[salsa]

I thought you were 44 North. My apologies.

No worries. I mess up every now and then as well. I will repost your question for 44 North to answer:

Please pick a side and stick to it. Because I know you'll be back in the Yonge-Extension thread saying how the subway shouldn't be built yet you're using Richmond Hill Centre (which is planned based on the required subway extension as an example of a centre that is much more likely to succeed...Seems kind of counter-intuitive to use it as an example since you're so prominent at saying it shouldn't and won't be built thus making your argument about VCC completely moot.

 

[sixrings]

But it's the developers who are going to build this city centre. As long as there is a market they will build it. Condos are already going up. The first few will be slow then the rest will come as fast as weeds

 

[44 North]

No worries. I mess up every now and then as well. I will repost your question for 44 North to answer:

I don't really know what BMO is asking there, or if it was genuinely posted to me. But I'm not a supporter of Yonge North (though that's with the very important caveat that I do support modes which were never studied). Not just for that corridor, but others too. $700M/km is just too rich for my blood. And if you read the Yonge North study you'll see that no light metro options were looked at, no options for cost savings (unlike Metrolinx's DRL), and that no option for realignment of the GO RH corridor was included in the ridership projections. This RH realignment has finally been looked at after all these years, and I'm actually quite interested in how it'd effect ridership modelling.

There's also other evidence about expectations for RHC and LG that raises red flags for me, and which I've posted in the appropriate thread.

But it's the developers who are going to build this city centre. As long as there is a market they will build it. Condos are already going up. The first few will be slow then the rest will come as fast as weeds

Yes, but a city can't just grow randomly and unchecked. There's a limit to how much they can grow. And depending on demand and what type of housing people want (just like the evidence that people still want single family homes), some of that growth might not be where planners expect it to be. Just look at TO: our population growth has been exactly where planners expected, but located almost nowhere they expected.

 

[yin_yang]

Just look at TO: our population growth has been exactly where planners expected, but located almost nowhere they expected.

this doesn't really make much sense, seems like a contradiction.

 

[44 North]

this doesn't really make much sense, seems like a contradiction.

Yes, it's not really true in a broad sense. I meant to write for a set period (late 80s to present); and how the downtown was expected to see little to no growth over that time by 80s era Metro planners. Whereas NYCC, STC, Islington CC, etc were all to see massive residential/employment growth (or more than we've seen to date). The buried Webster report was a good outline of this. But if you look at the numbers in that report, one thing remained true: Toronto's overall population is exactly where it was expected.

I don't know a working link for that report, but it's a good read for noting the shifting expectations for locations of development, density, ridership projections, etc.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Places to grow has been a bit more accurate of a predictor, but it underestimated where intensification would occur. Instead of intensification being spread across the GTA, it has focused in Toronto, meaning that Toronto has grown much faster than projections, while 905 municipalities undershoot targets.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Places to grow has been a bit more accurate of a predictor, but it underestimated where intensification would occur. Instead of intensification being spread across the GTA, it has focused in Toronto, meaning that Toronto has grown much faster than projections, while 905 municipalities undershoot targets.

SOME 905 municipalities are undershooting targets. I'm pretty sure York Region is ahead of targets in many of its municipalities; certainly Markham has been ahead of the pace.

It would be interesting to go down the list and try to figure out precisely who is ahead and behind and then try to deduce why. In relation to this thread, I think the failure to go all in on the Big Move has been a factor. A couple of years on the Vaughan subway probably doesn't much matter but other centres are waiting on transit that hasn't come for various reasons. Maybe the ol', much talked about "Milllennials" shifting to downtown is another factor.

So, it seems fair to say Toronto has exceeded expectations, populationwise. NYCC has been the most successful of the 'first wave' nodes and even it's missed employment projections. A lot of jobs skipped it and went out to the 905 or stayed downtown. Developing a decent mix in a place like VMC will be an uphill battle but you're more likely to get jobs where there's transit, I think. Things are still in motion and it's all a question of where they're heading.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Jobs are avoiding Vaughan Centre, the one office building that is going up had to get large tax breaks to go through.

Job growth has either focused in the downtown or in traditional employment lands dispersed across the GTA, suburban centres have largely failed to attract employment.

All municipalities were not required to meet 40% growth in intensification until this year. While York is probably doing the best at intensification compared to the other three 905 regions, its still doing poorly. North York Region development lands have opened up and streams of new single family greenfield stock are flowing onto the market. Vaughan has a lot of single family housing coming in the near future as well, in addition to the large amount they have added in the last decade.

And of course you still have the issue of the traffic engineering cultures of the municipal offices of the 905 regions, meaning that while intensification may be occurring, it is still occurring in a car dependent fashion.

 

[44 North]

Places to grow has been a bit more accurate of a predictor, but it underestimated where intensification would occur. Instead of intensification being spread across the GTA, it has focused in Toronto, meaning that Toronto has grown much faster than projections, while 905 municipalities undershoot targets.

I thought I recall hearing on TVO or something that there'd be a ten year review of P2G. Though not sure if it's been released yet. I'd speculate it might be too early to correlate growth and trends with P2G's implementation. I'd assume it might require 25yrs to properly gauge success of a growth plan, similar to Webster's report. Though I'm not sure.

Either way, Neptis has some charts and findings that are helpful in this department:

• • The GTHA is growing mostly through greenfield development, not intensification: Using data from the census and geographical analysis of remote sensing data, the authors found that of the 1 million people added to the GTHA between 2001 and 2011 only 14% were accommodated through intensification. In other words, despite downtown Toronto’s condo boom, 86% of the net new population was housed in new suburban subdivisions built on the edges of the GTHA. Most growth takes the form of single detached homes in areas without roads, transit, water and sewer, and other services, all of which must be constructed to support growth.
  • Growth in the GTHA is going mainly to areas without transit, and outside Urban Growth Centres: Only 18% of net new residents were located in areas within easy walking distance of frequent transit (corridors with transit service every 15 minutes or less), while the areas around GO stations accommodated 10% of the region’s net new population. Urban Growth Centres identified in the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, which are supposed to accommodate significantly higher amounts of intensification, accounted for only 13% of net new residents across the region.
  • Many established urban areas are losing population: Areas with good access to transit, where infrastructure and services are already in place, lost population between 2001 and 2011. These include central Toronto, Oshawa, and Hamilton, as well as suburban municipalities such as Oakville and Brampton, where an overall net loss in population in established urban areas was accompanied by substantial gain in population in greenfield areas.

The following map shows population loss and gain throughout the GTHA between 2001 and 2011.​

The changes have occurred against the backdrop of a national trend of declining household sizes, which means that dwellings are being built at a faster rate than the growth in population. Between 2001 and 2011, in the GTHA, the number of dwellings grew by 23%, while net population increased by only 18%. This trend is particularly noticeable in established urban areas, where the net increase in dwellings was 46%, but the net increase in population was only 14%. We call this trend “running hard to stand still,” because maintaining a steady population means building new housing at a rapid rate. ​

The following chart shows where these gains and losses have occurred at the municipal level.​

*interesting to note that outside of Toronto, Vaughan has seen the most growth in intensification areas. Followed by Markham. Though this is shadowed significantly by the growth in greenfield (and I believe a lot of whitebelt development has been greenlit since 2011). And Brampton looks another planet, which is evident when driving north on the 410.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Note that the report measures population growth from 2001 to 2011, and half of that period predates Places to Grow.

Its a good illustrator of how much 905 municipalities are failing at 40% intensification however.

 

[TJ O'Pootertoot]

Note that the report measures population growth from 2001 to 2011, and half of that period predates Places to Grow.

Its a good illustrator of how much 905 municipalities are failing at 40% intensification however.

I totally forgot about the Neptis report so thanks for posting, but you have to analyze in the proper context. The legislation passed in 2006 but many municipalities did not have new OPs in place until 2010 or even 2011. I suspect some are even later. That's the HIGH LEVEL planning document. Local OPs and then zoning and then actual development applications all follow from that and it's easy to forget just how slow the actual process is.

There's a bit of semantics here about the growth targets. As of this this yea,r 40% of all growth has to be within the built boundary. But it didn't have to be last year or in 2011 etc. 2006-2015 was the time for everyone to re-set their planning regimes so that, STARTING THIS YEAR the intensification target is actually in place. It will take a couple of years from now to see if that's working. I'd guess Markham and maybe Mississauga and Vaughan (maybe RH?) are the only municipalities who might have hit the target right on or ahead of schedule. Certainly these are some of the few municipalities in the entire GTHA that didn't treat 40% as a maximum.

I probably commented in greater detail on the Neptis report over on that thread when it came out but there were some issues with it.

A lot of the greenfield development occurring between 2001-2011, indeed the VAST majority of it, would have been on projects approved before Places to Grow was in effect. 2015 is way too soon to analyze those impacts. I don't dispute the overall finding (i.e. that greenfield sites are/were still being opened to development and that employment uses are coming slower than residential development) but it takes a long time to slow down a train that was chugging for 60 years and it's not fair to look at the project so soon. Still, if you look at the larger trend, there is more suburban intensification and greater density even in the new, auto-oriented developments. Change is going in the right direction, just not at a zippy pace.

I think it's a red herring that the Vaughan employment tower got tax breaks; every project of that scale, in every municipality is there because of some combination of incentives. If Vaughan attracts KPMG and Markham attracts Honda Canada and Toronto attracts Google, those are all good things. It's encouraging that Markham and Vaughan are leading in intensification and, to relate to what I said above, that's because of policies put in place in the 1990s and early 2000s. When there's subways and RER, that will only accelerate the trend.

 

[salsa]

There is still a long way to go at York University station.

This is the station box, but unfortunately I couldn't get a better view of it.

Meanwhile, Finch West station is above ground. This will be the bus terminal.

 

[salsa]

You guys have no idea how hard it is to venture up here place with a bicycle. Hope the photos are worth it .

Vaughan Metropolitan Centre

Highway 407

The large hole seen in the next two photos will be a giant enamel-painted glass window that will bring natural light deep into the station.

Here are the renderings of that window.

Steeles West

This will be the TTC bus terminal.

South side entrance:

Meanwhile the north side entrance is just a skeleton at the moment, but some cladding has appeared on that box building (whatever it is).

York University, Finch West

See my recent post.


Downsview Park

 

[Adjei]

Good job! I can't imagine riding a bike in those areas..Must not have been easy for you..

 

[innsertnamehere]

you are telling me you did this whole construction tour on your bike!?! here I was thinking about how much work it would have been to do it with a car, yet alone just biking around.. Super, super appreciative. I don't get up to York Region much in the winter months so seeing sites updated like this is great as I can't drive past them myself.