AlbertC

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City:
Toronto

661 HURON ST
Ward 11 - Tor & E.York District


All properties: 661, 663, 665 Huron St

Zoning By-law Amendment application to facilitate the development of the site for a proposed 4-storey apartment building comprised of 48 rental dwelling units and 2991.03 m² residential gross floor area.

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The two current properties that this would replace:

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This is great! Gentle density/missing middle housing in a neighbourhood with excellent access to transportation and services.

It's going to get NIMBY'ed to hell (particularly over parking, assuming there will be none), but as a neighbour, I look forward to attending any consultations and speaking in favour of this.
 
This is a conflicting proposal for sure. As a standalone, the new building demonstrates elements of good missing middle built form that should be encouraged for more areas around the city. The architecture is fairly pedestrian but it's inoffensive and would fit in neutrally to most environments.

However, when factoring in the context of what it replaces then it becomes more difficult. Both houses are in standard condition for their age and have notable heritage features. Especially the south one with its turrets.

At least for the 409 Huron proposal and the Kwong Centre (to its south, currently U/C), they are maintaining the frontage and are constructing a wraparound and/or addition to the rear to infill the empty spaces of the property.

If this was for an empty lot or to replace non-descript/historical houses then this would be perfect. But right now for this scenario, then it certainly becomes tougher to support.
 
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I have interests right around there so thanks for the post. Theoretically it does raise questions for those wanting to open up the yellow belts. The most likely properties to disappear are old century homes downtown while tracts of suburban housing remain untouched
 
Unacceptable. Complete disregard for what we still have. Our heritage buildings are finite.

Hot take: we have enough heritage stock in this area, and one of these buildings has been adulterated to the point of irrelevance anyway.

Toronto has a housing affordability crisis right now, and keeping large swathes of our core as museumified heritage blocks of (semi) detached houses, solely inhabited by the rich, is part of the problem. The two existing buildings on this proposal seem to be divided into rental units already, however the land could be put to higher use.

IMO, any non-heritage buildings in these areas, as well as heritage homes within a block of high streets like Dupont, should be made available for densification. There needs to be some compromise. A few heritage buildings for more housing and a more lively core is a fair trade.
 
I'd prefer to keep the frontages of the houses- the interiors are likely dime-a-dozen, and there's potential for any remaining fixtures to find new love elsewhere through architectural salvage

However, the fronts of the houses are far more interesting than what's being proposed now, and I see this development as-is as a net loss in terms of urban cohesion and uniqueness.

So I'd say to keep the facades with the unique brickwork and the turret, and build a new apartment behind it, filling the gap between the buildings! There's definitely enough room IMO, with plenty of space to spare.
 
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Hello, the 70s are asking for their architecture back!

Looks like a social housing block from the late 60s-80s, complete with brown brick, little fake arches and dark metal siding.

Looking through the documents, it's also completely hilarious when you can see a heritage consultant blatantly pushed by the developers to deny that a building has heritage value (saw this happen with ERA as well).
 
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I agree and disagree Projectend. The houses are indeed unique and frankly rare when considering the housing stock of the entire City.

Where I agree is that on closer consideration having just passed by the site today the existing buildings have been botched up probably to the point where they are realistically near complete tear downs anyway.

So I appreciate the desire to work with a blank slate from the point of view of the property owner. It would just be nicer to see some nod to or incorporation of the best parts of what is there now in the new complex
 
Where I agree is that on closer consideration having just passed by the site today the existing buildings have been botched up probably to the point where they are realistically near complete tear downs anyway.

So I appreciate the desire to work with a blank slate from the point of view of the property owner. It would just be nicer to see some nod to or incorporation of the best parts of what is there now in the new complex
I would agree on your last point, but I would argue that enough of the original brick and stone fabric is still there to preserve the most important parts- the front facades.

Woodwork can always be restored, windows and doorways reopened/closed, and the ad-hoc additions removed. If we thought of heritage preservation as preserving immediate heritage value and not potential heritage value, many more buildings in this city would have been demolished long ago (think Paradise theatre and how tatty and compromised it was) and you'd never get a long-gone cornice restored.

The rear ends and interiors of the houses are architecturally unsignificant (going through the heritage report), and so I would agree that the rest of the houses are more or less tear-downs.


Again, I'm not against densification, but I am against this particular scheme- there's enough room for the accommodation of heritage and density, and the overall project would be richer than a clean slate approach.
 
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