Traynor said:
Speaking of that... I remember the buildings that used to be there until the late 70's early 80's. If I recall correctly, they were torn down by a developer hoping to build a second phase to the College Park Apartments which were added to the Eatons at College Park renovation. Judging by the looks of them, they don't seem in any more disrepair than any other Yonge Street building of the time. It does seem strange it was a parking lot for so long.
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Great find Traynor! I have no memory of those buildings, only of a head shop that was there at some point. It looks like we lost two great buildings, the two closest to the Eaton's store.

canmark said:
Isn't Aura replacing a parking lot? A vibrant one to be sure, but still a parking lot. ;-)
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I don't so much have a problem with Aura, or anything built south of College/Carlton so long as it doesn't mean demolition of any remaining heritage buildings, and by heritage I mean any building of notable significance whether it has been listed/designated or not. My venom is really directed at the 460 / 501 / 587-599 Yonge Street projects (and anything else coming down the pike that we don't know about yet) where entire blocks are coming down for insanely high buildings.


confusion said:
Kristyn Wong-Tam's Tall Buildings guideline is a start, but I think much more needs to be done to ring in developers since they are financially driven.
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It's not Kristyn Wong-Tam's guidelines, it's been an ongoing project for several years.
 
Regarding the possible height restrictions:

The shortsightedness of restricting heights for sunlight will in the end be self defeating. With developers unable to build point towers to maximize land use, they will build shorter, squat buildings close together to achieve the same density. This has been demonstrated time and again through the centuries of "City Planning". Why does every new generation of City Planner think they will be the ones to buck that trend and their ideas will actually work?

Better to enact a "Setback" rule, a la 1920's New York, if sunlight is their issue. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916_Zoning_Resolution )
 
In these cases, there is no real "same density" - that's usually why the proposals went for rezoning in the first place. Besides, I don't think the primary argument for limiting height has all that much do with shadowing but "fit" with the surrounding neighbourhoods/urban context.

AoD
 
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I have no problem with height restrictions in sensitive neighbourhoods. But a blanket restriction is ridiculous. The only place you can build tall is the financial district? So with no space left there, are we going to have to tear town moderately tall building to build very tall ones? I don't agree with that.

That said, MCC has no height restrictions and even there 60 storeys is tall.
 
CC:

The guidelines point out clearly where building tall is appropriate. It certainly wasn't a blanket restriction against building tall anywhere per se. Besides, personally I think it is more useful to see the guide for "ballpark" heights for each of the areas in question and start the discussion on how projects can be judged on their individual merit within said context, insteadof it being an absolute ban on anything above a certain figure. Now that is just my perspective - I am sure the more hard core elements of neigbbourhood resistance will see otherwise.

AoD
 
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Traynor said:
Regarding the possible height restrictions:

The shortsightedness of restricting heights for sunlight will in the end be self defeating. With developers unable to build point towers to maximize land use, they will build shorter, squat buildings close together to achieve the same density. This has been demonstrated time and again through the centuries of "City Planning". Why does every new generation of City Planner think they will be the ones to buck that trend and their ideas will actually work?

Better to enact a "Setback" rule, a la 1920's New York, if sunlight is their issue. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1916_Zoning_Resolution )
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Exactly! Why not even push for stricter regulations on podium retail development, and building aesthetics (ex. facade materials) instead of banning tall buildings? Maybe these city councillors for downtown wards (esp. Kristyn Wong-Tam need to head back to the suburbs. Some of us have actually taken pride in our city's construction boom and would like it to continue to improve the city, not make it look as generic as Vancouver...
 
What's with all the KWT lies in this thread lately, at least have your facts right if you want to criticize her. Councillor Wong-Tam has incredibly progressive ideas for her downtown Ward and is not averse to highrises in the right areas let alone ever spoken about "banning" tall buildings.
We all want better designed buildings so I join you there, but that your taking pride because of a the huge volume of mediocrity that has been thrown up in the past dozen or so years (with good and even spectacular exceptions of course) then I would suggest your really off base there. So many great things have happened in Toronto since the early 00's and are continuing to happen but I'd suggest that we should be sounding the alarm and not get too cocky given that we have some of the worst grid-locked streets in North America, a transit system 40 years behind where it should be, hundreds of people hurt on bicycles each month because the bike lane plan in Toronto was scraped and a completely incompetent and intolerant "Mayor" who continues to embarrass us nationally, and internationally.
 
dt_toronto_geek said:
What's with all the KWT lies in this thread lately, at least have your facts right if you want to criticize her. Councillor Wong-Tam has incredibly progressive ideas for her downtown Ward and is not averse to highrises in the right areas let alone ever spoken about "banning" tall buildings.
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So you are saying that there is no 60-storey height restriction proposed? And if there is, isn't that the same thing s 'banning' tall buildings?
 
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The Tall Buildings guidelines were in the works before KWT was a Councillor. Much of the development happening in the ward was also in the works prior to her joining council as well.

Development is good, but also needs checks and balances. A developer, once the building is sold and completed, has no obligation to the community beyond what was required of them through s37 and s45 means, basically. A developer builds a building, a councillor helps build the community.

So far we haven't necessarily seen tall buildings create a coherent community yet. It takes time, sure, but it also takes someone looking at a longer term vision for the ward. KWT gets this and looks at things like a new park in the ward, or creating patios and additional pedestrian space on Yonge Street, etc.
 
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Speaking of tall, I was by yesterday and thought that perhaps Aura has reached the halfway point, but I didn't bother counting. Does anyone know how many floors have been poured as of this time? Thanks!
 
They've poured the 37th floor, so two more floors to half way.

***Correction, they've poured most of the 37th floor, but not all yet.
 
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Johnzz said:
They've poured the 37th floor, so two more floors to half way.

***Correction, they've poured most of the 37th floor, but not all yet.
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Thanks. She is definitely a tall one in the making.

BTW - I am liking the pale grey grid that sets off each five-storey section. This works well on Yonge.
 
Four points based on massive amounts of false info & assumptions in this thread:

1. KWT has very little if anything to do with the tall building guidelines. The initial document entitled "Design Criteria for Review of Tall Building Proposals" was originally prepared in 2006 with the assistance of HOK. Those guidelines have been used by city staff since 2006 and more than 250 tall building applications were made between 2006 & 2011.
2. New downtown study was prepared by Urban Strategies & Hariri Pontarini Architects (who many of you will recognize as the architects behind some of the tallest new projects in the downtown area) - once again I fail to see the direct connection some of you are trying to make with KWT
3. Approval of the Tall Building Guidelines will occur at Toronto's Planning & Growth Management Committee - KWT isn't even a member of that committee (Ana Bailão, Gary Crawford, Frank Di Giorgio, Peter Milczyn, Karen Stintz & Adam Vaughan sit on the committee) - so once again I fail to see the direct connection some of you are trying to make with KWT
4. Tall Building Guidelines
 
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