So, you are faulting others for not enacting the right policies (oddly enough, because other councillors are just as interested in preserving the status quo) just so that development can be dumped in the core? Okay.
That's not what I said at all. I simply think we need not damage some of the strongest components of the core because the City can't get its act together to enact reasonable development policies. You seem to think that because Council has been foolish, we should then be even more foolish.
In other words, they aren't acting all that differently - I mean, are those OP policies any more crazy than the ones restricting growth in neighbourhoods?
Yes, profoundly so. I can only assume you're joking.
If you think that not having an added supply of something will not translate into prices going from merely high to stratospheric, we've got news for you. Besides, what is it that you are suggesting - that we should preserve DROs so that they can remain high-end housing - and eventually become stratospheric-end housing in the city? That is exactly what is happening - what kind of policy outcome is THAT? Who are we making these DRO neighbourhoods immutable for? The upper-middle (increasingly upper) class with Rosedale-esque aspirations?
Except that this incremental approach that you've suddenly switched to is not going to eliminate 40+ FSI proposals, is only going to result in high-end expensive infill projects, and isn't going to meanigfully increase supply. You won't improve affordability, or meaningfully affect prices in lower-rise neighbourhoods. To achieve a different result on any one of those points, you would need to much more radically transform those neighbourhoods. You need to stop pretending you're not talking about bulldozing and blockbusting. You would threaten the fabric of neighbourhoods that constribute significantly to the strength of our core, without accomplishing any of your objectives, when they are much more logical and more justifiable places to be directing development in a way that can actually achieve the results you want.
And again, nobody said these neighbourhoods should be immutable. Enough with the neighbours who try to stop 6-storey midrise down the street on a streetcar route, or who help block townhouses across from a subway station. As I've said before, these people need to get used to more density on the major streets near them, and seeing taller buildings from their yards. As I noted, many of these neighbourhoods are zoned R already, and permit higher density forms of housing already as-of-right. As I have said repeatedly on more than one occasion, there are so very many appropriate sites for densification along arterials and transit corridors. Let's get serious about building along our Avenues, and streets that should be arterials, before we start bulldozing neighbourhoods (which, with all dues respect, is exactly what you are advocating).
The upper-middle (increasingly upper) class with Rosedale-esque aspirations?
Your argument is veering away from planning and into grievance here.
