If Layton's yelling about this ends up squeezing out some sort of community benefit in exchange for the height that's good, but it seems like the result will be the city gets nothing and the tower doesn't get higher and Jesse Ketchup (accidental typo but leaving it lol) stays blessedly sun-soaked.
Shadowing isn't just aesthetics on its own, or personal comfort (though you might want to try recess in the school yard in January with no sun before dismissing its value in that respect).
Sun is necessary to sustain trees, and any other plants. No plant functions with zero sun (though some understory species can manage with surprisingly little)
Jesse Ketchum is not sun soaked now. Previous developments have already incrementally reduced the amount of sunshine there. This is just one more blow on top of that would eliminate a good chunk of what remains.
If you want kids to get some sun in winter, and you want some surviving trees, you can't have all shadow, all-the-time in that yard.
The rules really aren't arbitrary. (at least in this case)
With all that said I'm pretty surprised that the developer also didn't come prepared to offer something substantial to the city.....
The only way this was ever going to be favourably treated by the City is with Layton's blessing; and even then it would be a hard sell due to the shadowing issue. The City would be extremely concerned about the precedent involved.
That said, if Sam really wanted to do this, he knows damn well how these things work. You go the Councillor quietly, before staff, broach the idea and clearly ask ' is there anything I could do for the community that would make this seem reasonable to you?"; he would also need to deal directly with the TDSB and the parent council at J.K. in the same fashion.
The truth is, the sums were talking about that 'might' tempt negotiation would be a big chunk of Sam's profit (on the additional floors); I don't see a penny under 10M budging anyone. Which is a lot to turn over, in advance (which is what the City would want before issuing a permit). Even that might not be enough.
To be clear, 10M doesn't buy you much of anything in the area by way of land; at least not any you could do anything desirable with; what it might do is allow renewal/restoration of JK; or a new childcare centre or something.
At any rate, in not going through things the way a sensible developer would, I'm assuming Sam fully expected this to go the OLT from the get-go. I'm not convinced he wins there; but in the scheme of things, it's probably not a huge cost to go through the motions, and at the rate the project is going, he can wait the 2 years for a decision...... LOL