[ksun]

. If anything, society seems to be running out of potential jobs - automation is eating up more and more work every year. What jobs are left often require a significant skill set that the average person doesn't have, let alone someone who's on a subsidized housing list.

I don't necessarily agree with that. There are many "potential" jobs out there for at least a surviving wage, it depends how much one is willing to find those.
An immigrant friend of mine who speaks broken English with a high school degree from China now works as an hairdresser, making $2500-3000 a month. He spent months learning his trade and is constantly improving. As far as I know, there are still shortage of labour in certain sectors which do not require huge amount of education, and those who complain about not having any skills should really do more to research and acquire those skills.

I completely agree with Northern Light. Social housing doesn't solve this problem. It might exacerbate it. You don't have housing, what about we give you something for free to live with 500 other jobless, skill-less people? No, that's not the solution. To having social housing apartment blocks or entire neighbourhood will keep those people in poverty forever.

And seriously, there are many humble, menial jobs out there. You just have to be willing to do it. You start somewhere and gradually make your way up. I have seen so many poor immigrants who started from grocery store cashiers or bus boys making $8 an hour and then bought more than one single family homes in GTA. The question is, are you willing to work 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, and save and save and save when you have minimum skills? Social housing may give you a place to live for free or very low cost, but you end up losing your life and future.

 

[grey]

^ This is a classic bootstraps/meritocracy myth complete with personal anecdotes. Nobody needs to waste any time debunking it. Just ignore him and don't allow yet another east end development thread to get dragged into the exact same discussion.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Renders

 

[grey]

From a planning perspective, this site falls within Block 3 of the Dundas Corridor Character Area, which is described in this Downtown East Planning Study.

Dundas Corridor Character Area
i. The Dundas Corridor Character Area has the potential to be a vibrant retail strip serving the residents of the Downtown East. It will be treated as a priority retail street. New developments will include retail at grade.
ii. Tall Buildings are permitted in the Dundas Corridor Character Area in the form articulated by this Area Specific Policy.

Applicable Performance Standards
i. A minimum of 60% of the frontage of any new development in the Dundas Corridor Character Area will be retail.
ii. Retail bays in new development will be broken up into two or more units with frontages no greater than 6 metres.
iii. Tall Buildings are only permitted in the Dundas Corridor Character Area, on the Blocks shown on Map 3, as follows:

Block 1
i. Maximum building height of 50 metres at George Street and Dundas Street East.
ii. Any development on Block 1 will step down gradually in height towards Pembroke Street to a maximum height of 16 metres.

Block 2
i. Maximum building height of 25 metres.
ii. Maximum base building height will not exceed 80% of the width of the right-of-way, after which a 3 metre step back is required.

Block 3
i. A minimum setback of 7.5 metres from the rear property line and a 45-degree angular plane from a height of 10.5 metres above the 7.5 metre setback line.
ii. Where a public laneway abuts a site the laneway may be included for the purposes of establishing the setback and angular plane.

Block 4
i. A minimum setback of 7.5 metres from the rear property line and a 45-degree angular plane from a height of 10.5 metres above the 7.5 metre setback line.
ii. Where a public laneway abuts a site the laneway may be included for the purposes of establishing the setback and angular plane.

Block 5
i. A minimum setback of 7.5 metres from the rear property line and a 45-degree angular plane from the property line.
ii. Where a public laneway abuts a site the laneway may be included for the purposes of establishing the setback and angular plane.​

Here's the map of the corridor described above. Note that city council passed an amendment on 3/31/2015 to include the 219 Dundas surface parking lot in Block 3 of this map.

 

[Northern Light]

^ This is a classic bootstraps/meritocracy myth complete with personal anecdotes. Nobody needs to waste any time debunking it. Just ignore him and don't allow yet another east end development thread to get dragged into the exact same discussion.

While I agree w/what is being said about the post above; it resulted from a discussion started by Wolfewood, Shontron and then myself. I happen to think that discussion was a good one, and would love to hear more input from both.

Its unfortunate when a legitimate discussion point is run aground by another poster, but virtually unavoidable at times. Far better to have such an outcome that not to discuss various views.

It might be nice if more 'political' views could be segregated to said sub-forum, however, I do think it entirely legitimate to raise them in a context where a development exemplifies for better or worse
the underlying issue.

 

[wolfewood]

While I agree w/what is being said about the post above; it resulted from a discussion started by Wolfewood, Shontron and then myself. I happen to think that discussion was a good one, and would love to hear more input from both.

Its unfortunate when a legitimate discussion point is run aground by another poster, but virtually unavoidable at times. Far better to have such an outcome that not to discuss various views.

It might be nice if more 'political' views could be segregated to said sub-forum, however, I do think it entirely legitimate to raise them in a context where a development exemplifies for better or worse
the underlying issue.

That's my intention re. ksun. I've let him piss me off too many times and I should know better by now.

As for all you said, I can't really answer all of it (more because you said a lot than I don't have something to say lol) but I think my issue with what you're saying is it doesn't match economic, political or social realities. I mean, I'm in favour of an increase to the minimum wage and the underlying concept of mixed incomes is fine by me (insofar as I wish more social housing would be added but otherwise it's a sound concept and certainly better than social housing ghettos, no doubt) but they're just not going to happen. There's definitely a lot of things we could do better about the downtown east but they're not happening. Instead we're getting rapid gentrification and intensification that's pushing people out of a poor state into even more dismal conditions. If $15 minimum wage, useful mixed income neighbourhoods and/or a possible mincome solution were actually imminent policies I might be a little less cynical but, until policies like those are in place, I'd err on keeping things as they are (crappy but working) than what we're getting (shitty and getting worse).

 

[interchange42]

We have a front page story up on this proposal here, with new info, and the dataBase file is now appended to the top of this page.

42

 

[Gphorce]

It's okay, I just wish the vehicle access wasn't taking up the majority of the frontage on Dundas. Having retail at the base doesn't liven the area if right next to is there's a huge sweeping garage door giving the street the cold shoulder.

 

[ksun]

^ This is a classic bootstraps/meritocracy myth complete with personal anecdotes. Nobody needs to waste any time debunking it. Just ignore him and don't allow yet another east end development thread to get dragged into the exact same discussion.

True but it's others who started this poor people side story, not me. And you are saying I am not allowed to disagree. I will be perfectly happy just talking about this building itself.

 

[Lenser]

Actually ksun, the way I see it, you are s0mething of a side story in this place - your "poor people" deflection attempt notwithstanding.

I look forward to seeing this building happen. Will help accelerate redevelopment and renewal in the immediate area.

 

[ksun]

Actually ksun, the way I see it, you are s0mething of a side story in this place - your "poor people" deflection attempt notwithstanding.

I look forward to seeing this building happen. Will help accelerate redevelopment and renewal in the immediate area.

I have no interest in knowing other people's opinion about me, so don't even try. My point is I didn't bring this up, someone else did, and when I disagree, suddenly it's me who derailed this topic.

And I reserve my right to disagree every time it is discussed. It doesn't go against forum rules here.

 

[Lenser]

Sure you can disagree. But it's not solely your right; it's everyone's. It's also our right to disagree with those who disagree with us, too - and so on, ad nauseam. Why you feel the need to so often bring up your right to disagree with others is beyond me, but your chronic repetition is pretty peevish, don't you think? Oh right, you don't care what people think of you.

One more thing. Trying to talk about buildings themselves without taking into account the people who will one day inhabit or work in them strikes me as oddly incomplete. It's only one side of the story. We build buildings for people, not as solutions and statements in and of themselves. So it's inevitable that disagreements will spring up in here about new developments, especially when those discussions occasionally entail elements of social policy and financial inequities in our urban environment. Trying to pretend that such issues are magically inapplicable in a forum like this is sheer folly.

 

[ShonTron]

It's okay, I just wish the vehicle access wasn't taking up the majority of the frontage on Dundas. Having retail at the base doesn't liven the area if right next to is there's a huge sweeping garage door giving the street the cold shoulder.

Agreed. But there's no adjacent laneway for vehicle access that could be used instead.

I like that the building will follow the curve in Dundas Street here; I'm hoping for some colour though, rather than another grey spandrel-clad building.

 

[Lenser]

Yeah, colour would be nice. I like the massing and those curves but the colouring feels a bit bland. This city needs more hits of colour.

 

[Gphorce]

Agreed. But there's no adjacent laneway for vehicle access that could be used instead.

I like that the building will follow the curve in Dundas Street here; I'm hoping for some colour though, rather than another grey spandrel-clad building.

I get that it needs an entrance, but the sweeping curb cuts are what frustrate me. They've got so much sidewalk space cut on an angle to accommodate people from either direction. Slanted paving is awkward as a pedestrian and it's potentially dangerous when there's ice. They should find a way to narrow the impact.