Thanks all for the attention to my piece last week. I’ll make a few points and duck out.
1. Villiers is not close to the densest big project in Toronto. Ignore the 20ha river parks, and it is 450 dwellings per ha and 4 FSI gross. Most if not all of the big private masterplans in Toronto exceed those numbers, many of them by a lot.
And they lack the presence of the river parks, an incredible amenity.
2. 45% of the neighbourhood (8.8/19.4) is roadway. That’s why the neighbourhood is not in fact very dense. The math is punishing.
3. No one has ever made a clear defence of that design decision. Where is the rationale? Where are the precedents? What I’ve heard, including on here, is basically: big streets are nice and the West Don Lands is great.
That’s nowhere near rigorous enough to explain a decision to spend several hectares of the most valuable land in the country.
I also think it’s wrong. The good things about the WDL are Corktown Common and arguably two blocks of the Front St promenade. It’s car-heavy with a lot of dead space. One of its main components, Lawren Harris Square, is a complete failure.
I see sloppy, undisciplined thinking, both about design and about the potential use value of this land, and it makes me sad for the lost potential. YMMV.
View attachment 573484View attachment 573485