Northern Light
Superstar
A report to this week's CreateTO meeting outlines an updated business case for this project (confidential) and seeks approval to take the proposal to market over the summer with close in October.
All of which is fine.........and good....but there is a bit at the end that I'm not supportive of........
Clauses 1 through 4 are fine. Clause 5, however, seeks to solve a host of different problems on the back of a single building. This adds material costs, meaning fewer, or less affordable units and by making the process
more complex at the earliest stage, you're also reducing the number of potential proponents..
- Carbon footprint and energy requirements should be in the building code. Stop.
- A community benefits obligation for a building that is itself meant to be a Community Benefit is bizarre.
- Micro managing the hiring and procurement practices of a proponent and/or their GC is mindnumbingly ill-considered.
The latter made some sense with the Regent Park redevelopment because it was compensatory to the existing residents were being severely inconvenienced through relocation and/or years of construction, and because the scale of the development, including a 15-year + time horizon made it reasonable to set up some dedicated programs.
Imposing that regime on a single building makes no sense.
All of which is fine.........and good....but there is a bit at the end that I'm not supportive of........
Clauses 1 through 4 are fine. Clause 5, however, seeks to solve a host of different problems on the back of a single building. This adds material costs, meaning fewer, or less affordable units and by making the process
more complex at the earliest stage, you're also reducing the number of potential proponents..
- Carbon footprint and energy requirements should be in the building code. Stop.
- A community benefits obligation for a building that is itself meant to be a Community Benefit is bizarre.
- Micro managing the hiring and procurement practices of a proponent and/or their GC is mindnumbingly ill-considered.
The latter made some sense with the Regent Park redevelopment because it was compensatory to the existing residents were being severely inconvenienced through relocation and/or years of construction, and because the scale of the development, including a 15-year + time horizon made it reasonable to set up some dedicated programs.
Imposing that regime on a single building makes no sense.
