Northern Light
Superstar
Let's start this off by noting that this application was foreseen by the sleuthing of UT's @AlbertC about 9 months ago w/this post:
https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/church-wellesley-village.5147/post-1783216.
An aggressive turnaround time in that this site was being vended on the market 9 months ago, and applications were filed last month.
Site as-is, from my follow up to Albert's post, then the app.:
Here we go:
From the Docs:
3 elevators to 439 units will not meet the @ProjectEnd sniff test for this one.
Comments:
I'm surprised to see no allowance made for a public easement/future park on the west side of the site.
It's already a constrained site; but Parks has had its eye on the idea of making the Yonge St. Linear Park system continuous for a generation.
I also wonder about cumulative shadow impact on proposed City Park just to the north-west (the Green P lot).
Finally, on heritage, the dismissive take on the Heritage of 33 Maitland doesn't read well to me.
Frankly, I think its facade is the more attractive of the two buildings currently on the site.
Heritage as legislated by Ontario and practiced in Toronto under-weights the aesthetic and contextual value of buildings/facades in my judgement. This results in some really odd buildings being saved that are loved by almost no one, for no compelling reason except age, and the relative rarity of their mundaneness, while failing to preserve something people broadly appreciate, because there are another 1/2 dozen examples of it in the City.
https://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/church-wellesley-village.5147/post-1783216.
An aggressive turnaround time in that this site was being vended on the market 9 months ago, and applications were filed last month.
Site as-is, from my follow up to Albert's post, then the app.:
Here we go:
Application Details
app.toronto.ca
From the Docs:
3 elevators to 439 units will not meet the @ProjectEnd sniff test for this one.
Comments:
I'm surprised to see no allowance made for a public easement/future park on the west side of the site.
It's already a constrained site; but Parks has had its eye on the idea of making the Yonge St. Linear Park system continuous for a generation.
I also wonder about cumulative shadow impact on proposed City Park just to the north-west (the Green P lot).
Finally, on heritage, the dismissive take on the Heritage of 33 Maitland doesn't read well to me.
Frankly, I think its facade is the more attractive of the two buildings currently on the site.
Heritage as legislated by Ontario and practiced in Toronto under-weights the aesthetic and contextual value of buildings/facades in my judgement. This results in some really odd buildings being saved that are loved by almost no one, for no compelling reason except age, and the relative rarity of their mundaneness, while failing to preserve something people broadly appreciate, because there are another 1/2 dozen examples of it in the City.