[College Park]

This weekend I came upon the inner sanctum of 103/105 West Lodge, and admired the fantastic concrete UFO shapes over the front entrances (I will have to post pics later, but you can see the backside of the complex in EVCco's pics). Despite these towers having been run to ruin by the Wynn family, these scultures and the courtyard still speak to a vision of pleasant middle-class towers in the 1960s.

I also peeked into the parking garage that the Wynn's applied to have torn down in the 1990's, and that is a scary place. The dim lights, peeling rotting paint, people sitting in their cars (!), and a smell of wet decaying concrete combined to make my hair stand on end. I can't image for the life of me why the tenants fought the Wynn's to keep it and replace it with open-air surface parking - the "parkland" that would have been consumed by surface parking is akin to industrial brownlands, and if I were a tenant, I wouldn't park my car in that goblin's den if you paid me.

 

[admc]

Nice shots!

 

[grey]

One heck of an article right here:

http://www.thegridto.com/city/places/the-resistance-movement/

 

[Ben Lamond]

One heck of an article right here:

http://www.thegridto.com/city/places/the-resistance-movement/

Merry Christmas and thanks for the interesting article. I check out the Grid occasionally, but would not have known about this article if you hadn't pointed it out. I thought it was a good piece of journalism that brought me up to speed on things in the area with regard to housing and development. Maybe it's the way the information was presented, but I began questioning Councillor Perks' judgment and his opposition to change. Parkdale needs positive leadership and people who can say yes readily when no harm is intended. I think of the bit about the sushi place owners and (what reads as) his knee-jerk response to oppose their application. If I were them I would be seriously wondering what I had gotten myself into.

 

[Towered]

Gord Perks is an idiot.

 

[angvolpe]

I thought some of you might be interested in filling out this survey about the process of gentrification throughout the neighbourhood of Parkdale.
The purpose of this survey is to gain some knowledge regarding the Parkdale neighbourhood and use the results for a University Urban Studies Research Paper. Your responses will remain anonymous.

I would really like to get some feedback from all of you. It would be greatly appreciated!
If you'd like to fill out this survey, simply click on the link below:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V5LQHDF

Thank you!

 

[Ben Lamond]

I thought some of you might be interested in filling out this survey about the process of gentrification throughout the neighbourhood of Parkdale.
The purpose of this survey is to gain some knowledge regarding the Parkdale neighbourhood and use the results for a University Urban Studies Research Paper. Your responses will remain anonymous.

I would really like to get some feedback from all of you. It would be greatly appreciated!
If you'd like to fill out this survey, simply click on the link below:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/V5LQHDF

Thank you!

I have read through your brief survey and have some concerns regarding it. The tenor and implied bias is distressing, for example:
"Who do you think are the groups of people that are displaced or 'kicked out' of the neighbourhood because of 'gentrifiers'"

Your questions imply that people are being removed by an external force of aliens. Better questions would be: why do you perceive incomers to neighborhoods as alien and unwelcome? Is movement in and around a city a negative part of life? I have lived in 6 or more different neighborhoods of Toronto in my life. Was it bad that I felt the need or want to move elsewhere at different points in my life due to my financial or personal circumstances? I wonder how people would react if your questions were more targeted, viz. if you changed the topic from "Parkdale" to "Chinatown" and replaced your term "groups of people" in the question above with "Chinese" and "gentrifiers" with "Vietnamese". The questions themselves beg their own responses, and appear to be looking for self-serving answers based on the writer's own biases.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Your questions imply that people are being removed by an external force of aliens.

Unless you are evicted for valid reasons under the RTA, movement in and out of Parkdale is voluntary. Since more than 90% of homes in Parkdale are rentals, current tenants can remain as long as they like, as maximum annual rent increases as determined by the province is small. This will affect some residents though.

But since Parkdale is largely a neighbourhood of recent immigrants and marginalized people, it is very transitory.

As a longtime resident of Parkdale, and as someone who has been both an owner and a renter in Parkdale, as well as managing a rental building in Parkdale...I can say that Parkdale was in dire need of some gentrification. The death-spiral Parkdale had been in for years might have been good for cheap rent, but there are only two inevitable ends to this....gentrification or ghetto. It is myopic to think that this world of below market rents is sustainable forever.

In recent years, Parkdale has gone from an undesirable neighbourhood, to to one of the most desirable neighbourhoods to certain demographics. Because of its good bones....proximity to downtown and the fact that it's commercial stretch is the last bastion of the "Queen West", gentrification is inevitable and unstoppable.

 

[freshcutgrass]

Thanks to yet another recent gastronomic addition to Queen, Glory Hole Doughnuts, Parkdale is now how to the $5 doughnut.

 

[waltthizzney]

Thanks to yet another recent gastronomic addition to Queen, Glory Hole Doughnuts, Parkdale is now how to the $5 doughnut.

could not agree more... what is it with this city and glamorizing working class food... not very well I might add, under the sheet of a nice typeface... When people say Torontonians "try to hard" this is exactly what they mean. Support your local bakery not someone trying to slang 5 dollar donuts with a twitter

 

[CanadianNational]

Well, a friend and I just made a pilgrimage to Glory Hole doughnuts and it was well worth the walk for the cataclysmic sugar rush we got alone. (I ate two - the cookies and cream, and the black forest cake). The rush was staggering. I felt glazed just walking out of the shop. They weren't quite five dollars if I remember correctly, more like $3.50.

It was good to take a stroll through Parkdale again. I lived there in '89. It really does feel a lot better, and it's good to see the new businesses that have popped up. It's the difference between a place in confusion and stasis that felt shut off from the rest of the city, and one that feels included again and more vital. I wouldn't worry too much about it becoming too gentrified too fast. There's plenty of troubling and woebegone airs to last for some time.
The architecture along Queen there can be wonderful. I certainly hope more of the grand old buildings get rescued and renovated.

 

[King of Kensington]

Parkdale has seen partial gentrification but there a lot of factors holding it back...remember that the majority of residents are renters in high rise buildings.

I expect 10 years from now income levels will remain well below the GTA average, though there has been an increase in the number of university-educated professionals buying houses etc.

In some ways one could argue Parkdale is like Cabbagetown/Parliament St. - where the poor and people in social housing share the commercial space with the well-to-do. The difference however is that the status lines are more obvious - with the east of Parliament (and north of Gerrard) zone being very affluent and composed almost entirely of single-family homes. There are no "wealthy" census tracts in Parkdale.

 

[King of Kensington]

I wonder how people would react if your questions were more targeted, viz. if you changed the topic from "Parkdale" to "Chinatown" and replaced your term "groups of people" in the question above with "Chinese" and "gentrifiers" with "Vietnamese". The questions themselves beg their own responses, and appear to be looking for self-serving answers based on the writer's own biases.

"Chinatown is now Vietnamese" is an urban legend. In fact, the Chinese community is about 10 times the size of the Vietnamese community in the area.

 

[ShonTron]

This is one reason why I can't stand Gord Perks. He just pushed through a complete clampdown on new businesses on Queen Street in Parkdale.

Parkdale gets moratorium on new eateries and bars
Published on Monday November 12, 2012

ALYSHAH HASHAM/TORONTO STAR Samantha Lerner and Alisa Sadler are co-owners of GO Lounge, a soon-to-open board-game cafe in Parkdale. Future businesses like theirs will need to wait at least a year.
Alyshah Hasham
Staff Reporter

“Partydale” is getting a time-out. New restaurants, bars, bakeries, rooftop patios or “places of amusement” in the Parkdale area (Queen St. West between Roncesvalles Ave. and Dufferin St.) have been banned for a year as the city completes a study on changing the area zoning bylaw.

“I’m worried that the neighbourhood is hitting a tipping point,” said Councillor Gord Perks (Ward 14, Parkdale-High Park) who introduced the moratorium to city council after noting the constant stream of liquor licence applications in the area and complaints from residents about vandalism, noise, garbage and congestion.

“We’re already at a point where a third of all the businesses in the area are restaurants. We’re at the point where sidewalks are jammed every Friday night at 1 a.m.”

The interim bylaw, passed by council on Oct. 30, 2012, requires no advance notice or community consultation — avoiding a rush of last-minute hopping on the trendy Parkdale bandwagon.

The controversial tool, used by the city to guide community development, was previously used on a strip of Ossington in 2009.

The result could be a contentious zoning bylaw like the one eventually put in place in Ossington, restricting new bars, cafes, restaurants, bakeries and takeout places to ground-level and of a size no more than 225 square metres.

But both residents and business are unsure how beneficial it will be in Parkdale.

...

 

[freshcutgrass]

We’re at the point where sidewalks are jammed every Friday night at 1 a.m.”

Yea...it was so much better when it was only hookers and drug dealers on the streets at those hours. ha

The powers that be are simply grasping at ways to combat the gentrification, which will inevitably have a negative effect on the neighbourhoods massive marginalized populace.

Parkdale's reputation as a huge repository of the marginalized without nimby backlash is very valuable to the city.

The problem isn't really the businesses that are opening on Queen at all...it's that it is attracting shit tons of twenty-something hipsters that want to live in Parkdale, and this is affecting the housing market in Parkdale. All of a sudden, Parkdale is a hugely desirable neighbourhood for a certain demographic....this has never been the case before.

The marginalized are getting...and will continue to get pushed out due to gentrification. Why rent to a bunch of ODSP/Welfarians, when you can fix the place up a bit and get twice the rent from a hipster with his Børge Mogensen sofa.

Remember Rob Ford's speech back when he was a councillor, when they were suggesting a shelter be put in his ward? That's why the city loves Parkdale....they think it keeps the riffraff out of their neighbourhood.

Trust me....I know. I manage an apartment building in Parkdale.