Northern Light said:
The plan for the whole area is laid out in the Main Street Planning Study, for which there is a thread here:

Main Street Planning Study: City/SvN

Final Report on new zoning/plan for the Main/Danforth area going to Council. Principally focused on Danforth from just west of Main to Dawes. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2019/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-140296.pdf http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2019/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-140297.pdf...
urbantoronto.ca urbantoronto.ca

It seems to involve a new road though only from Dawes to the mid-point between Dawes and Main where a new N-S street will connect to Danforth.
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First time I've taken a look at that. I don't understand why the massing for replacement buildings proposed for the northeast corner of Main St and Danforth should be mid-rises like along the rest of Danforth: the subway station is immediately north, so nothing to terrace down to, and a large enough complex here might make a tunnel from the subway station through the complex and under Danforth to the new buildings to the south. A more direct connection between the subway and GO here would be highly desirable.

I think I'll put this same sentiment into the other thread.

42
 
Not enough employment in the area to support this density. It's a ill conceived, band aid solution to under funding transit for decades to start to stack community busting built forms and densities just because there's a bit of a transit hub here. There's also a long list of community amenities these developments need to provide before we get to a community centre. (and assuming this development is just replacing the existing one)

Main Square has been used as an example of what not to do and here we are double down. To integrate, Heights should be transitioning down from Main Square and not doubling in size. (in consideration of higher ceiling heights of today) Overbuilt 500 plus unit towers on a kilometre long podium lacking human scale and sense of community is just a lazy approached to transit oriented development. all this adds is more people. It doesn't add anything else for the existing community. We should have higher expectations from development that greatly exceeds density and built form.
 
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maestro said:
Not enough employment in the area to support this density. It's a ill conceived, band aid solution to under funding transit for decades to start to stack community busting built forms and densities just because there's a bit of a transit hub here. There's also a long list of community amenities these developments need to provide before we get to a community centre. (and assuming this development is just replacing the existing one)

Main Square has been used as an example of what not to do and here we are double down. To integrate, Heights should be transitioning down from Main Square and not doubling in size. (in consideration of higher ceiling heights of today) Overbuilt 500 plus unit towers on a kilometre long podium lacking human scale and sense of community is just a lazy approached to transit oriented development. all this adds is more people. It doesn't add anything else for the existing community. We should have higher expectations from development that greatly exceeds density and built form.
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This Community Centre appears to be far larger than the existing one.. the current one is basically just a pool and thats it. This is a full service centre with gym, event spaces, pool, etc.

Plus an upgraded GO Station.

Community centres are also insanely expensive to build, it's a huge benefit ask.

One development can't provide everything. Other projects in the area are providing other amenities such as daycares, art spaces, etc.

Reality of employment too is it has to be market driven. People may want to live in this area, but employers don't want to locate here.
 
If we can't build densely on-top a GO Station and adjacent to a subway station, where are we supposed to build dense?

I look at our population projection numbers and it is bewildering to imagine how we are supposed to house all those people. Developments like this will help Toronto accommodate those residents in an established neighbourhood with established amenities and good access to employment downtown. I hope the Canadian Tire site has similar levels of density when it comes to market.
 
maestro said:
Not enough employment in the area to support this density. It's a ill conceived, band aid solution to under funding transit for decades to start to stack community busting built forms and densities just because there's a bit of a transit hub here. There's also a long list of community amenities these developments need to provide before we get to a community centre. (and assuming this development is just replacing the existing one)

Main Square has been used as an example of what not to do and here we are double down. To integrate, Heights should be transitioning down from Main Square and not doubling in size. (in consideration of higher ceiling heights of today) Overbuilt 500 plus unit towers on a kilometre long podium lacking human scale and sense of community is just a lazy approached to transit oriented development. all this adds is more people. It doesn't add anything else for the existing community. We should have higher expectations from development that greatly exceeds density and built form.
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It's far from perfect, sure, but I'm with @interchange42 and @WislaHD here in that I don't see any point in reducing density around the confluence of subway, GO, streetcar and bus service. If there's a place to do this, it's here. I take your point about employment density too, but to wait for someone to build an office tower here would be an exercise in futility so I'll take what we can get.

One thing that would vastly improve would be to permit 0 parking and strengthen connections to the various modes of transit. The parking is bulking up the podium and pushing amenity and other deadening things to the north, exposed side. Put all of that to the south and set up small, individualized retail there. Just because something is long (+/- 1km, as you note), doesn't mean it has to be bad. Think of Ginza corridor - a 3km stretch of bars and restaurants (in one of the most densely populated cities on earth, yes) which, because of tight divisions of retail space and a focus on narrow, deep units, is a perfect pedestrian environment.

Comparing Tokyo to Scarborough is probably a stretch but we have to start somewhere. There are a ton of things wrong with this plan but lessening the number of people here would likely exacerbate, not rectify those problems.
 
I am all for adding density to the Main-Danforth transit convergence but agree with those who would favour employment rather than residential here. My kid went to Secord JPS for a year and while it had great people, the facilities are tired and maybe half the square footage is portables. It's not like 6 Dawes is the only residential project in the hopper either. But it's the closest to the GO station (literally adjoining) and with access to both Stouffville and LSE trains plus the 506 and Line 2, if non-residential can't be attracted here are we basically giving up on building anything other than residential outside the CBD?
 
There are lots of places for employment uses outside of the core, but this is not it. You can’t force a developer to build something that doesn’t make financial sense, so if you require it to be a big office building here, it will simply remain as self storage.

Big reason I think is essentially 0 highway access, little in the way of amenities in the area, and the downmarket feel of the area today.
 
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There's 10 million square footage of commercial space opening at East Harbour (timing TBD just like Main/Danforth redevelopment is TBD), which is 2 stops away (assuming Gerrard and East Harbour stations gets built). Obviously East Harbour's going to be a residential hotspot as well, but this is about as close as you can get to it.
 
innsertnamehere said:
There are lots of places for employment uses outside of the core, but this is not it. You can’t force a developer to build something that doesn’t make financial sense, so if you require it to be a big office building here, it will simply remain as self storage.
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There is no reason for a municipality to enable developers to speculate on land and be guaranteed a profit. We saw with Rail Deck Park that the city went to zone land as Parks, not even commercial, because it suited what it saw is its civic interest.
 
My point isn't to force a developer to building employment space that will not lease here. My point is that mixed use is paramount at these densities. We should not be building at these densities where the opportunities to build employment space doesn't exist. Access to transit is valid point for building greater densities. It isn't enough to throw planning policy out the window and create hyper dense blocks for commuters that have absolute zero sense of human scale or appeal. These densities and building masses are more of a developer's dream than balancing density and height with livability. In this case, Vancouver has much to offer us.
 
maestro said:
My point isn't to force a developer to building employment space that will not lease here. My point is that mixed use is paramount at these densities. We should not be building at these densities where the opportunities to build employment space doesn't exist. Access to transit is valid point for building greater densities. It isn't enough to throw planning policy out the window and create hyper dense blocks for commuters that have absolute zero sense of human scale or appeal. These densities and building masses are more of a developer's dream than balancing density and height with livability. In this case, Vancouver has much to offer us.
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Jesus christ, no.

I'd much rather see unbridled urbanism than Vancouver's weird 'balance' of 35-storey-buildings-with-front-yards. Tight streets, high densities, greenscaping limited to small, efficient parks, no useless setbacks, and no parking.
 
maestro said:
My point isn't to force a developer to building employment space that will not lease here. My point is that mixed use is paramount at these densities. We should not be building at these densities where the opportunities to build employment space doesn't exist. Access to transit is valid point for building greater densities. It isn't enough to throw planning policy out the window and create hyper dense blocks for commuters that have absolute zero sense of human scale or appeal. These densities and building masses are more of a developer's dream than balancing density and height with livability. In this case, Vancouver has much to offer us.
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If the podiums of these condos hosted 1-3 storeys of office space more often (like on occasion when developers must replace existing office sqft in their development project), would that satisfy what you are looking for out of these densities?
 
Preliminary Report is up:


Very clear that staff have a host of issues w/this project as currently proposed.

Some of what they raise:

The height of the three towers proposed on this site -at 49, 46 and 40 storeys - is of significant concern. The building heights do not fit harmoniously with the existing or planned context nor transition apropriate to areas of lower scale and would be considered out of context and out of character with the surrounding area. While a tall building character has been established through existing and approved tall buildings to the north of the site, the tallest of these buildings is 32 storeys. OPA 478 does direct the tallest buildings in the location where the proposal is located; however, it is envisioned that the building heights would generally be consistent with existing and/or approved buildings heights within that area. There are no tall buildings within the area that are 40 storeys and above, and OPA 478 does not envision building heights of this magnitude.

In addition to the above, staff also note the following preliminary concerns with the current proposal:

•Appropriate height, mass, scale and density of the base buildings and the towers;
•Consistency with the City's Tall Building Guidelines, including tower separation and floor plate size;
•Appropriate transition in height towards buildings of different scale and intensity;
•Shadowing and wind impacts, particularly on proposed new parkland;
•Potential for negative light, view and privacy impacts to nearby properties as well as impacts to the public realm;
•The provision of adequate amenity space and publicly accessible open space;
•Location and orientation of proposed buildings in relation to the existing and planned context as well as the public realm (such as appropriate sidewalk width) and road network; and
•Appropriate mix of dwelling units, and lack of on-site affordable housing.
 
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