[Northern Light]

If you any of you are emotionally attached to the Toyota dealership at the corner of Leslie and Eglinton, you may wish to make some time to say your goodbyes.

The AIC tells us, that this site (below) shall soon metamorphasize.

Application Details

app.toronto.ca

So let's look into the details, shall we?

Landscape Plan (No planted buffer between pedestrians and the traffic on Eglinton)

Comments:

Nothing wrong w/density here per se; lots wrong w/this site plan, a lot of which has to do with failure to properly coordinate development between this parcel and those to the north.

Multiple developments have occurred or are proposed in the Leslie Corridor.

To date, there is no plan for a new public elementary school to serve any of these.

A walkable City naturally includes access to a grocery store, given the large elevation change between this site and Don Mills, contemplating people walking to that street to get groceries is not reasonable, on one of the Leslie sites, a supermarket should be provided.

The sidewalks fronting Eglinton and Leslie do not proposed any landscaped buffers between pedestrians and high-volume, high-speed traffic, this is unacceptable.

I'd also like to see clear plans for cycling promotion, including, but not limited to, full cycle tracks on the adjacent section of Eglinton; full cycle tracks or Multi-use Trail along Leslie; internal to site protected cycling facilities.

Collectively, the Leslie sites are now dense enough to justify a full network of basic community services, including a library (neither Flemindon, or Don Mills are reasonable in distance or elevation change; and the former is profoundly under-sized.

In summation, I'm fine w/the density, but a good deal here needs to be re-thought to have a sustainable community; and to accommodate existing and planned growth in the Leslie Corridor.

 

[Undead]

Ahh finally. Been waiting for this one for a while.

 

[cd concept]

WOW ! Three towers of the 150m skyscraper mark. Which brings the total of proposed skyscrapers up to 190 in the city. With the combined skyscrapers built, under construction and stale proposal etc also added to a final total number of 311. Keeping count as of today come close to the 350 over all skyscrapers in N.Y CITY . THAT'S AWESOME T.O. lOl!

 

[AlbertC]

Flatiron building proposed as part of massive development along Crosstown LRT route

A five-tower condo community is being proposed at Leslie Road and Eglinton Avenue, near the Ontario Science Centre

streetsoftoronto.com

A five-tower condo community is being proposed at Leslie Road and Eglinton Avenue, near the Ontario Science Centre.

The site now holds two car dealerships and is surrounded by greenspace, including Sunnybrook Park and Wilket Creek Park. The proposal submitted in September by Rowntree Enterprises, which has a background in car dealerships, calls for five towers ranging from 13 to 29 storeys, totalling 1,846 residential units.

At the northwest corner, an 18-storey tower would be atop a flatiron podium. At the south end, two towers 49 and 45 storeys tall would share a five-storey podium. At the northeast side there would be a 49-storey tower with a 14- and nine-storey step-back podium. The shortest tower, located in a northeast offshoot, would be 13 storeys.

A 2,734 square metre public park – about 10 per cent of the total site area – is included in the centre of the towers, and two new public roads from Eglinton and Leslie would be created that would go into the site. The proposed complex would be just to the south of Tridel’s Augerge on the Park development, a three-tower complex currently under construction that ranges from 45 and 29 storeys. It would also be north of the upcoming Sunnybrook Park LRT station, though the completion of the LRT was recently delayed until 2023.

City planning staff told Post City in a statement that they will be focused on the configuration of the new public streets, the orientation and size of the parkland, as well as the height and density of the site, the latter of which is projected to be nearly five times the area of the lot.

“(These considerations are to) ensure a pedestrian sense of scale is maintained,” city planner Michelle Charkow said.

Residents, meanwhile, are somewhat concerned about the density but admit that it could be worse.

“We think the density is a bit much and the site planning will need some tweaking, but it isn’t too bad,” Don Mills Residents Inc. VP Brian Story said in a statement.

“A recurring theme with all recent developments is that the local community loses services (car dealership & service centre in this case) in favour of residences. A balance is needed in this regard.”

 

[AlbertC]

Rowntree plans five residential towers for eastern Toronto car dealership lots - Daily Commercial News

Rowntree Enterprises has announced plans for a five-tower residential project that will replace existing Toyota and Lexus dealerships in east Toronto and create over 1,800 new units of housing. The 28,350-square-metre mixed-use development at 1075 Leslie

canada.constructconnect.com

Rowntree Enterprises has announced plans for a five-tower residential project that will replace existing Toyota and Lexus dealerships in east Toronto and create over 1,800 new units of housing.

The 28,350-square-metre mixed-use development at 1075 Leslie near Eglinton would include residences ranging from 13 to 49 storeys located less than one kilometre from the proposed Science Centre station on the planned Ontario Line LRT. The designer is BDP Quadrangle.

Consultants for Rowntree say current zoning permits the proposed land use and thus an Official Plan Amendment is not required, rather just an amendment to the current zoning bylaw. They argue the project conforms to the Provincial Policy Statement, the Growth plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and the City of Toronto Official Plan, all of which promote intensification on underutilized sites.

But asked when a start to construction is targeted, Rowntree CFO Wes Neichenbauer throws up his hands.

“I don’t even know that I think about that to be honest because the process is so long and complicated and difficult,” he said. “It’s funny because the guys at the dealership kind of want to know where our head is. We’ll probably be two-and-a-half years of interactions with the city before I can even try to answer that question.”

In Neichenbauer’s view, new provincial legislation such as the More Homes Built Faster Act and the Strong Mayors Act do little to address continuing procedural inertia, staffing problems and ongoing friction between developers and the city.

“Unfortunately, there’s so much animosity right now between developers and the city,” said Neichenbauer. “I think there’s been a lot of frustration that’s been built up over a long period of time.”

----------
Besides an amended zoning bylaw, the proposal also requires approval of a Draft Plan of Subdivision and Site Plan Approval, all of which have been submitted together. The development would provide a range in size of units and would be primarily condominiums, Neichenbauer said. No development partner has yet been chosen.

Neichenbauer said the proposal was submitted over a year ago and the waiting started.

“We’ve spent $3-, $4 million making a submission, and the first thing we get back is an 88-page double-sided letter of problems,” he said. “You’re dealing with all these individual departments at the city and you’ve worked very hard to satisfy a number of engineering, traffic, whomever else.”

Neichenbauer said the Auberge project will take “easily” over 10 years from start to finish and he does not have any idea how long the latest project will take. But he said he does not blame city staff for the slow pace, given limitations on staffing and salaries and other factors.

“The city has to take leadership on this stuff,” he said.

One solution would be for the city to take the politics out of the process and when certain development criteria are met, developers will as of right be able to build to predetermined heights and densities.

“It would be very helpful if there were clear, easy-to-understand policies and you knew…you’re not going to be fighting with the city councillors,” said Neichenbauer.

Asked for comment from the mayor’s office or the planning department, a city media relations officer offered a link to the City’s Concept 2 Keys (C2K) policy, which includes plans for reforms and a timetable as part of an “end to end review of the development review process.”

“The city is transforming the development review process from pre-application consultation to occupancy by reimagining organizational structures, processes and technology,” the site stated.

The C2K program is establishing development review teams in each of the city’s districts consisting of staff from several city divisions who will work collaboratively.

New operating model and review teams are established in Etobicoke York and Scarborough and will be operational in North York, Toronto and East York by the end of Q1 2023.

 

[Dhj]

Flatiron building proposed as part of massive development along Crosstown LRT route

A five-tower condo community is being proposed at Leslie Road and Eglinton Avenue, near the Ontario Science Centre

streetsoftoronto.com

Kinda funny to me that the statement seems to imply the loss of the car dealership and service centre as a big subtraction to the services in the area... It's not like this removes a school or grocery store.

Also, can't imagine how this will affect traffic flow in the area if they add 2 more streets entering the site (one on Eglinton and one on Leslie) - especially on the Leslie side, given there's already a driveway for the dealership (not sure if they'd do away with this) and a new street for Auberge, in addition to the existing driveway (with a traffic light) for the existing Tridel buildings.

 

[Northern Light]

Globe and Mail piece on this site and the broader future of car dealerships in urban areas.

(not paywalled at time of posting)

New Toronto development points to a shift in land and consumer car use

Replacement of expansive dealership, service centre, in step with a post-car future

www.theglobeandmail.com

 

[flonicky]

Again, like The Residences of Central Park, the early renders look like a project that doesn't appreciate its location.

Here's an example of what I mean. This is Palace Gate condos at Bayview and Finch. It's located by a ravine (and not a great ravine) but not on a ravine. So the builder made that little forest you see on the corner and at first it was puzzling because those trees were tiny when they were planted and it did not look good.

But now it's a little oasis and because you know that you're located right next to an actual ravine, there's a psychological connection between this space and the natural space even though there's an eighty-lane intersection separating them. This was a desperate act in a less-than-ideal location and it mostly works. Central Park and 1075 Leslie have beautiful locations ... and they shrug.