Celeste said:
And who, may I ask, is the idiot on City Council who approved that monstrosity?
Click to expand...

Development applications are approved by City Council as a whole, typically on the recommendation of planning staff, which in this case was guided by unusually extensive community input and participation.
 
Celeste said:
Okay.
Click to expand...

This began as 2 X 50s with a horrific podium. I'm no fan of condos on downtown Yonge, but at least this is a "decent compromise" (and I'm being nice here) from how it started.
 
taal said:
People always like to claim that i.e. every cycle has its end ... its absolutely true but what exactly does end mean ? Pre 2000 condo construction ?

You need to keep this in mind - the total # of housing units going up in the GTA has not skyrocketed regardless of what many say. There has been a massive shift from detached to town-homes / condos and this will not stop, this is simply due to all the land planning guidelines in the GTA, simply put there just won't be that many more massive housing developments, rather more and more development will shift to condos, you can see this throughout the 905 now ! This is a trend that only started the last 5/10 years.

So given this, I don't think we'll see the crash everyone has predicted for years and years, namely because while there has been a boom ... and granted the # condos built certain years has been rather astonishing ... a big part of the growth is not growth at all, rather a shift in the types of developments we see.
Click to expand...



True! The Housing norm now is condos everywhere even around the world. So it will never end.
 
Celeste said:
And who, may I ask, is the idiot on City Council who approved that monstrosity?
Click to expand...

It's NOT Idiocy, it's Called Progression! Finally The City that has been dreaming to be one of the First Class Cities in the World like Paris, New York, London, Sydney, Madrid, Singapore, Dubai, Hongkong, San Francisco, etc. is Finally Progressing! :)
 
Last edited:
Once again we have a mandated 10% of the units as 3-bedroom with no concern at all given to the square footage. As we have seen with other buildings recently, we might end up with 750 sq. ft., 1 bathroom, rooming-house style apartments.

I wouldn't be surprised if 20 years from now we will look back and wonder why we let developers get away with selling buildings with closet-sized apartments that no one will want to buy to live in. Even at ROCP 1, which is older and has larger apartments, it's a struggle to achieve quorum for the annual meeting, suggesting investors are only there for the short term. Imagine those new towers, where in all likelihood, even fewer owners will live.
 
Bayer said:
Once again we have a mandated 10% of the units as 3-bedroom with no concern at all given to the square footage. As we have seen with other buildings recently, we might end up with 750 sq. ft., 1 bathroom, rooming-house style apartments.

I wouldn't be surprised if 20 years from now we will look back and wonder why we let developers get away with selling buildings with closet-sized apartments that no one will want to buy to live in. Even at ROCP 1, which is older and has larger apartments, it's a struggle to achieve quorum for the annual meeting, suggesting investors are only there for the short term. Imagine those new towers, where in all likelihood, even fewer owners will live.
Click to expand...


That's very true - and to add insult to injury, most of these towers are constructed of concrete do not avail themselves to combining units into one larger unit since the walls between units are structural components. At least in New York most of the condo towers were steel skyscrapers that used steel beams and columns, allowing for future combination of smaller units. I don't see how you can do that here.
 
Big Daddy said:
That's very true - and to add insult to injury, most of these towers are constructed of concrete do not avail themselves to combining units into one larger unit since the walls between units are structural components. At least in New York most of the condo towers were steel skyscrapers that used steel beams and columns, allowing for future combination of smaller units. I don't see how you can do that here.
Click to expand...


Just shooting ideas here but is it possible to punch open a hole and reinforce the edges to support the upper structures with steel framing? I'm not an engineer so i have literally no idea.

That said, knockout panels should be requisite in building design. 10% of neighbouring one/two bedrooms with knock out panels for instance.
 
Bayer said:
Once again we have a mandated 10% of the units as 3-bedroom with no concern at all given to the square footage. As we have seen with other buildings recently, we might end up with 750 sq. ft., 1 bathroom, rooming-house style apartments.

I wouldn't be surprised if 20 years from now we will look back and wonder why we let developers get away with selling buildings with closet-sized apartments that no one will want to buy to live in. Even at ROCP 1, which is older and has larger apartments, it's a struggle to achieve quorum for the annual meeting, suggesting investors are only there for the short term. Imagine those new towers, where in all likelihood, even fewer owners will live.
Click to expand...

Agreed. The newer condos are just glitzy rooming houses. I see a big problem with these 400 unit towers full of 5-600sqft 1 bedrooms. The city approves them as if there's a gun to their heads. We're going to look back at this and regret bending over backwards in the name of foreign investors who have never even step foot in the city. Development is great, but it's the kind of development that matters.
 
The percentage of suites being sold to foreign investors is exaggerated. Under half of current buyers are investors in most projects, and the industry believes that about 10 to 20% of the total these days are foreign.

42
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top