This is weirdo semantics. The pattern is clear: the only blocks in this general area that have population growth post-1972 are the ones where new apartment buildings were added. So if you include Yorkville, which is an odd definition, you get an opposite result.

The house areas have shrunk by a lot.

IMG_0754.jpeg


As for current population growth, Wikipedia’s data collation appears to be wrong. censusmapper.ca, which is reliable, shows decline 2011-2016 across the area west of Avenue Road.

IMG_0756.jpeg


None of this is to say that the 45 Spadina project is necessarily great. But “the Annex is plenty dense already, so leave it alone” is a poor argument.

The places in the Annex *that have apartment buildings* are dense.

As @AlvinofDiaspar said, the transition from triplex to single-family has been going on for a generation now, and the only way to counter it is to build bigger buildings.
 
This is weirdo semantics. The pattern is clear: the only blocks in this general area that have population growth post-1972 are the ones where new apartment buildings were added. So if you include Yorkville, which is an odd definition, you get an opposite result.

The house areas have shrunk by a lot.

There is nothing semantic about it.

The area has added apartment buildings, so it has added people.

The notion that because it hasn't added people on every single street/block there is a problem is a bit bizarre.

People in apartments count too; I say that as someone who lives in one.

As for current population growth, Wikipedia’s data collation appears to be wrong. censusmapper.ca, which is reliable, shows decline 2011-2016 across the area west of Avenue Road.

The link your provided links to a comparison of 2016-2021. When I examine the link for 2011-2016, I show 2 of the 3 tracts as positive growth.


Suffice to say, we'll agree the overall area is not high growth, but neither is it spiraling downward.

None of this is to say that the 45 Spadina project is necessarily great. But “the Annex is plenty dense already, so leave it alone” is a poor argument.

I certainly did not make that argument.

I simply stated the area is dense (which it is) and is not in a state of population collapse.

I do not oppose additional density in The Annex, I simply want to debate the merits of any given proposal without hyperbole (on either side) and let the facts stands as they are without
and finessing.

The places in the Annex *that have apartment buildings* are dense.

The Annex is one neighbourhood. Your position is extreme, that any area of less crowded Kowloon City density is somehow insufficiently dense. I argue for nuance.
 
The notion that because it hasn't added people on every single street/block there is a problem is a bit bizarre.
You can spin the population figures for the Annex and somehow try to show them in a more positive light. At the end of the day, the lack of growth in the Annex is entirely a policy decision made by planners and elected leaders. There is no reasonable argument in the year 2024 for the City to prevent the redevelopment of low-rise streets in one of the neighbourhoods in the country with the best access to public transit, cycling infrastructure, community services, and local amenities. Every housing unit not built in the Annex is one more housing unit built beside a highway or in a sprawling GTA exurb.
 
There is nothing semantic about it.

The area has added apartment buildings, so it has added people.

The notion that because it hasn't added people on every single street/block there is a problem is a bit bizarre.

People in apartments count too; I say that as someone who lives in one.



The link your provided links to a comparison of 2016-2021. When I examine the link for 2011-2016, I show 2 of the 3 tracts as positive growth.


Suffice to say, we'll agree the overall area is not high growth, but neither is it spiraling downward.



I certainly did not make that argument.

I simply stated the area is dense (which it is) and is not in a state of population collapse.

I do not oppose additional density in The Annex, I simply want to debate the merits of any given proposal without hyperbole (on either side) and let the facts stands as they are without
and finessing.



The Annex is one neighbourhood. Your position is extreme, that any area of less crowded Kowloon City density is somehow insufficiently dense. I argue for nuance.

I dont think he argued that Kowloon density was the goal, nor did he argue that every single block needs to have additional density.

What he argued, i think, is that the vast amount of land area in the Annex, is being hollowed out. If we had 1 500-storey tower and 1000 acres of farmland we would say there is opportunity, I think.

In any case. Agree to disagree I guess.
 
You can spin the population figures for the Annex and somehow try to show them in a more positive light.

Unlike others here, I don't do 'spin'. I post exact, real, numbers with citations. Spin is when you decide that the facts are positive or negative, I did no such thing, I simply put the facts out there to correct a statement that was not accurate.

At the end of the day, the lack of growth in the Annex is entirely a policy decision made by planners and elected leaders

Sure, to a point. Leaders didn't order the rooming houses consolidated, nor did they dictate that aging people had to stay in the homes in which they raised their children as emptynesters, but sure, its absolutely a policy decision as to how much growth to permit or incent/facilitate.

. There is no reasonable argument in the year 2024 for the City to prevent the redevelopment of low-rise streets in one of the neighbourhoods in the country with the best access to public transit, cycling infrastructure, community services, and local amenities. Every housing unit not built in the Annex is one more housing unit built beside a highway or in a sprawling GTA exurb.

Fundamentally here, we completely disagree, and I would argue, the facts are on my side here.

Demand for housing, driven by population growth, primarily, via foreign students and temporary foreign workers and to a lesser degree by the economic-class immigration stream is also a policy choice of leaders. They can choose to flat-line population growth, then there will be no new housing in suburbs or downtown in significant amounts. (only what's driven by replacement housing, and internal migration)

Further, Federal and Provincial leaders can choose were to direct growth as they do now through the Provincial Nominee Program and used to do so by simply saying "If you wish to come to Canada, we're current accepting people who wish to live in ;Province 'x' or 'City 'Y' (that person gains full mobility rights with citizenship after 3-5 years.

Beyond this, it's possible as has been achieved to some degree with the Greenbelt legislation to dictate housing location and form.

That same authority can be used to double the Greenbelt in size, ban expansion of urban boundaries, downzone Whitebelt lands to farms/nature, and nix all highway projects in suburbia.

If you want to ban housing by existing highways, I suppose we could do that too, it's just a policy choice like any other. I would personally support tolling GTA-Area highways, and reducing the size of the 401 corridor to a hard limit of 12 lanes from as much as 18 today. Of course that choice may not be a vote-getter......and regardless would need to be supported by a new GO Line in the same corridor which we aren't currently planning or building.

****

To be clear, housing isn't being built beside the 427 because those people want to live in 'The Annex' but are being refused the right to do so. People moving into those units generally live/work in the west end or somewhere easily accessible by highway and building another 1,000 units downtown won't change that at all.

****

Finally, I would again point out, I've done more to enact zoning reforms that most UT'ers and supported multiplex rights, and have no problem with intensifying major roads. I simply want arguments made cleanly, based on real info, not spin.
I also want to preserve the best of what exists today from mature leafy tree canopy, to walkable streets to attractive architecture to heritage. That doesn't mean wrapping everything in a bubble in the status quo, it just means not tearing everything down based on false dichotomies and slanted information.
 
Last edited:
I think the argument here is that a neighbourhood with this level of transit access and this close to the core - in the context of a city in desperate need of housing - should not be seeing such a low level of population growth. We can debate about the merits of the typology or level of population growth, but grow it should - and must. It is an end on itself.

The typically Toronto solution of cramming individually ridiculous towers on sites that are amenable to redevelopment while leaving SFHs untouched is also a huge problem - it is one of the reasons why we are left with a city of extremes.

AoD
 
Last edited:
I think the argument here is that a neighbourhood with this level of transit access and this close to the core - in the context of a city in desperate need of housing - should not be seeing such a low level of population growth.

I'm open to this argument, though I consider the density overall fairly reasonable........I'm not big champion of 20,000+ per km 2 here, there and everywhere. Is there room to go from ~10,000 to ~12,000 here, sure....

We can debate about the merits of the typology or level of population growth, but grow it should - and must. It is an end on itself.

Accommodating more people within the City is necessary, even if we did ratchet back the number of TFWs/Foreign students etc. Though, to be clear, it's that, and only that that will make a dent in the housing crisis. Toronto now has the most permissive zoning it's had in three generations and will build less housing this year than last.

The sheer level of population growth is the driver of the crisis in and of itself; and additionally, by driving down wages, decreases affordability even when housing can be physically found.

The typically Toronto solution of cramming individually ridiculous towers on sites that are amenable to redevelopment while leaving SFHs untouched is also a huge problem - it is one of the reasons why we are left with a city of extremes.

AoD

Sure..........

But let's point out, all of those SFH can now be turned into rentals with up to 4 units in them. Whether people choose to do that is another question.

I'm not opposed to tearing down SFH on main streets that is architecturally bleh........and where there is no leafy tree canopy to protect...... I think most of what lines Christie or Bathurst north of Bloor, and Bathurst south of Bloor could leave and no one would miss it. Whether it was replaced by midrise, or stacked towns, or the odd tower form.

But I'll confess to being fond of many parts of the core of The Annex with charming Victorians and mature trees. I don't want to see that lost. I fail to understand why embodied carbon is only important when saving brutalist buildings liked by only a handful of architecture fetishists, but not when discussing widely loved Victorians.

I also note that severe impact on climate change of removing established tree canopy, which is what would happen with any development of scale in the neighbourhood interior, because you simply can't economically build around trees whose roots stretch 5M in every direction.

Equally, I would add, the interior points of the neighbourhood have narrow sidewalks, and sewers and watermains scaled to serve SFH, not midrises and towers.

It's a very expensive choice to build those up, especially since you have to re-do the trunk lines under major roads as well in order to do so.

****

Final note, I'm fine w/change, pro-density and pro-transit, if I'm raising objections, the general public will scream and will elect people to roll back the changes already made, sometimes, poking the bear is not the way to advance one's causes.

In any event, The Annex will get new towers, 5 are coming to the Bloor/Spadina intersection or within a block thereof, those are all, public, with perhaps a bit less clarity of U of T's gateway project.

But more is coming....at Bloor/Bathurst........and people will find out in due course.
 
But I'll confess to being fond of many parts of the core of The Annex with charming Victorians and mature trees. I don't want to see that lost. I fail to understand why embodied carbon is only important when saving brutalist buildings liked by only a handful of architecture fetishists, but not when discussing widely loved Victorians.

100%

It's a beautiful neighbourhood with some of Toronto's best architecture.

To be clear, housing isn't being built beside the 427 because those people want to live in 'The Annex' but are being refused the right to do so. People moving into those units generally live/work in the west end or somewhere easily accessible by highway and building another 1,000 units downtown won't change that at all.

I disagree with you on this. I know many people who work and/or prefer to live in condos in Downtown Toronto, but have been priced out and live in condos in Etobicoke or Scarborough.
 
Any more posts on the densification of The Annex — pro, con, sideways, NIMBY, YIMBY — will be instantly, remorselessly defragged. This thread is specifically for 41-45 Spadina, or Spadina Gardens as the hep cats call it.

42
 


41-45 Spadina Road - Community Consultation Meeting

Wednesday, July 31, 2024 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM
(UTC-04:00) Eastern Time (US & Canada)

Register for webinar

If you want to attend, register now. When your registration is approved, you'll receive an invitation to join the webinar.
Register
 

Back
Top