Lenser said:
Oh, come on now. Comments like that are laughable. Another fatuous, sweeping declaration from a would-be emperor.
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If that sounds laughable to you, then laugh. I don't care.
There is nothing that suggests a 40 something tower is inappropriate for Shuter/Church.
In reality, cities with emperors look much nicer and are tourist attractions for the entire world today.
 
torplanner said:
Here's the sign.

I have to say that I think this is way too tall for this location. This isn't a major intersection. 30 max, and even that feels too tall. Plus, uggo design. Clewesterfudge is right.
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"Way too tall" is a pretty sweeping judgement without any justification as to why. It also gets at something I find frustrating when dealing with municipal planners: "It's too 'x' because the policy says it's too 'x'". This kind of bullshit, checkbox planning is why you so often (rightly) lose at the OMB.
 
ProjectEnd said:
"Way too tall" is a pretty sweeping judgement without any justification as to why. It also gets at something I find frustrating when dealing with municipal planners: "It's too 'x' because the policy says it's too 'x'". This kind of bullshit, checkbox planning is why you so often (rightly) lose at the OMB.
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Admittedly, not to defend the checkbox planning too much but it is the city planners jobs to check boxes. They don't make the rules, they enforce them, so to speak. Personally I think a moratorium on development for a couple years would be a great chance to allow Planning to actually update the city's rules regarding development but obviously that isn't remotely an option so, in the meantime, we have to make do with an system of operations that hasn't really been updated properly since the 2000s, if I remember correctly. And I don't think you can blame a department that is so consistently underfunded that it can't complete application reviews in time and obliges OMB meetings as part of SOP, rather than as a reflection of planning policy per se.
 
wolfewood said:
Admittedly, not to defend the checkbox planning too much but it is the city planners jobs to check boxes. They don't make the rules, they enforce them, so to speak. Personally I think a moratorium on development for a couple years would be a great chance to allow Planning to actually update the city's rules regarding development but obviously that isn't remotely an option so, in the meantime, we have to make do with an system of operations that hasn't really been updated properly since the 2000s, if I remember correctly. And I don't think you can blame a department that is so consistently underfunded that it can't complete application reviews in time and obliges OMB meetings as part of SOP, rather than as a reflection of planning policy per se.
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A moratorium on development? What you're suggesting here really intervenes with the market driven society that we live in... All of these developments are shooting up everywhere because of this market. If people were not interested in living in the GTA we would not see the amount of development that we see today (provincial planning policies aside ie. places to grow... green belt). It is actually a great thing. A moratorium on development might help planners but it wouldn't help our economy.

Now whether or not it is great development is another topic. I've noticed that a vast majority of development applications have to go through a rezoning process -- to me, that says a lot about the process... Why have we not updated the zoning in areas that have seen an influx of tall buildings/development? Or addressed why most applications in areas that are seeing tall buildings still need to jump through ridiculous hoops just to get built -- which they eventually do any way! it seems to me that the planning department is adding to the amount of work they have to do. I've also noticed that a lot of city councillors are trying to shape planning/development projects for political gain and not for the overall betterment of the city.
 
ProjectEnd said:
"Way too tall" is a pretty sweeping judgement without any justification as to why. It also gets at something I find frustrating when dealing with municipal planners: "It's too 'x' because the policy says it's too 'x'". This kind of bullshit, checkbox planning is why you so often (rightly) lose at the OMB.
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what does "too tall" mean? Shouldn't people explain what negative consequence resulting from being "too tall"? It can be 20 stories or 120 stories, who cares unless one can come up with specific reasons for objecting other than just "too tall" - too tall for what you normally are used to see? too tall for surrounding buildings? too tall for local traffic?
 
Stupidandshallow said:
A moratorium on development? What you're suggesting here really intervenes with the market driven society that we live in... All of these developments are shooting up everywhere because of this market. If people were not interested in living in the GTA we would not see the amount of development that we see today (provincial planning policies aside ie. places to grow... green belt). It is actually a great thing. A moratorium on development might help planners but it wouldn't help our economy.

Now whether or not it is great development is another topic. I've noticed that a vast majority of development applications have to go through a rezoning process -- to me, that says a lot about the process... Why have we not updated the zoning in areas that have seen an influx of tall buildings/development? Or addressed why most applications in areas that are seeing tall buildings still need to jump through ridiculous hoops just to get built -- which they eventually do any way! it seems to me that the planning department is adding to the amount of work they have to do. I've also noticed that a lot of city councillors are trying to shape planning/development projects for political gain and not for the overall betterment of the city.
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As I said, I'm not suggesting it seriously. But, as you noted, Planning hasn't updated the zoning regulations because they have too much work to do and each and every development adds to that workload. I guess the point I was trying to make is that zoning is so far behind and the Planning Department is so underfunded that I don't see how we'd be able to update the city's regulations short of a huge increase in staff or a moratorium on development to allow Planning to update their regulations.
 
Understood that that's a bit of a silly back-and-forth.

Zoning is in the hands of Toronto's City Councillors, in that it is up to them to pass a new city-wide bylaw that reflects the new reality. They've fumbled that ball a couple of times over the 10 years since our current bylaw was rendered obsolete, as they believe they'll get creamed by the electorate at the next vote. They've also failed to give Planning an alternate way to extract public benefits from developers—one which could replace the funds they get from the negotiated zoning amendments required for each complex—so it seems they'd rather continue with the way the system is working (or at times not working) now than go an alternate route.

Don't put the lion's share of the blame on Planning for the lack of up-to-date zoning: put Council in your sights.

42
 
AndreaPalladio said:
Jennifer Keesmat has time to tweet all day, every day, so they can't be *THAT* busy...
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Sure they might be underfunded but if they spent half the time actually doing the work that's expected of them rather than thinking of ways to get out of it, the backlog wouldn't be nearly as long...

wolfewood said:
Yes, because the Chief Planner writing tweets is all that stands between the city updating its planning policy :rolleyes:
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No, but when combined with bullshit quotes like this from her Toronto Life article:

"Jennifer Keesmaat starts her day at 7:30 a.m. and is never home for dinner during the week. Most of her reading, tweeting and blogging happens in bed at night."

You start to wonder what she actually knows about how people evaluate an online persona and requisite time-management skills.
 
interchange42 said:
Understood that that's a bit of a silly back-and-forth.

Zoning is in the hands of Toronto's City Councillors, in that it is up to them to pass a new city-wide bylaw that reflects the new reality. They've fumbled that ball a couple of times of the 10 years since our current bylaw was rendered obsolete, as they believe they'll get creamed by the electorate at the next vote. They've also failed to give Planning an alternate way to extract public benefits from developers—one which could replace the funds they get from the negotiated zoning amendments required for each complex—so it seems they'd rather continue with the way the system is working (or at times not working) now than go an alternate route.

Don't put the lion's share of the blame on Planning for the lack of up-to-date zoning: put Council in your sights.

42
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This is true. I believe someone nailed the practical outcome of this situation in the 838 Broadview thread. It went something like: "Toronto. Where 'good planning' is whatever is 'good politics.'"
 
ksun said:
what does "too tall" mean? Shouldn't people explain what negative consequence resulting from being "too tall"? It can be 20 stories or 120 stories, who cares unless one can come up with specific reasons for objecting other than just "too tall" - too tall for what you normally are used to see? too tall for surrounding buildings? too tall for local traffic?
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Seriously? There's so little appreciation for height among those that follow the "more is better" mantra. Is it laziness to open a book and explore the subject or does it pertain to Toronto's non binding, interpretive zoning that allows a 40 storey tower to be built in an area zoned for 6.

Any building that extends high into the air and/or is considerably denser than the norm makes an impact on its surroundings. The higher the difference, the greater the impact on the community.
 
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