Globe: Green Acres? Not Really (Lorinc on Downsview Park)
From the Globe, Toronto Section:
Green acres? Not really
Downsview's 'urban park' invites the developers in
JOHN LORINC
Special to The Globe and Mail
In a hockey-mad city, Ted Badner worried for years that Toronto needed more space for house league basketball. "There are kids coming out [who] can't find a place to play," the coach says.
But after four years of searching, Mr. Badner has found a site: an old hangar at Parc Downsview Park (PDP), where later this month he'll launch Hoopdome, a seven-court basketball facility.
It's the latest in a string of small developments at the decommissioned military base, which Prime Minister Jean Chrétien promised in 1994 would become a "national urban park." Despite grand ideas for the site and an international design competition, little has happened there.
That may be about to change. Last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper chose Downsview to unveil a $697-million grant for the Spadina subway expansion, which will put a new station at the north end of the park by 2014.
But what will the park look like? Despite the high-profile landscaping visions produced by the design competition in 2000 -- the winning team was led by Bruce Mau Design and the star architect Rem Koolhaas -- only a third of Downsview Park will become a green oasis. The rest is evolving into a massive, speculative real estate development whose planning appears to be beyond the city's control.
Today, PDP isn't recognizable as a park. The property is the size of the entire downtown core, from the Gardiner to Bloor and Spadina to Parliament. The vast tract houses a collection of old military buildings and runways, crisscrossed by rail tracks and wrapped around a working Bombardier jet factory. There's an aerospace museum, and some of the buildings have been leased out to private operators, who run a go-kart track and a flea market.
Since December, the park's management -- a Crown corporation -- has been shopping around a new development plan for a large arc of fallow land along the north end of the site. It proposes extensive commercial development south of Sheppard Avenue and 3,000 units of housing, both single-family and high-rise condos.
This plan bears little connection to Mr. Mau's lofty, abstract "Tree City" vision, which involved looping paths, terraces and new forests. (That was only limited to a third of PDP's area, and much of the remainder appears to be up for grabs.) Indeed, PDP and Mr. Mau's firm have parted ways. "We've just finished a relationship with him," says Tony Genco, the park's CEO.
Sources say the Conservative government, shortly after it was elected, was keen to get development moving in the area. The government is shaking up the park's board, while PDP officials, over the coming year, will spend $5.6-million on tree planting, outdoor sports fields and a small lake. These features will augment the PDP's existing indoor programs, such as soccer and go-karting.
The new blueprint marks the first time the PDP has publicly stated that it intends to sell off a substantial chunk of its holdings -- 32 hectares, or 14 per cent of the park's land -- to residential builders. Financial statements prepared by PDP last year project almost $50-million from property sales between 2008 and 2011, although the arrival of the subway will likely increase real estate windfalls. "Every dollar we make here stays here," says Mr. Genco.
But the PDP's schemes leave some planning experts cold. "Downsview is an exemplar of what not to do," says planner Tony Coombes, who consulted for PDP until 2003. He feels the park management is failing to seize the opportunity to add "enormous value" to the naturalized sections of the site, which could be achieved by surrounding these with dense residential neighbourhoods, as with London's Regent Park or New York's Central Park.
Indeed, two of the residential development sites are tucked into the northwest and southwest corners of the site. One is off Keele, north of Wilson; the other is an area near the intersection of Keele and Sheppard that's currently used for military housing. Off to the east, the third parcel faces Downsview subway station and a 1,500-unit condo project being developed next to the Idomo furniture store. Only one of the sites abuts PDP's natural area, and none are within easy walking distance of the zone set aside for cultural and sports facilities.
As for the planned subway station, PDP doesn't plan to put residential development next to it, citing the proximity to the Bombardier Aerospace runway that bisects the park.
Mr. Coombes, who drew up the blueprint for Toronto's waterfront revitalization, also condemns PDP for failing to devise a hard-nosed business plan that lays out a phased development strategy. "There's simply no understanding of the job to be done."
Mr. Genco seems to take a more laissez-faire approach to land sales: "When we put a block out on the market, the market will decide what's doable and what's not doable," he says. Asked what becomes of the vision in the new blueprint if developers won't bite, he replies, "We'll simply adjust in a pragmatic and reasonable fashion."
When the park was established in the mid-1990s, it was much more about ideals than real estate pragmatism. At the time, the former Liberal government emphasized grand public space features and made vague acknowledgments that these would be financed from commercial development elsewhere on the site, plus $100-million in funding over 20 years.
In 2000, PDP quietly sold a 13-hectare swath on Wilson Avenue to a pair of big-box retailers for $19.9-million -- a move sharply criticized by the Auditor-General because the deal wasn't approved by Parliament. No development has taken place since then, mainly because Ottawa didn't formally transfer the land to PDP until last year.
Development sources say there isn't much buzz about the PDP's latest blueprint. "There have been numerous false starts," says one industry insider. "That's the reality."
The City of Toronto, however, has been closely monitoring PDP's activities, and there is a rapidly widening rift between the agency and the municipality over the way this massive redevelopment will be planned and approved.
City officials believe PDP must observe provincial planning laws. Mr. Genco insists that, as a Crown corporation, PDP is not bound by these rules, which include public consultation requirements and zoning bylaws. On the day of last week's subway announcement, city council unanimously called on PDP to respect local planning. "We're saying, let's get some buy-in from the local neighbourhoods, let's go through the planning process," says Chris Phibbs, Mayor David Miller's senior planning advisor.
With the coming subway construction, she adds, "We're going to be working together, so we're going to have to figure out how to do this."
Mr. Genco replies that PDP isn't a conventional developer because the proceeds from land deals are cycled back into the park's recreational and cultural amenities. "We're starting from a different perspective. This is ultimately about public space."
Yet PDP's refusal to play ball may also be about expediting development deals. And its approach sets PDP apart from other large public agencies developing land in the city, like the Canada Lands Corp. and the Toronto Waterfront Revitalization Corp. But whether the city has any leverage with PDP remains to be seen. Says Ms. Phibbs: "They don't have to listen to us."
But the fight over the planning process isn't just about duelling bureaucracies. The arrival of the subway will intensify development pressure. To Mr. Coombes, it's all the more reason to ensure that PDP doesn't squander a unique opportunity by hiving off large swaths of real estate to big-box retailers, isolated condo towers and drab industrial complexes. As he puts it: "They should not begin selling off land until there's a business plan and a physical plan of development."
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Why am I not a bit suprised about the great outcome that is the PDP process?
AoD
