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Last chance to do it right
Feb. 14, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME
Ottawa is finally interested in Toronto's waterfront. Last week, a team of federal forensic auditors showed at the offices of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. to take a look at the books.
They arrived to check reports that the TWRC has not used the proper government-approved tendering process in handing out contracts. In a world where everything is political and every political act suspect, that creates an instant perception of wrong-doing.
In the meantime, downstairs from the TWRC's quarters in Queen's Quay Terminal at the foot of York St., workers are busy building a new Sobey's supermarket.
The conjunction of events might not seem especially significant to the TWRC folks, but in fact it is proof that the goal they're after — a waterfront neighbourhood — is already being realized. Indeed, it has been happening for several decades.
But the appearance of Sobey's marks an especially interesting turn of events. Originally conceived as a tourist destination, QQT never really succeeded; for half the year, winter, it's dead. In the meantime, however, thousands of people have moved into the area, occupying the new condo towers that have gone up on the north side of Queens Quay W., the same towers that Torontonians love to hate.
Though there has been endless grousing about the "concrete condo curtain" that separates the city and Lake Ontario, there has been no shortage of people willing to live in these buildings. Their complaint is that there are too few places to shop and eat and that the area lacks amenities.
But in this part of the world, whether it's the waterfront, Rexdale or Mississauga, the tradition has been to do things backwards; the issue now is to drag civilization to the places where the population has moved.
With the notable exception of the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood, one of Toronto's most successful experiments in social housing, planners and politicians were content to allow development to happen one project at a time. This piecemeal approach is great for producing tract housing, industrial parks and suburban sprawl, but it's not so good at producing neighbourhoods.
Back in the 1980s, for example, residents of the west end of Queens Quay W. had to mount a battle to get a school and community centre. Many towers had been built, occupied by thousands of people, but no one had given a thought to the other elements that make up a neighbourhood.
In the older suburbs, of course, the task ahead is to figure out how to turn the homogeneity of single-use-zoning and industrial-scale development into something that possesses the organic diversity of a real city.
The waterfront — and the vast swaths of abandoned land it includes — represents the city's last chance to build new downtown neighbourhoods that are intelligent, sustainable and mixed.
Instead, the TWRC has been embroiled in jurisdictional disputes from the moment it was formed five years ago. Most recently, the provincial Liberals, in a fit of panic, announced that a new power-generating station would go on the waterfront, the last place it belongs. Then the out-of-control (federal) Toronto Port Authority declared it would expand the Toronto island airport after all.
On the other hand, the Toronto Economic Development Corp. has been forced to sign a memorandum of understanding that acknowledges the primacy of the TWRC.
Last year, an MOU was signed with the Ontario Realty Corp, another major waterfront player.
This year, $500 million worth of projects are due to begin. Most remarkably, requests will go out this fall for the West Donlands community.
Now, insiders tell us that Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty recently phoned Mayor David Miller to assure him the Tories want to work with the city, not against it. Flaherty was polite, even courteous, they say, more than they expected from the Liberals' Toronto minister, Joe Volpe.
The tide hasn't necessarily turned, but the water's rising.
Feb. 14, 2006. 01:00 AM
CHRISTOPHER HUME
Ottawa is finally interested in Toronto's waterfront. Last week, a team of federal forensic auditors showed at the offices of the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. to take a look at the books.
They arrived to check reports that the TWRC has not used the proper government-approved tendering process in handing out contracts. In a world where everything is political and every political act suspect, that creates an instant perception of wrong-doing.
In the meantime, downstairs from the TWRC's quarters in Queen's Quay Terminal at the foot of York St., workers are busy building a new Sobey's supermarket.
The conjunction of events might not seem especially significant to the TWRC folks, but in fact it is proof that the goal they're after — a waterfront neighbourhood — is already being realized. Indeed, it has been happening for several decades.
But the appearance of Sobey's marks an especially interesting turn of events. Originally conceived as a tourist destination, QQT never really succeeded; for half the year, winter, it's dead. In the meantime, however, thousands of people have moved into the area, occupying the new condo towers that have gone up on the north side of Queens Quay W., the same towers that Torontonians love to hate.
Though there has been endless grousing about the "concrete condo curtain" that separates the city and Lake Ontario, there has been no shortage of people willing to live in these buildings. Their complaint is that there are too few places to shop and eat and that the area lacks amenities.
But in this part of the world, whether it's the waterfront, Rexdale or Mississauga, the tradition has been to do things backwards; the issue now is to drag civilization to the places where the population has moved.
With the notable exception of the St. Lawrence Neighbourhood, one of Toronto's most successful experiments in social housing, planners and politicians were content to allow development to happen one project at a time. This piecemeal approach is great for producing tract housing, industrial parks and suburban sprawl, but it's not so good at producing neighbourhoods.
Back in the 1980s, for example, residents of the west end of Queens Quay W. had to mount a battle to get a school and community centre. Many towers had been built, occupied by thousands of people, but no one had given a thought to the other elements that make up a neighbourhood.
In the older suburbs, of course, the task ahead is to figure out how to turn the homogeneity of single-use-zoning and industrial-scale development into something that possesses the organic diversity of a real city.
The waterfront — and the vast swaths of abandoned land it includes — represents the city's last chance to build new downtown neighbourhoods that are intelligent, sustainable and mixed.
Instead, the TWRC has been embroiled in jurisdictional disputes from the moment it was formed five years ago. Most recently, the provincial Liberals, in a fit of panic, announced that a new power-generating station would go on the waterfront, the last place it belongs. Then the out-of-control (federal) Toronto Port Authority declared it would expand the Toronto island airport after all.
On the other hand, the Toronto Economic Development Corp. has been forced to sign a memorandum of understanding that acknowledges the primacy of the TWRC.
Last year, an MOU was signed with the Ontario Realty Corp, another major waterfront player.
This year, $500 million worth of projects are due to begin. Most remarkably, requests will go out this fall for the West Donlands community.
Now, insiders tell us that Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty recently phoned Mayor David Miller to assure him the Tories want to work with the city, not against it. Flaherty was polite, even courteous, they say, more than they expected from the Liberals' Toronto minister, Joe Volpe.
The tide hasn't necessarily turned, but the water's rising.