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ADRM

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Interesting (though also somewhat frustrating) project here, as detailed in Mike Layton's latest newsletter: they'll be converting the disused 14 Division police station into (an inappropriately small amount of) affordable housing and some surface parking.

My biggest gripes, which I've written to Layton about:
- Why are we not going for more density and thus more affordable housing on a site so close to transit and a major arterial?
- WTF are we doing using public money to build surface parking here?

Open House: Re-imagining the Old 14 Division
Dear Neighbours,

Over the past year I have been working with the City’s Affordable Housing Office and Parks staff to prevent this site from being sold to developers and I believe the City now has a plan that will meet the needs of the City and local residents.

Once completed, 150 Harrison Street will contain:
  • 13 non-profit affordable ownership homes
  • Reconfigured TPA Parking Lot
  • A new neighbourhood parkette
You are invited to join me at a public open house to learn more.

When: Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Time: 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m.
Where: 14 Division, 350 Dovercourt Road (map).

The City has released a Request for Proposal to the non-profit sector for the development of up to 13 affordable ownership homes on the 1.3 acre site. These homes will be facing Lakeview Avenue, Dovercourt Road. and Harrison Street and will reflect the current pattern of homes on this stretch.

The City will select an experienced organization to plan and build the homes which will provide good quality and modestly priced housing in the neighbourhood. Once an organization is selected and they have prepared some designs, we will host a follow-up meeting to discuss next steps.

The Toronto Parking Authority has recently expanded its lot on site to incorporate parts of the former police station’s parking lot for the operation of public parking at 146 Harrison Street. The new parking lot will be reconfigured as part of the new development and plans will be available at this meeting highlighting their proposal.

To proceed with this initiative, the former police station will be demolished. Environmental investigations and related work on are also underway and will be finalized in parallel with the new development initiative.

The park will be designed in consultation with residents toward the end of this process and I am looking forward to working with all of you on this in the coming year.

This open house is the first of several consultations which the City will host to engage the community in this initiative. City staff will be available at the public Open House on February 28 to answer your questions. You will also have the opportunity to attend public consultation meetings held through the planning approval process for the affordable housing units.

Should you have any questions about the proposal, or want to be added to the mailing list for updates, please contact Ashley Da Silva in my office at 416-392-4010 or ashley.dasilva@toronto.ca.

The City’s project co-ordinator is Nadia Lawrence in the Affordable Housing Office and she can be reached at 416-392-8798 or nadia.lawrence@toronto.ca.

Yours in community,

Councillor Mike Layton
Ward 19, Trinity-Spadina
 

Toronto identifies site locations for its modular supportive housing initiative

Jun 2 2020

The City of Toronto has identified site locations for its Modular Housing Initiative.

The program is on track to provide “stable, affordable, high quality housing support and services,” to 100 individuals experiencing homelessness by the fall of 2020, according to the City of Toronto.

Site identification is a key component of the expedited delivery. Evaluations have been made by City and CreateTO on City-owned land across Toronto. They have been using criteria that included local demand for affordable housing, development potential of the site, local infrastructure, access to public transit, access to health and other community services. The criteria also includes zoning and other bylaw considerations.

This plan comes after a month of receiving Council approval. The two following sites are being recommended for Phase 1 of the Modular Housing Initiative:
  • 150 Harrison Street (Ward 9): 44 bachelor apartments. This is the former site of the 14 Division Police Station.
  • 11 Macey Avenue (Ward 20): 56 bachelor apartments. Near Victoria Park and Danforth.

The first phase was initially announced by Mayor John Tory on April 29. He also then mentioned that the new modular homes were expected to be ready for occupancy by September 2020.


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This site is the NE corner of Dovercourt & Harrison, one block north of Dundas West, which is currently a fenced off parcel of land:

Alternatively, the site could have become a nice neighbourhood park.
 
Cool initiative, in theory, but this is much too little housing for this location. And this area is not lacking for parks. Should be something like 6 storeys here. Building this would leave at least three times the housing on the table.

I agree with the principle expressed here (that the City is way too timid with the density it seeks on its own sites and that it generally is not doing nearly enough on the housing file), but there is a consideration with modular products of this sort with respect to how high you can go without digging a foundation. One of the reasons this proponent was selected (and sole sourced) as a delivery partner is that it can deliver the housing way more quickly because the product doesn't need a foundation -- essentially they just pour a level concrete pad and drop the modules on top of it. This has huge benefits from a timeline perspective, which is of paramount concern given the focus here.

I'm not as familiar with this product as I am with other modular offerings, so I don't know what the precise height limit is for their approach, but I do know that part of the idea here vis-a-vis condensing the timelines as much as possible is to very closely replicate the public modular housing projects in Vancouver, which Abigail Bond (now the head of Toronto's Housing Secretariat) oversaw in her previous post in Vancouver, and which have been delivered by the same proponent; they got the construction timeline from start to finish down to three months.

The CoV has a good summary of their modular efforts on its website, which also includes the video below: https://vancouver.ca/people-programs/temporary-modular-housing.aspx

 
Cool initiative, in theory, but this is much too little housing for this location. And this area is not lacking for parks. Should be something like 6 storeys here. Building this would leave at least three times the housing on the table.
The reason they are going for just three storeys here is that they don't want this to be held up by the rezoning process, so this is based on what they can put there without that. Our front page story with more details is here.

42
 
...there will always be an uptick in "crime" where densification will occur. It hasn't stopped Toronto from building before.
 

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