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Capital Developments is settling with the City of Toronto for a new residential development located at 717 Church Street, within the Church Street triangle in the city's Downtown. The tower has been reduced from its original proposal of 30 storeys to 27, as well as being subject to a slew of other changes.
The revised development is proposed to take up the entire triangle, an 'island' just east of Yonge Street, bound by Church Street, Collier Street, and Park Road. Currently on the site there is a four-storey office building and two three-storey semi-detached houses with residential and nonresidential uses. All of these buildings would be demolished to make away for the new building.
Originally proposed to the City in November of 2020, the Diamond Schmitt Architects-designed tower was proposed to stand 30-storeys tall and feature 300 residential units, in addition to retail space at-grade and a parkland dedication on the western portion of the property.
In February of 2021, City Planning responded with a preliminary report arguing that the proposed tower was too tall for the area, which they asserted should offer a transition between the multi-storey towers to the south, and the detached homes of the Rosedale neighbourhood to the north. They also commented that the proposed building didn't fit the greater planned built-form context of the area, and cast too many shadows on the surrounding neighbourhood.
In May of 2021, a community meeting was held, where residents voiced opinions concerning the lack of parking spaces within the bike-oriented building, and also reiterated sentiments shared by City planners regarding the height of the proposal and its lack of transition to their low-rise neighbourhood. Despite their critiques, the community generally agreed that it liked the design of the tower, as well as the organization of its proposed public space, and bike-first aspect.
City planners recommended that City Council should oppose the development, which ultimately went to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) due to the City's failure to make a decision within the prescribed time period.
The appeal is currently scheduled to be heard by the OLT during a 10-day hearing on November 28 to December 9, 2022, but now that can become a much shorter ratification hearing as the developer has worked with the City to come to a settlement, which in the most recent Site Plan Approval application, has detailed multiple changes to the original proposal including a height reduction to 27 storeys – which reduces the shadow impact of the building, drops the number of units from 300 to 270 (with a large portion of east-facing balconies removed as well), while the revised plan increases the few parking spaces from three to five ride-share spots.
The new proposal has 17,423m² of GFA in comparison to the previous 19,656m², and now represents an FSI of 19.37, rather than 20.81. The 270 units of the new proposal would include 48 studios (18%), 141 one-bedrooms (53%), 55 two-bedrooms (20%), and 26 three-bedrooms (9%). There would be 515m² of indoor amenity space accompanied by 109m² of outdoor amenity, in addition to 129m² of parkland dedication, located in the same spot as the original application.
UrbanToronto will continue to follow updates for this development, but in the meantime, 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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