Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
March 27th
- Thread starter AlbertC
- Start date
AlbertC
Superstar
It's been a long time coming, but urban streetwall formations starting to emerge among the Eglinton & Laird area shopping plaza-lands.
Kek123
New Member
Northern Light
Superstar
A new Site Plan App is in on this site.......
No Docs yet.
No Docs yet.
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
Possibly for the purpose of moving forward with the third building on the site, now that the first two are well on their way.
Northern Light
Superstar
Last edited:
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
That is an increase in density for the third tower from 28 storeys in the original proposal to 30 storeys.
sunnyraytoronto
Senior Member
It's paramount that the third tower must be built as high as possible - the taller the better!!!
Undead
Senior Member
Odd to see such a high parking ratio for a site on top of rapid transit.
yin_yang
Active Member
Not really, my parents building has the same number of spaces as units and they're on a subway line and streetcar line. Cars are awesome. People like cars.
bilked
Senior Member
Northern Light
Superstar
There are also 3 supermarkets within a very short walking distance.
Though, the area doesn't have the traditional mainstreet retail character yet; and the N-S transit route is not all that frequent. (currently 25-30M frequency much of the day)
innsertnamehere
Superstar
It’s actually unusual today - places like Vaughan are building as few as 1 space per 3 units on the subway.
higher end buildings tend to have more spaces though, which may be happening here.
people may like cars, but they don’t like paying $60,000+ for a spot, so demand for them is declining.
bilked
Senior Member
I don't think anyone is disputing that cars can be convenient for certain personal reasons.
However, private car use accompanies obvious environmental costs. The question then is why is the City enforcing mandatory minimum parking requirements in new apartment and condo buildings?
As insertnamehere points out here (and many others have pointed out elsewhere), demand for condo parking falls well below the City's mandatory minimum requirements. Owning a car (and parking it) is incredibly expensive and condo purchasers just don't demand near as many parking spots as developers are forced by the City to build.
The mandatory minimums, thus, creates a supply glut of new parking. The supply glut means that parking spots (while certainly expensive), are actually underpriced relative to demand. The costs of building those underpriced spots are thus then passed on by developers to the purchasers of new condos through higher condo prices (ie. the parking costs are borne not simply those purchasing the underpriced spots, but also by condo purchasers who aren't actually buying the spots). Its microeconomics 101.
Effectively, it amounts to subsidizing harmful private transportation through inflating housing costs.
Given that we are facing both an environmental crisis and a housing crisis, this is ass-backwards and mind-numbingly stupid.
The fact that we have these minimums in 2021 when both public policy concerns and private interests want this removed represents an abject failure of this Council. An inherited failure, sure, but its such a simple fix, that how this isn't addressed is beyond me.
However, private car use accompanies obvious environmental costs. The question then is why is the City enforcing mandatory minimum parking requirements in new apartment and condo buildings?
As insertnamehere points out here (and many others have pointed out elsewhere), demand for condo parking falls well below the City's mandatory minimum requirements. Owning a car (and parking it) is incredibly expensive and condo purchasers just don't demand near as many parking spots as developers are forced by the City to build.
The mandatory minimums, thus, creates a supply glut of new parking. The supply glut means that parking spots (while certainly expensive), are actually underpriced relative to demand. The costs of building those underpriced spots are thus then passed on by developers to the purchasers of new condos through higher condo prices (ie. the parking costs are borne not simply those purchasing the underpriced spots, but also by condo purchasers who aren't actually buying the spots). Its microeconomics 101.
Effectively, it amounts to subsidizing harmful private transportation through inflating housing costs.
Given that we are facing both an environmental crisis and a housing crisis, this is ass-backwards and mind-numbingly stupid.
The fact that we have these minimums in 2021 when both public policy concerns and private interests want this removed represents an abject failure of this Council. An inherited failure, sure, but its such a simple fix, that how this isn't addressed is beyond me.
Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
The target end user for this project are downsizing empty-nesters, probably from the local Leaside area. They own cars and have cottages up north. This project won't sell if they don't have parking spaces.
Yes there are grocery stores in the area, but they are in auto-centric locations, and people in Leaside typically do their grocery shopping on weekends and in quantity like in the suburbs, rather than as-needed, like in more downtown areas.
Leaside's street grid and built-form aren't a suburban hellscape, but it does stretch out commercial and shopping destinations to uncomfortable walking distances (1km +) which along with the pedestrian unfriendly barrier in Laird Drive (which btw is a god-awful windswept arterial for 6 months of the year), lends itself towards car usage being the default mode of transportation. Factor in that the vast majority of area locals are families and older residents who might face mobility challenges in walking over 1km distances, and the winding local street grid, and you begin to realize why alternative modes of transportation haven't been taking up to the same extent as in nearby Midtown.
Yes there are grocery stores in the area, but they are in auto-centric locations, and people in Leaside typically do their grocery shopping on weekends and in quantity like in the suburbs, rather than as-needed, like in more downtown areas.
Leaside's street grid and built-form aren't a suburban hellscape, but it does stretch out commercial and shopping destinations to uncomfortable walking distances (1km +) which along with the pedestrian unfriendly barrier in Laird Drive (which btw is a god-awful windswept arterial for 6 months of the year), lends itself towards car usage being the default mode of transportation. Factor in that the vast majority of area locals are families and older residents who might face mobility challenges in walking over 1km distances, and the winding local street grid, and you begin to realize why alternative modes of transportation haven't been taking up to the same extent as in nearby Midtown.