Thursday, June 21, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
News and Events of Interest
- COMMUNITY CONSULTATION MEETING NOTIFICATION. We finally received
our notices about the June 25 Community Consultation, and guess what:
the link to the Planner's Preliminary report, which includes details
about the proposal and initial concerns from the planning department, is
for the wrong property! Grrrr. We have notified City officials and
requested that they ensure that a new letter is sent out asap.
Meanwhile, the correct link is here.
- ACTION ALERT. Speaking of the Community Consultation meeting, the
letter notes that all calls and emails to either Francis Kwashie or Mike
Layton will be part of the record and input into the decision making
process. Please take a few minutes to write or call both officials and
make your opinion known: every call or email is a bullet in the side of
this crummy proposal.
- The Trinity Bellwoods Community Association (TBCA) is holding a
meeting to discuss the 109OZ proposal, on Monday, June 18, 7–9pm, at the
Trinity Bellwoods Recreation Centre (155 Crawford St). Hearty thanks
to TBCA for picking this up. All members of Smart Growth Ossington as
well as other interested parties are encouraged to attend!
- MEETING WITH CITY OFFICIALS AND RESERVE PROPERTIES. On 12 June SGO
representatives met with Ward 19 Councillor Mike Layton and his staff
(outreach assistant Tania Liu, executive assistant
Michal Hay), City Planner Francis Kwashie, and principals and associates
of Reserve Properties: Shane and Sheldon Fenton, planning consultant
Craig Hunter, and RAW architect Roland Colthoff.
First half of the meeting was with Mike and his staff, planner Francis; SGO reps Jessica and Benj; and Argyle Place neighbour Penny Carter. We were impressed with Francis here, and with Mike throughout, with respect to both content and presentation; our feeling is that they are aware of what is at stake here, and are operating accordingly.
Second half: out: Francis; in: Reserve's Sheldon and Shane Fenton; planning consultant Craig Hunter, and RAW architect Roland Colthoff. Our impression was of considerable rapport with Councillor Layton and his staff, and Mike and Francis are both sympathetic toward the "Ossington character" concept, as well as numerous specific community concerns. The reaction of the development team to our discussion of anticipated harms from their proposal was quite remarkable. They did not argue that we were wrong on the facts, nor did they argue that the harms to which we pointed were outweighed by greater good to society. Instead, they made two points: first, they self-servingly complained that any modification to the design they submitted would diminish their bottom line; second, they threatened to inflict an even worse harm on the community. Many would regard this attitude as childish.
One other thing: Shane Fenton refused to guarantee that the 10K retail space would not be used to house a national tenant---that is, a chain store. Chain stores on Ossington? How hip!
- We have been forging a variety of connections with other community
groups. Benj gave a presentation at the Trinity Bellwoods Community
Association (TBCA) meeting on May 28, and they offered their full support. Benj and Jessica
attended and gave a joint presentation at the annual Active18 meeting on June 4,
then met with several members of the steering committee; they also
offered their full support, and we will be working with them in future.
Finally, we are meeting this week with representatives of People Plan
Toronto, and also anticipate their full support. It is encouraging to see how many people---lawyers, planners,
architects, contractors, media people---are willing and able to
participate in working to ensure that growth on Ossington and surround
is indeed smart.
- The popular 'Ossington Village' blog publicized Smart Growth. We are delighted to have the support of this long-standing neighborhood advocate.
- We've been flyering both residents and merchants, and the response
has been incredibly encouraging; plus we've been having a great time
meeting and talking with our business and residential compadres. Once
names are added we should be looking at close to 100 members of Smart
Growth Ossington! Thanks to everyone for listening and signing up.
- The Committee of Adjustment just struck down a Riocan proposal to stick a Walmart (or something like it) on Bathurst just south of College -- just blocks away from Kensington Market -- which would of course be 'cultural cleansing' on a breathtaking scale. (Not to mention wrecking the traffic flow from Bloor and Ossington to Queen and Spadina and beyond.) Congratulations -- and serious thanks -- to Councillor Layton for his great work on this. Of course Riocan is appealing to OMB. Fingers crossed that this preposterous idea will remain struck down.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Flyer archive
- 'Let's keep the discourse up' (June 2012)
- 'Let's talk about Ossington' (June 2012)
- 'Denied' (June 2012)
- 'Did you know ...' (May 2012)
Remarks on the '109OZ' proposal
UPDATED 21 JUNE 2012
(Disclaimer: all of this information is 'to the best of our knowledge'. We are not lawyers, planners, or architects, but are merely concerned citizens attempting to provide honest and straightforward information to other concerned citizens. If you notice errors of fact or interpretation, please let us know and we will issue any necessary corrections as soon as possible. We apologize in advance for any confusion that may result from our errors; as always, we feel that each citizen should digest a range of sources of information and form her or his own opinion on the issues of the day.)
Our neighbourhood -- from Trinity-Bellwoods Park out past Dovercourt, and from Queen up past Dundas -- is a lively but laid-back, beautifully leafy place. It is multigenerational and multiethnic. Ethnic lines are not barriers, but sources of richness, as residents regularly reach across lines and share perspective and experience.
Our neighbourhood's peaceful leafy bustle makes it a wonderfully pleasant place to cycle, sit on the front porch, walk dogs, play with kids, chat with neighbours in the street, drop in on galleries, visit with friendly merchants, or enjoy the many green park spaces.
The school communities around Givins-Shaw and Santo Cristo are tightly-knit and involved. Halloween is a collective festival along our many residential streets. Thanks to these communities, existing solidarities, an open-minded artsiness, and the "front porch" culture, "borrow sugar"-type neighbourliness prevails. It makes our neighbourhood a safe place, where the streets and laneways are walkable at all times and children grow up with a sense of community.
And of course we are also graced with the Ossington strip. On weekends things can get a little rowdy and back patios generate some conflict. We all have been waiting years for a more servicable retail mix. And some of the galleries are coming to find the rents too high.
But the strip still sustains many daily needs, with its hardware store, pharmacies, and bakery. For those who like restaurants and bar/patio culture, what a dream! The foot traffic makes the former brooding strip of light industry and heavy vice seem safe and effervescent.
And from a collective perspective, the Ossington strip is one of the city's cultural treasures. The strip is, and always has been, a place that does not quite fit the mould. The foot of a former military road, Dundas Street, the strip eventually lost that identity as Dundas became absorbed into the city's quotidian horizontal flow. The strip's identity as the foot of Ossington Avenue henceforth has been incongruous: the higher reaches of that street are entirely residential. In the lowlands of the Garrison Creek system, down by 999 Queen Street, Ossington rested for decades -- away from the quotidian east-west corridors of quotidian Toronto life -- as a place of light industry and heavy vice. Overlooked, off the grid, it was a place where mystery and possibility were in the air.
The eventual emergence of the strip as a restaurant and nightlife destination is deeply rooted in that sense of mystery and possibility. As a place both orthogonal to and yet accessible from the quotidian streams of Dundas and Queen, it is a place in which urban flows can pool and rest. This restfulness, and the low temperature stemming from the strip's odd and somewhat lurching mix of low buildings, cultivates and nourishes the sense of mystery and possibility. It is this sense which provides the 'anything goes' vibe of the strip: a vibe which once transmuted into vice, and now transmutes into both more genteel pleasures for its visitors and a sense of freedom and creativity for its small entrepreneurs.
This is the context into which Reserve Properties proposes to introduce a truly huge structure: one that would contain three times as much built volume as all other structures on the block *combined*; one that would break up the 'funky' vibe with a single vast chain store; one that would have far-reaching and dramatic offensive impacts on the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The proposed building would be nine storefronts wide and 82 feet high (with the top 12 feet a "mechanical penthouse" housing HVAC units). By comparison with the three-story building next door containing three storefronts (Golden Turtle, Frantic City, and Hollywood Foods), it would have roughly seven times as much facade.
It would also occupy almost all of the depth of the lot, rising 70 feet. That means it would have fifteen times the volume of the three-story, three-storefront building to the north. It would also put under one roof three times as much volume as all other buildings on the block *combined*.
Its nine-storefront width is one-third the length of the block. That storefront is built extra-high -- the height of the Boehmer building, and half the height of the three-story building to the north. That storefront would house a 10,000 square foot chain store: when the developer sells the retail space for roughly $5 million, anyone who made that investment would demand the security that only comes from a nationwide tenant. A one-third block length chain store would harm the "small-scale, artisanal" character that makes Ossington such a great place for nightlife while doing nothing to redress the dearth of daily shopping needs on the strip.
Finally, at 25m high -- even 21.5 minus the mechanical penthouse -- it towers over the existing streetscape. Ossington is 18m wide. Every principle on planning says you don't build above the width of the street.
Still, it is our position that even 18m would be out of place on the traditionally low-rise Ossington strip. Very nice construction is possible within these constraints, of course: think of 131 Ossington, home of the O'Born gallery, only three years old. We think the developer should build something like that. To push the ceiling further would be to raise the feeling of "urban pressure" on the strip. And it is the relaxation of that pressure that brings the very sense of mystery and possibility responsible for Ossington's allure as a destination and safe-place for creative expression.
The building would introduce 70 more parking spaces to a block currently containing less than 40. It would squeeze this traffic through a narrow opening out across sidewalks which are major paths to Givins-Shaw School, and then into Argyle, part of the city's bike network. (The laneway would also be graced with a two story blank wall, a tractor-trailer loading dock, and a twelve-foot-cube power transformer.)
The building is proposed to have 80+ balconies, up and down both sides. These would look down into the lands of houses along Givins and Argyle, and perhaps even Brookfield. Given the size of the units and Reserve's "party building" marketing strategy, the potential for constant late-night party noise harassing the neighbourhood is serious. Bylaw enforcement is not sufficient to keep noise down. The city should act affirmatively to prevent harassing late-night noise, rather than rely on neighbours to fight an unending battle to stop it.
This building is entirely out of place on Ossington. What is going on here?
The developer is trying to put a midrise building on a lowrise strip. Midrise means five to ten stories; lowrise means four or less. It is clear that the developer is trying to do this because they have hired the person who wrote Toronto's "Avenues and Midrise" study as a consultant for the project. But it is not appropriate to build midrise on Ossington: Ossington is lowrise.
Says who? Says the Official Plan and the city's Planning Department.
First, the designation of which streets are "Avenues" and therefore slated for midrise development is found on Map 2 of the Official Plan. Although many surrounding streets are designated as Avenues -- including Dundas, Queen, King, College, and Bloor west of Bathurst, as well as Roncesvalles -- Ossington is left off. This is because an Avenue is a "corridor": a street that goes on and on for miles. Ossington is not a "corridor": it is only 600m long.
Moreover, the Avenues standards call for development to be "incremental, building-by-building". But this proposal is the width of nine ordinary buildings, and replaces two structures and a lot. That is not "building-by-building". At one-third the length of the block, it is not "incremental". And finally we suggest that the economic pressures that would be let loose from the realization of the proposal would result in what could only be regarded as catastrophic, rapid change.
Second, the Area Study of 2009 characterizes Ossington as "similar to a traditional main street" in its existing built form.
Moreover, that study recognizes the importance of maintaining and strengthening the main street *function* of the strip. It notes that residents call for "a greater diversity of businesses (e.g., grocery stores, dry cleaners, etc.)". And it justifies a certain recommended cap on restaurant size on the grounds that to do otherwise would "strengthen Ossington as a regional draw rather than a local retail strip". So the planning department recognizes that, alongside its restaurant destination character, Ossington also has the function of serving as a retail center for the community, and needs to serve it better.
Third, the Area Study recognizes that Ossington has "emerged and continues to grow as a popular draw for restaurants and similar uses", speaking of it also as "a regional destination". The Planning Department recognizes that the establishments which give Ossington this character exist within its existing main street character, finding that the 175m^2 cap it recommended was larger than nearly all existing establishments and "should not detract from future desirability or success of Ossington as a commercial avenue". Ossington's status as a destination is tightly bound with its existing vernacular built form: the tight retail rhythm not only does not detract but strengthens its desirability as a destination, and the main street character of the massing and scale of buildings is an inextricable ingredient of the "charm" that goes into making it a destination. We contend that it is the lowrise character of the strip, and the attendant sense of the relaxation of urban pressure, that makes possible Ossington's status as a destination, as a place of mystery and possibility, as a safe-place for creative expression, an escape from quotidian banality.
Finally, we contend that this recognized use of Ossington is incompatible with huge retail space of the sort they desire. We say the structure should have at least five shops in it.
Some say that the belle epoque centers of Paris, London, and St Petersburg are midrise. That is of course true. But the comparison is facile.
First, an energetic downtown lifestyle is possible in Toronto, just as a more neighbourhood-type lifestyle is possible in Paris, London, and St Petersburg. The residents of our neighbourhood paid to experience a neighbourhood-type lifestyle. The Official Plan contains language intended to secure this lifestyle. Governmental failure to enforce this language arguably counts as a "taking" for the benefit of the developers -- no less than forcible and unanticipated conversion to a neighbourhood lifestyle would count as "taking" from those who choose to live downtown: whether in Paris, London, or Toronto.
Second, injecting a single midrise condo -- even several -- into lowrise Ossington would not make our charming neighbourhood, and the beguiling Ossington strip, into belle epoque Paris, London, or St Petersburg. It would only make it into a significantly degraded version of itself.
What then is the developer thinking? We can speculate:
A.
Clause 2.2(3a) of the Official Plan reads:
"The City’s transportation network will be maintained and developed to support the growth management objectives of this Plan by:
a) protecting and developing the network of rights-of-way shown on Map 3 and Schedules 1 and 2 by:
i) acquiring over time the additional property needed to achieve the designated width. The conveyance of land for widening may be required for nominal consideration from abutting property owners as a condition of subdivision, severance, minor variance, condominium or site plan approvals;
ii) extending and altering the widths of pavement, sidewalk and other facilities as necessary within the designated rights-of-way".
Map 3 says that the right-of-way width "associated with" our stretch of Ossington is 20m.
So this clause says that the city is supposed to acquire land so that the distance between building frontages on Ossington goes to 20m. Remember that it is now 18m. So this clause means the city sees it as a good thing to tear down existing buildings on Ossington so that the road can be widened to 20m.
That policy is alarming. What is more, it is baseless. Nowhere are the widths in Map 3 justified.
Indeed, the orange lines on Map 3 conceal what is really a basket of apples, oranges, grapes, bananas, and watermelon. Traffic department data on the west end streets (roughly, Keele and Davenport to Spadina and King) with a 20m right of way indicates that -- out of the 31 stretches for which data is available, only one stretch carries less traffic than our stretch of Ossington: Dovercourt from College to Bloor. And about one third of those stretches carry in excess of 70% more traffic than Ossington.
Legitimating the destruction of a recognized main street destination on the basis of a line drawn on a map is the sort of thinking behind the Spadina Expressway.
Moreover, the Official Plan is supposed to be understood "holistically". This means that no call has overwhelming force above anything else. The harms to the surrounding area ensuing from the existing proposal must be accommodated. That they are large is denied by none.
It is hard to say how to weigh costs and benefits, and the OP provides no algorithm. But here we say there is no benefit from forcing the city into conformation with Map 3. And any harm exceeds a benefit of zero size.
Finally, there are legal barriers to widening Ossington, which would not likely be overturned. Ossington is home to at least three historic buildings: the Levack Block, CAMH Detox, and Quasi Modo buildings already have historic designation. Others should as well: for example, the Angell Gallery building housed Toronto's first library!
B.
The Official Plan calls for growth and intensification in the core.
Some interpret this as a call for approval of height requests above the existing by-law in all cases. But we find no basis in statute for this interpretation.
The Official Plan provides no definition of "intensification". Going intuitively, we think this means "an increase in size, volume, or use-value of existing structures over what they replace".
The previous use was as a used-car lot and auto mechanic and a distributor and social club. Merely building as-of-right would result in intensification by this standard.
More generally, there are only a handful of buildings on Ossington that are at the current 14m height limit; the vast majority are in the vicinity of 1–3 stories. There is a very large amount of intensification that could occur within the present 14m bylaw limit, compatible with preserving the distinctive "main street" character of Ossington, and with almost no negative impact on closely abutting residential neighborhoods.
Open thread
Contact information for various players
- Smart Growth for Ossington central command
- City Councillor Mike Layton (416 392 4009)
- City Planner Francis Kwashie; city planning phone directory
- MPP Rosario Marchese (416 603 9664)
Upcoming events
- Public Consultation: Monday, 25 June 2012, 6:30–8:30 PM, Trinity Recreation Centre (155 Crawford) — a very important event: as many people as possible should make it to this. Bring all your friends and neighbours!
- Trinity-Bellwoods Community Association meeting on the 109OZ development: Monday, June 18, 7-9pm, Trinity-Bellwoods Recreation Centre. Please attend this meeting if you can!
- Trinity-Bellwoods Community Association meeting: Monday, 28 May 2012, 7–9 PM, Trinity-Bellwoods Recreation Centre
- Second round of flyering: Sunday morning 10 May 2012—details on our Facebook group, 'Smart Growth for Ossington'
- First round of flyering: Saturday morning 26 May 2012—details on our Facebook group, 'Smart Growth for Ossington'
Information resources: important documents, plans, etc
- The Toronto City Plan
- The study pertaining to 'mid-rise' buildings on 'avenues'
- Some history and context behind that study
- City Planner Francis Kwashi's initial assessment of Reserve Properties's application to build the '109OZ' condo -- includes architectural drawings of the proposed structure
- A picture of the architect's mockup of the proposal for the '109OZ' condo
- The blog for the Building Industry and Land Development association -- BILD, the place for developers to hobnob
- The process by which development goes from idea to structure in Toronto: a rough guide by a non-expert
Get involved
Smart Growth for Ossington wants you! To get involved, write oz@smartgrowthforossington.ca. Let us know:
- Your name
- Your neighbourhood
- Whatever contact details you would like to provide: email, phone, home address
- The level of involvement with the group you would like: for instance
- Keep me posted on important community information
- I'd also like to attend very occasional important hearings
- I'd also like to attend occasional group meetings
- I'd also like to do 'leg-work' (distributing flyers, staffing phone-trees)
- I'd also like to be closely involved in the workings of the group
- Whether you have distinctive expertise, experience, or qualifications of value for our mission: bilingual in English and Portuguese/Chinese/Vietnamese; a lawyer; a veteran of other community organizations in Toronto or elsewhere; an accountant; a member of the press; involvement with real estate development from the inside; a planning degree or education as a planner; a history with municipal or provincial government; an architect; and so forth
- Any inside scoops, things you have figured out, wild speculations ...
- Aspects of your vision for the neighbourhood or for the group
- Anything else: Smart Growth for Ossington wants your ideas!
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Height. The proposal is for a "6-story", but with its double-height first floor and HVAC story it is 82 ft, as high as an 8-story building, and 2-8 times higher than every building in the area. Ossington is LOWRISE (1-4 stories), the proposal is MIDRISE (5-10 stories). The MIDRISE height (82 ft) almost doubles Ossington's LOWRISE by-law maximum (46 ft).
Bulk, looming, shadow. The proposal is 151 ft wide (1/3 of the block) and 116 ft deep, just 21 ft from Argyle Place, abutting Givins residences. Multiplied by its 82 ft height, this makes for a huge, bulky structure, three times as voluminous as everything else on the block combined, which would loom oppressively over the center of the Ossington strip and several dozen homes, blocking afternoon light from dozens of cultivated front and back gardens.
(By way of comparison, the 3-story Golden Turtle building is 33 feet high, 17 feet wide, 43 feet deep.)
Balconies, overlook, and noise. The proposal has 80+ balconies closely and directly overlooking front and back yards of several dozen homes on Argyle, Givins, and even Brookfield. The privacy and noise concerns for residents (especially given advertising promising a "party building") are obvious.
Units. The proposal has 86 small units (avg. 700 sq ft), no family (3Br) units.
Chain store retail. The 11K sq. ft. space is built to house 1 'AAA' retail (i.e., chain) store. How hip!
Negative impact on Ossington's character. Like Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Ossington's status as Toronto's restaurant row and eclectic destination district is crucially constituted by its "main street character buildings" and open "street piazza" feel. Dropping a big ol' King West-style big-box condo with chain retail on the strip would suck the cool from the area, and set a precedent for MIDRISE on Ossington that would quickly degrade it into a place like any other.
Density. The proposal has a density---the ratio of square footage built to the size of the lot---of 3.9. That is 56% higher than the existing by-law maximum of 2.5.
Cars, parking, safety. The proposal has underground parking for ~70 cars off of the narrow Argyle Place laneway (which would need to be widened---how?). This doubles the cars in the area and raises serious safety concerns about vehicles cutting across Argyle St, the main walking path of children to Givins-Shaw Elementary and a primary pedestrian and bike path route to Trinity-Bellwoods park.
Back laneway features a two story blank wall, a truck loading dock, and a twelve foot square power transformer.
The Basic Question. Reserve is asking the City to grant them large exceptions to our by-laws so they can build MIDRISE in our LOWRISE area. Why would the City do this, when it would leave our business, residential, and school communities significantly worse off?
The only possible reason would be if the Official Plan's call for "intensification" in mixed-use areas like Ossington supported MIDRISE here, in law or in fact. It doesn't.
First, the Plan along with the associated "Avenues and Mid-rise Buildings Study" calls for MIDRISE to occur on "Avenues" (broad miles-long retail corridors, like King, Queen and Dundas), which are big enough to sustain MIDRISE. Less than two years ago, it was determined that Ossington is NOT an "Avenue", hence determined that growth on Ossington should NOT be subject to MIDRISE development. This makes sense, since Ossington is nothing like an "Avenue", nor will it ever be. Ossington's retail segment is too short to be a "corridor" (only 600m, from Queen to Dundas) and Ossington is too narrow to be an Avenue: at only 17.5m it is 8 feet below the minimum 20m width to be an "Avenue", and widening Ossington to 20m would require tearing down and replacing all the existing buildings, including 4 historical designation buildings). That's not going to happen. Plus, Avenues are supposed to be the bearers of heavy traffic: but the Ossington strip is second-lowest in traffic volume in the West End among non-Neighborhood streets.
Second, there is no need to interpret the call for intensification in mixed-use areas like Ossington as somehow requiring MIDRISE development. Density on Ossington is nowhere near the LOWRISE limits---we could easily double, perhaps triple, the density on Ossington within the existing limits. We have not outgrown the by-laws.
So there is no good reason for the City to permit exceptions to our zoning by-laws that would contravene the recently updated Official Plan (according to which Ossington is NOT an Avenue, and so should NOT be subject to MIDRISE development) by allowing Reserve to put MIDRISE (5 stories or more) on LOWRISE (1-4 stories) Ossington. And the serious negative and destabilizing impacts associated with this proposal constitute a multitude of good reasons for the City to forbid any such thing.
Who's minding the store? The Official Plan says that "Intensification of land adjacent to neighbourhoods will be carefully controlled so that neighbourhoods are protected from negative impact. Where significant intensification of land adjacent to a Neighbourhood or Apartment Neighbourhood is proposed, Council will determine, at the earliest point in the process, whether or not a Secondary Plan, area specific zoning by-law or area specific policy will be created in consultation with the local community following an Avenue Study, or area based study" (OP 2–22). This has not occurred.
Ultimately, we are going to have to rely on our City Officials---Planner Francis Kwashie, and Councillor Mike Layton---to directly effect the protective measures that are called for in the official plan. We call on Planner Kwashie to acknowledge that the Official Plan's call for growth in mixed-use areas like Ossington can be answered without allowing de facto exceptions to our by-laws that would effectively convert Ossington to MIDRISE, with the ensuing destabilizing results on our business, residential, and school communities. And we call on Councillor Layton to pledge only to support applications that KEEP OSSINGTON LOWRISE.