provides a compatible level of intensification within an apartment neighbourhood that conforms with applicable urban design guidelines and meets the development criteria on a site well serviced by buses and near active transportation routes."
The City also agreed that the development would also provide much needed family-size dwelling units compatible with the surrounding context and provide an acceptable level of commercial uses to serve the surrounding neighbourhood.
You can learn more from our Database file for the project, linked below. If you'd like, you can join in on the conversation in the associated Project Forum thread, or leave a comment in the space provided on this page.
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