Well, first of all the project in question isn't even in the CBD. Rather, it's actually somewhat distant.

But even if we stretch that term to mean "the core", there are still lots of single family homes both on the arteries and on side streets. And lots of regular old-style neighbourhoods. Yes, they've been somewhat marginalized into pockets, but they're still there. The Victorians rowhouses, the Edwardian homes across from the AGO, the older condos spacious and affordable enough for families to live in. No one needs to commute on some S-Bahn, they can just step out their front gate and walk across the street to work.

Many major European cities don't have that. Many major North American cities don't have that. You have businesses areas, and residential. And now a few condos in between. This is the vibe I seem to get from some of you, that this is what TO needs to strive for (even if it means obliterating century-old homes). But unfortunately Toronto doesn't fit into that SimCity model. It doesn't have to be too costly to live with a family downtown. Why? Because people are already doing it, and have been for quite some time. It's only the recent advent of the new style of building where the idea of a family in a condo is something unheard of, and clearly for the super-rich.

Why does it have to be soooo expensive per square foot? Why does a derelict corner 1km from the CBD and beside a hwy be someting a family is steered away from living in, either through price-per-area or just the demographic they're aiming to sell? And why are people so against the notion of communites downtown that aren't glass skyscrapers?
 
Would mid rise brick buildings or replica Edwardian townhouses at 1-7 Yonge St. be affordable for families in your view? I mean families not named Weston or Thomson or something like that.
 
44 North: calling this piece of land distant from the CBD is quite the leap. It's next-door to it. A short walk. In fact, the CBD seems to have vaulted the tracks, and is now vaulting the Gardiner and growing towards this site. That's what One York and WPP III bring to the area: a new arm of the CBD. That arm's artery will be the overhead PATH in the area, and you'd have to be in complete denial to disagree.

Another arm of the PATH system will extend through 45 Bay, reach under the Gardiner, and pop up at 1-7 Yonge. Voila, another extension of the CBD.

Everyone else knows it, so that's why this land was so expensive, and that's why the densities are being proposed at this scale.

42
 
44 North -

I'm honestly a bit confused by what you're trying to get at.

1-7 Yonge is definitely in the CBD. Millions of square feet of office space are going up around it, it will have PATH, it's right next to Union Station. It's in the CBD. Calling it a 'derelict corner' and such makes it seem like you're just being willfully ignorant of why the area is very expensive. It's not a conspiracy that 1-7 Yonge is expensive, you're just purposefully ignoring all the traits which make it desirable. If you did build row houses it would still be extremely expensive. The individual town homes would all be well over one million dollars surely.

The 'city' is a big place. Recognizing that the center of a major city like Toronto probably justifies high rises isn't the same as saying 'families have no place downtown' or that row houses are somehow never justified.

You're also romanticizing previous urban forms. The Edwardian houses around the AGO are hardly the indisputable epitome of built form you make them out to be. People who live in these homes still have to commute, the homes are still unaffordable for most (does anyone even live across the AGO except for Steve Mann?). Hardly anyone, in any city, get's the luxury of walking out their house and across the street to work. Except for workers at Foxconn.

I also don't understand what you're getting at with the business vs. residential comment. 1-7 Yonge will include a bunch of uses, residential, commercial and retail. It's very literally mixed use. By contrast, most of downtown's shoulder areas are actually very segregated in terms of usage (commercial main street, residential side streets). Nonetheless, there's no inherent relationship between built form and land usage. Any given neighborhood could have seemingly any mix of height and land usage diversity.
 
Last edited:
Well, I guess I am romanticizing a bit. But many of the housing styles I mentioned are now converted to triplexes (=lowrise and high density)...I'm not advocating large single family homes. Regardless, we have newer neighbourhoods that are built for families with the same distance to the CBD as this project. Their prime location doesn't gouge people out of living there. Maybe it's the commie in me that's advocating co-operative housing, but look at the Esplanade neighbourhood surrounding David Crombie park...family-sized homes, and virtually the same distance to the CBD as 1-7 Yonge.

And I was arguing against Dimunitive's post where it was mentioned that no major European city has people living 200ft from its CBD

I just don't like the notion that any development NEAR our CBD has to be the highest density, and has to be glass skysrapers. We have 1000 acres of brownfield waterfront being developed, there's little need to create such a serious amount of housing 700m from the nearest subway station - esp one plagued by crowding, and will be even after its revitalization. The project is simply too much, too big, and puts too much demand on a strained and congested downtown. Cut the heights in half, and I'd still feel the same way.
 
Last edited:
44 North said:
Well, I guess I am romanticizing a bit. But many of the housing styles I mentioned are now converted to triplexes (=lowrise and high density)...I'm not advocating large single family homes. Regardless, we have newer neighbourhoods that are built for families with the same distance to the CBD as this project. Their prime location doesn't gouge people out of living there. Maybe it's the commie in me that's advocating co-operative housing, but look at the Esplanade neighbourhood surrounding David Crombie park...family-sized homes, and virtually the same distance to the CBD as 1-7 Yonge.
Click to expand...

I know what you're saying, but I think that the economics might be against us. I think it's difficult to pull off something like the St. Lawrence neighbourhood today, and not just because all levels of government have effectively pulled out of the housing game. When St. Lawrence was first developed in the late 1970s, the value of that land was practically worthless. It was the remains of a disused railway marshalling yard on the edge of a downtown that few people cared about. Today, that land would be hard to convert to affordable, family-friendly townhomes, and I think that high density apartments is the only profitable option. If you want families to live in urban areas, I think the better bet is to get governments to allow density and mixed uses and also rebuild streets for more pedestrian-friendly uses on the "urban" edge: places like South Scarborough, the Queensway, Weston and Mt Dennis, parts of East York, etc. - and build the next generation of Bay and Gable-and-commercial strip neighbourhood there.

I also think you're still romanticizing the conversion of Bay and Gables to triplexes too much. Frankly, the reason they're being converted is because we are undersupplied with apartments (i.e. non-family housing) in the core, and we are resorting to turning formerly single family housing into apartments. There are two problems with this: the first is that those 100 year old semis were never meant to house 4 units and the conversions are shoddy and structurally poor (this is especially true of basement suites in buildings where the basement was merely supposed to store firewood). Secondly, and perhaps less importantly, converting Bay and Gables to multi-unit apartments often destroys the beauty of these buildings as facades are marred by ad hoc balconies and staircases built to service all those units.
 
Last edited:
The images and text from BlogTO are the first that I see the mention of a theatre of 1000m2. I wonder how many seats that translates into? Really like the idea of another performing arts space on Queens Quay. I think that the density is appropriate and should enliven what was, only a few years ago, a dead area, especially at night. Bring it on!
 
rdaner said:
The images and text from BlogTO are the first that I see the mention of a theatre of 1000m2. I wonder how many seats that translates into?
Click to expand...

According to this capacity calculator, an area of 1040 square metres can hold around 1177 people in theatre-style seating. This is consistent with the other mid-range theatres I have checked, which average out to around one person per square metre capacity. Of course, much of that area might be back-stage and unavailable to theatre-goers, but a figure of 800-1000 seats sounds reasonable to me.
 
It would be nice to have some new cultural or entertainment venues, especially on the waterfront and in the Entertainment District. A great city cannot thrive by just building more and more condos. Those new condo dwellers need something to see, hear, feel, taste and enjoy.
 
Last edited:
Torontovibe said:
It would be nice to have some new cultural or entertainment venues, especially on the waterfront and in the Entertainment District. A great city cannot thrive by just building more and more condos. Those new condo dwellers need something to see, hear, feel, taste and enjoy.
Click to expand...

Agreed entirely. This is especially true if the Princess of Wales theatre disappears in the Mervish Gehry development.
 
Last edited:
I just don't like the notion that any development NEAR our CBD has to be the highest density, and has to be glass skysrapers.
Click to expand...

Why shouldn't it be the highest density? Presumably the thousands of people who have moved into the highrises around this area like the advantage of relatively cheap housing in the core.

We have 1000 acres of brownfield waterfront being developed, there's little need to create such a serious amount of housing 700m from the nearest subway station - esp one plagued by crowding, and will be even after its revitalization.
Click to expand...

Doesn't this suggest it's not an either/or situation? Like I said earlier, the city's a big place. It's possible to have really high density sites like 1-7 Yonge as well as more midrise developments like the WDL as well as lower rise density elsewhere. And, like HD said, the more people we can warehouse in places like 1-7 Yonge, the less demand to subdivide older houses and such, which should make them more affordable than they'd otherwise be.

Also, people at 1-7 Yonge are far more likely to walk to work than just about any other address in the City. Areas farther out (St. Lawrence, the DD, WDL, wtv) are far more likely to have residents using overcrowded streetcars, overcrowded roads or overcrowded subways. If Union or downtown is strained beyond capacity, better to put residents where they walk rather than rely on other forms of transit.
 
bleu said:
I am slighted disgusted by this.
So only people with kids care about the city, parks and grocery stores? Really? I am single and I go to grocery stores every week. Being close to a grocery store is the first thing I consider when moving to a place. And didn't I complain many times about the lack of a great urban park in Toronto? I don't give a flying ass about nightclubs and bars.

Let's not try to argue having kids is some sort of superior lifestyle. A city needs family friendly areas. But if a city is family friendly everywhere, it will be such a horribly boring city!
Click to expand...

Given the evident psychopathy behind bleu's various banned UT incarnations, the fact that he's single and so disdainfully disengaged from the "having kids" thing shouldn't be surprising. (Wouldn't be surprised if there's some covered-up subtext of past creepy/abusive behaviour, too.)
 
67Cup said:
Agreed entirely. This is especially true if the Princess of Wales theatre disappears in the Mervish Gehry development.
Click to expand...

Mirvish built the POW theatre and is on record as stating that removing that theatre will help make all the other theatres stronger. When demand increases, he will replace the POW with a new theatre. If anyone has goodwill when it comes to theatres, it's him. There's no point building more cultural assets if we don't visit them.

If anything, a significantly higher downtown population will help our theatres, opera, symphony, ballet, museums, and galleries. One feeds the other. The 3 tower Mirvish-Gerhy proposal and this 1-7 Yonge multi-tower proposal will help our cultural industries. So would a downtown casino.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top