Can we have a TOC?
Fair warning: it’s a serious talk.
It’s one of those “adult TOCs.”
For the record, I never had one of those “adult TOC’s” about the birds and the bees with my parents when I was younger. I didn’t need to. I learned all that from the movie Porky’s which we owned on a Beta-Max cassette and watched religiously, but I digress, and then some…
The “adult TOC” I want to have today is about something that might scare you more than I scared my 5-year-old daughter when she asked, “How does a baby get out of a mummy’s tummy?” and I gave her the straight answer.
“Ewwwwwwwwwww!”
That was my daughter’s response.
And that’s been the response to these “Transit Oriented Communities” thus far, so let’s talk about TOC’s, shall we?
I grew up in Leaside and as a child, I frequented Yonge & Eglinton. The Cinnabon at the Eglinton subway station was my favourite joint, with Edward’s Record World on Yonge Street being a close second. But there was a period of about four to five years back in high school when I didn’t to Yonge & Eglinton, I’m not sure exactly why, but there was a long stretch where I didn’t visit. And when I went back up there after all that time, I was absolutely flabbergasted at what they built.
“They built a city,” I told my Dad.
Silvercity, to be exact, no pun intended but that’s just the way the story goes. The late-90’s were around the time that mega-movie “Cineplexes” were replacing the small, independent theatres, and imagine a series of 2-storey buildings on Yonge making way for massive structures with billboards on top of them.
It blew my mind.
So what then would Yonge & Eglinton do to a person’s mind today who hasn’t been there since the early-2000’s?
More than two decades ago, the largest building you’d have found at Yonge/Eg was the TVO building on the east side, south of Eglinton, where the old Canada Square theatre was. The rest of the buildings were all 2-3 storeys. Yonge/Eg is now dominated by towers, many of them 60 or 70 storeys. The area I knew growing up is long, long gone. “Shark City” nightclub, of my bartending fame, circa 1999, is a condo. And by that, I mean the entire building that once stood there was torn down and a 697-unit building was constructed in its place.
Was it merely a matter of time before Yonge & Eglinton was transformed?
This location is, to many people, “the nucleus of midtown.” Would we have been naive to think that residential living would not explode in this area?
Perhaps there’s no better place for a metropolis than a cross-section like Yonge & Eglinton. Once upon a time, I might have suggested Yonge & Bloor, since that’s the intersection of two subway systems, but when the Eglinton LRT is completed, I think Yonge & Eglinton will be just as busy an intersection for public transit purposes, and history has already shown that it’s dominating residential living.
So where else can we build these small cities at intersections?
Anywhere, it would seem.
On July 21, 2020, when absolutely nobody was paying attention, the Ontario government passed the Transit Oriented Communities Act, “to enable the construction of vibrant communities centred around transit stations along the routes of the province’s four priority subway projects.”
From The Act:
The Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by order in council, designate land as transit-oriented community land if, in the opinion of the Lieutenant Governor in Council, it is or may be required to support a transit-oriented community project.
Alrighty-then!
But how about this little ditty thereafter:
Delegation to Metrolinx
(4) The Minister may, by regulation, delegate the Minister’s powers under subsection (1) in whole or in part to any of the following entities, subject to any conditions and restrictions set out in the regulation:
1. Metrolinx.
2. A public body, within the meaning of the Public Service of Ontario Act, 2006, that is prescribed for the purpose of this section by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. 2020, c. 35, Sched. 3, s. 2.
Ah, Metrolinx!
Building our cities one day (late) at a time!
Maybe we should get Bombardier involved too? I kid, I kid, for those in the know…
So the provincial government passes legislation that allows itself to designate certain areas to be ridiculously and uncharacteristically dense, and then what?
September 17th, 2021:
“Ontario Announces Two Transit-Oriented Communities For The Yonge North Subway Extension”
Their press release:
TORONTO – The Ontario government is proposing to build two vibrant communities at Bridge and High Tech stations – along the Yonge North Subway Extension – that would help create more housing, more jobs and space for recreation and leisure within walking distance of the TTC’s extended Line 1.
“By working with our municipal and regional partners, our Government is unlocking a once-in-a-generation opportunity to integrate critical subway and community planning along the Yonge North Subway Extension that will transform the area for decades to come,” said Stan Cho, Associate Minister of Transportation. “We are moving beyond the ‘park and ride’ model and creating communities built around transit: this will bring jobs and housing closer to stations, lower commutes for workers, increase ridership and build critical infrastructure at a lower cost to taxpayers.”
Consultations with the City of Richmond Hill, the City of Markham, the City of Vaughan and York Region are currently underway, with public consultations beginning later this Fall.
The transit-oriented communities at Bridge and High Tech Stations would include commercial, office and retail space to support approximately 14,000 new jobs in the region. The proposed communities would be served by the future Yonge North Subway Extension, GO regional service, VIVA Rapid Transit and the encompassing major highways.
“Vibrant communities,” eh?
Is that what you would call it?
In a recent CBC News story, it was called something else: “a condo wasteland.”
Two weeks ago, we saw this story in the CBC:
“They’re Called ‘Transit-Oriented Communities.’ But To Some GTA Residents, They’re A Condo Wasteland”
January 20th
CBC News
From the article:
Some residents and municipal leaders are concerned two large-scale developments the Ontario government is planning along the Yonge North Subway Extension in Richmond Hill and Markham will bring too much density to the area.
“It’s effectively going to be a condo wasteland,” said Graham Churchill, a Richmond Hill resident since 2005.
The developments are part of the province’s plan to increase the supply of homes as a solution to bring down the soaring price of housing, which likely will be an election issue. That includes fast-tracking transit projects in the Greater Toronto Area and creating mixed-use areas around the transit hubs called “transit-oriented communities (TOCs)” to reduce urban sprawl. The government is partnering with developers who will foot much of the cost of the infrastructure.
The High Tech subway station TOC will bring 33 towers — some of them 80 storeys tall — to the Richmond Hill site north of Highway 407 and east of Yonge Street. The Bridge subway station TOC will bring 34 high-rises to the Markham site just south of Highway 407 and east of Yonge Street .
The developments are expected to bring in about 80,000 new residents overall, according to York Region.
80 storeys!
But the storeys aren’t the story.
33 towers!
That’s the story and it’s only half the story, since there’s going to be 33 towers at the Richmond TOC and 34 towers ad the Markham TOC.
TOC about a lot of condos!
So what do 80,000 new residents do to an area like this?
Well, for one thing, it dramatically changes the skyline:
So here’s my question: where’s the grocery store? Where’s the massage therapist? How about the dentist?
If 80,000 people are going to live here, where are the school(s), plural?
And what comes first: the chicken or the egg?
I have a hard time believing that supporting infrastructure will arrive before these condos are built, so I think it’s fair to say that this area will be a construction nightmare with little amenities for the better part of a decade.
But what are other options?
As I write this post on Tuesday afternoon, I have eight offers on a downtown condo and I’m being asked my colleague, “Only eight?”
That’s where our market is, folks. Only eight.
And one-hundred thousand dollars more than I told these sellers their place was worth last fall.
There are 26 offers on a house that my colleague is offering on right now and you can hear the 401 from the backyard.
That’s where our market is, folks.
Toronto Realty Blog has been a sounding board for absurd market activity thus far in 2022, so here we are, talking about seventy new condominium towers on the way, and I have the audacity to question the project?
Isn’t this a solution?
Build, build, build! No matter what they build, just build it. That’s the only cure to our housing crisis.
But there are going to be critics of these TOC’s, whether they are real-estate-owning NIMBY’s or wanna-be property owners.
Noted Globe & Mail architecture critic, Alex Bozikovic, published his take on this today:
“With Doug Ford’s Developments Plans For Toronto Suburbs, Sometimes Big Is Too Big”
February 1st, 2022
Globe & Mail
From the article:
For now, these two sites on Yonge Street are nothing special. The site of the planned Bridge station is industrial land just south of Highway 7 and the parallel Highway 407. The High Tech station site is a retail power centre just to the north.
To be clear, these are good places for development. York Region has spent years planning for these areas to become “transit-oriented communities” with high density. The Ford government’s decision to extend the Yonge subway adds to a GO Train station, and existing and future bus rapid transit lines.
The logic is solid: Put people near transit, and they will take transit rather than drive. And when you put enough people together, they can support retail and other amenities within walking distance. Such efforts, especially in the job-rich city of Toronto, deserve widespread support.
But these plans, created by the Toronto architecture firms IBI Group and BDP Quadrangle and planners Bousfields Inc. and WND Associates, stretch that logic to absurdity. The High-Tech site would include 33 towers with 21,000 homes, plus retail and enough offices for about 7,000 jobs. One single block there would include three towers of 60 storeys and three of 80 storeys. The Bridge plan is comparable. Parks are thin. There are no schools. This would be one of the densest clusters of development in the entire region.
This demands a gut check: Does it make sense? These new districts would be surrounded by single-family houses and townhouses, along with the massive highway corridor. Almost nothing is within walking distance.
If these are going to be urban places, they’re going to be built from scratch. And that is very hard. It requires a mix of housing, shops and services and community centres, a variety of building forms, good-quality public space, and careful design.
It’s a great take and I honestly can’t disagree.
The problem is: I have no other solutions to the housing crisis and I don’t know how else we can get houses and condos built in order to sustain the population growth for the next two decades.
In a perfect world, maybe all these lands would see single-family dwellings built. Freeholds. Actual houses. But those houses would easily cost over $1,000,000 and would come with double-car garages, whereas these condos in the TOC’s are built specifically to allow residents to use public transit! To build houses would seem to defeat the purpose.
I have a feeling that every single TRB reader who comments today will say, “I would never want to live there.”
But does that mean these TOC’s shouldn’t be built?
At some point, we’re going to have to build “properties that people don’t want to live in” simply so that people can live there.
When I worked at Celestica in 2001, all the employees in my department lived in the suburbs. They all lived there. And why? Because they couldn’t afford the same property here in Toronto, and they made a choice. They bragged about their Sunday barbecues with the neighbours and talked up a storm about the local soccer games at the parks with their kids, but if you caught them alone for two minutes, and forced them to honestly answer the question, “Would you rather have the same house in Toronto?” what do you really think they would answer?
My point is that at every moment of time, in every market, there are areas that are more desirable than others, but that doesn’t mean you don’t create, build, or support those less-than-desirable areas.
Those houses that my colleagues owned twenty years ago may have been in sub-divisions without a single tree over five-feet high at the time, but today? That’s prime real estate! Those houses would have 15, 20, 25 offers if they were on the market today!
So today, we might turn up our noses at Transit-Oriented Communities, or TOC’s, but what will we say in twenty years? Perhaps we’ll look back and say, “Wow, what an incredible idea and such foresight!”
That’s tough to envision now, I know. But perhaps we should give it a chance.
And perhaps the province should mandate proof of residency for buyers of these pre-construction TOC’s to ensure they’re serving their purpose and not being bought by foreign interests?
Ouch!
I just burned my finger on that button reading “topic,” which was hot. So, so unlike me…
Francesca
at 7:46 am
This proposed site is nothing new. Look at the development in Vaughan at the end of the subway line. Nothing there but condos with nothing within walking distance except for a few office buildings and the subway stop. Similar situation to downtown markham at Warden and 7. There are some stores at the bottom of the condo buildings but no schools, libraries etc. If you don’t want to take the VIVA bus you basically have to drive to get most things done. It’s a walkable bubble within itself but with no walking access to its surroundings and the kids there need to get bused to far away schools. The Yonge and Eglinton area is at least walking distance to other areas but they are seeing a lack of schools, parks and community centres to meet the demand of all the people moving into the area. As you mentioned David it’ll probably take a decade before any amenities are built once all these condos are built along the Yonge extension line. Only now is the Sheppard line finally getting a community centre at the Bessarion stop, 20 years after that subway line opened!
What I find absurd is how expensive these condos are. If there are no amenities nearby surely this would be reflected in lower prices? But no some are as expensive if not more than established neighborhoods.
My husband managed the construction of the KPMG and YMCA building at the Vaughan metropolitan centre a few years back and I remember him telling me that when the condos there were selling preconstruction, several buses would arrive full of foreign investors who would line up and essentially buy all the suites for sale. So maybe these new transit hubs will start out as investors buying them to rent out so they don’t care about the lack of amenities nearby.
A Grant
at 8:13 am
I am a fan of intensification, including transit oriented developments. However, the latter must be created with people in mind – people without cars.
This means that the project must be extremely walkable. This includes: smaller block sizes; reduced land area dedicated to cars through improved pedestrian/cycling infrastructure featuring narrow streets and wide multi-use sidewalks; terraced high-rises with the first floors dedicated to retail/office space; and outdoor facilities where people can congregate (including plazas and parks). Most of all, the condo developments must severely limit the amount of parking available, otherwise the point of the development is lost.
Continuing to build outward is not a sustainable solution
hoob
at 8:28 am
“I would never want to live there.”
Seller in waiting
at 8:38 am
I don’t have a comment about this blog but I just read the the “Up, Up, And Away!” blog of houses going up 10+% since Christmas and thought I would share my story.
I almost sold my house for 1.7M in Dec 2021. I had an offer with no conditions however because the property is tenanted I as the seller put in a condition that in the unlikely even the tenant doesn’t vacate before closing date even after being served the proper N12 that the deal can be extended by the buyer up to 90 days to allow the tenant to vacate (I.E Court Order) and thus protecting the deal.
The buyer refused and said tenant is my problem not theirs so I went for option 2 “cash4keys”. I offered the tenant ~10K to sign a N11 and mutual agree that they will leave in 4 months. Tenant Refused and deal died.
Fast Forward 1 month and I will be putting the house back on the market for a new price of 2M.
This is a 7 year story with lots of twists and turns that I am summarizing however when this is all said and done and the house is sold and transferred to the new owner if you all want I can submit a guest blog to David which I am thinking should be called “How my A$$hole tenant made me 300K in 30 days”
Kyle
at 9:10 am
I’d read it!
Ed
at 9:34 am
Yes please
Condodweller
at 2:54 pm
Yes, a blog on in the trenches realities of dealing with tenants when houses/condos are sold would be interesting to read. Either by David or a guest blog or both.
Seller in waiting
at 4:48 pm
If I end up selling this year vs next year I will share my story. But in the meantime if you are interested in stories in the trenches dealing with bad tenants or bad landlords you can check out any of the facebooks groups, just search Ontario landlord and tenant board in facebook groups.
Don’t read this if you want to be a landlord it will make you re-think it.. just remember that facebook group is hopefully not the norm…
Condodweller
at 5:46 pm
I’d be interested in reading about how normal situations unfold rather than what happens at the bottom of the barrel. It’s intriguing that you are thinking of offering a significant amount to your tenant but its’ not enough.
It would make for a great blog to read about people’s expectations and how the law is applied. If there are investors looking to buy, and there is a tenant in place, what’s stopping the new owner from keeping the tenant and taking over the lease? You’d think having a good tenant in place would be a positive for an investor. What happens if a tenant refuses to leave once the property is sold? Can the buyer back out? Would they want to considering they finally were able to “win” a bid? Is there no way to force a tenant out? I mean, if I were to buy a place and there is a tenant, surely, me wanting to move in trumps any tenant’s needs. Unfortunately, that’s the reality of renting these days. The owner can require the unit for personal use at any time.
I do have a tenant but I don’t foresee any issues should a family member need to palce. However , if they were to move out, that’s the point I would most likely just sell than having to deal with these headaches in the future.
Seller in waiting
at 6:47 pm
My Reply – Out of Order – Website doesn’t let me reply to Condodweller last comment.
Hi Condodweller,
I hear ya, facebook group is absolutely bottom of the barrel for sure and never the full end to end story.
I got some answers for you from my experience.
Q: What’s stopping the new owner from keeping the tenant and taking over the lease?
A: Actually the purchase and sale agreement requires the buyer to indicate their intention that they or a family member will move in or if they are an investor. If they are an investor they have no choice but to inherit the tenant. (This might limit investor buyer pool?)
Q: You’d think having a good tenant in place would be a positive for an investor
A: Many investors prefer to find their own vs inherit other people’s potential problem which also allows then to capture market rent vs existing lower rent.
Q: What happens if a tenant refuses to leave once the property is sold?
A: Breach of contract: The buyer can sue seller for both expenses and potential market loss as they would now have to buy new house at new price. This is exactly why in my case I put a clause in agreement to protect my side however buyer refused to accept that clause as they wanted guaranteed vacant possession on close and not possession up to 90 days later (worst case scenario.)
Q: Can the buyer back out?
A: It would depends on the clause but in my case yes the clause allowed the buyer to extend the deal by up to 90 days to allow the lawful eviction to complete in the unlikely event the tenant didn’t leave and used court as delay tactic. (Timeline ~3-6 months). At end of 90 days the deal would then be dead with buyer getting deposit back. I am sure buyer can put back out clause but then seller may not agree ?
Q: The owner can require the unit for personal use at any time.
A: Tenant can always take to court as delay tactic so it could take 6 months vs 60 days. Landlord also has to give tenant 1 month rent (new law since summer 2020)
Q: However, if they were to move out, that’s the point I would most likely just sell than having to deal with these headaches in the future.
A: Exactly. Best advice is when vacant by tenant choice this is best time to evaluate if you should sell or re-rent. If you rent again then you have to understand how difficult and costly (time and money) to evict tenant.
Condodweller
at 7:46 pm
@seller in waiting
Wow thanks for all the responses. I brainstormed those questions for a future blog and didn’t expect instant answers! David should be in a perfect position to speak to this. I’m sure he sees his fair share of houses/condos for sale. For example the gray area of taking over a unit claiming family use only to put it up for sale after the tenant moves out. I can see a vindictive tenant going after the owner somehow.
Seller in waiting
at 10:18 pm
@ Condodweller,
David has some detail and recommendation that you can find in a blog called “Illegal Evictions: Real Life Examples!” It was written at the height of covid in March 2020. I like yourself I am an avid reader of this blog and missed that blog for some reason or I skipped to comments section as it didn’t apply to me back then. I don’t recall reading it but in fairness it was Day 0 of covid and we were all watching the news… I found it recently by using the search function and searching for the word “eviction.”
I highly recommend reading that article and especially the comments section. It’s hilarious, 50 comments of Appraiser and Chris going at it…. Let’s just say Chris’s comments did not age well…
Comment of the decade goes to “Jimbo” telling everyone to buy March 2020!!!
On myside I was fortunate enough to sell everything back in late Jan 2020 when apple announced some lower guidance due to some virus in china. I put half my portfolio into cash. Mid March at the very low I reversed that trade. Lets just say it went well.. 1 month later in April 2020 I changed my wifes portfolio from low risk to high risk and its more than double since them. Might be time to put it back to low/medium risk again.
By the way, my rental story is more of me trying to sell and navigate using the legal evictions process. I am sure David’s advice would have been to push for me to wait to get the place empty before selling but my mind was set to try and sell to an investor so that my tenant can stay but that strategy has cause me a failed sale in Dec and still trying to sell 4 months later.
No complaint here as prices went up significantly since then and will be reflected when we list but my place is still not empty so it’s still an uphill battle trying to sell when the tenant decides they don’t want to leave and decide to live thought the constant showings.
Imagine going into a 2M house with the tenant family all there looking occupying different rooms. Where are these Asian buyers that buy houses sight unseen from an iPhone in China???
Market is Crazy but Buyers still want value and want to fall in love with the house they buy because most buyers are not investors.
If I could go back I would not have given them the false hope of investor buying and would have focus on motivating them to move out with lots of time and some CASH incentive so that I can position my house to sell in Spring Market empty.
Condodweller
at 5:22 pm
Yes, I have been reading and contributing for longer than I care to admit and I do recall that specific blog. However, since it didn’t really apply to me I would need a refresher, and given that circumstances have changed and the stakes are much higher now I think it would be a good time to revisit the issue.
I find it interesting that your tenant didn’t accept 10k but it makes sense as they need a home and unless they can find an alternative for cheaper (not likely) why would they leave? This brings up another issue David has written about recently which is that everyone has their price. If you can get an extra $200k now, theoretically you could offer them 50k to get them out. How much would it take to motivate them to move out and how much would you actually give? How much do you have to gain from marketing an empty, staged home vs a tenanted property? Looking at it from the tenant’s point of view, you’d think it would be fair to let them stay if an investor buys the place. Or just sell the place and let the new owner serve them with the form because they need to move in. I know it’s an issue if you get less for it with a tenant in place. It’s a difficult situation for sure.
Especially with rent control in a place where the tenant is paying below-market rent. They have 0 reasons to leave. I’m in that situation and while I had a great relationship with them I don’t know how cooperative they’d be if I served them with notice to leave. It could be for both personal need, which is why I haven’t sold yet or to lock in the gains and redeploy capital elsewhere.
I seriously considered selling during the runup in Jan 2020 and the timing would have been ideal as I could have invested in the stock market at the bottom after a few months of closing.
You can’t time the markets but can make strategic moves to improve your returns as you have done. Good luck with the sale and do report back. It looks like I’m not the only one interested in these in the trenches stories.
Seller in waiting
at 9:27 pm
@Condodweller
Thanks, I will report back on what happens with the sale.
As for everyone has their price. yup, I 100% agree.
I would think 10K ish would be the MAX anyone would offer to a tenant, anything above that seller’s other choices will start to look good.
For example, In my case if I don’t sell in a few weeks I will sign a new 3 – 5 year mortgage commitment with bank. I will continue to try and sell the rental house for next 3 months as per my contract with agent but I would only sell to a buyer that accepts the tenant clause. In this scenario the tenant will get the legal 60 days and 1 month rent therefore cost is actually cheaper for me as I would only pay the tenant 1 month rent and the bank 3K to break mortgage which is still way under 10k.
In your case when you do choose to sell be open and honest with your tenant and give them opportunity to leave on their own and once they are out you can properly sell it vacant.
Remember you cant serve them with eviction notice until after you sell and at same time you cant sell easily for market value with a tenant so its a catch 22 and that is why may sellers offer more than 1 month rent to get them out before trying sell. technically this is a N11 which is called a mutual agreement vs eviction (N12).
As much as it sucks being a seller with a tenant its still better than being a tenant in that situation.
Kyle
at 9:20 am
In an ideal world, these TOCs would be complete communities from Day 1, but that never ever happens. That doesn’t mean they won’t eventually evolve into desirable communities. Cityplace, Liberty Village, Distillery district, Canary district, etc all started off as “condo wastelands” too, but over time, they’ve evolved and added amenities, like schools, libraries, parks, community centers and shopping. I don’t see why the same won’t eventually happen to these TOCs. One thing these TOCs have going for them is that out of all the amenities to add mass transit is probably the hardest, so eventually these communities will have something many other condo communities won’t.
Graham
at 11:29 am
Wasn’t David pretty harsh on Cityplace back in the day? Using Google I can confirm that David hated Cityplace and I appear to remember blogs from 2008… Is it comparable to today’s post, I don’t have time to figure out, but more importantly, has David been in my life that long? Kyle, what is time?
Kyle
at 3:04 pm
@David
LOL, i think Graham is correct here. I recall you were pretty critical of Cityplace WAY BACK, i distinctly recall you sharing with us that you got hate mail for some of of your blog posts. In your defense however, regarding TOCs, you’re simply sharing other peoples’ criticisms and they may not necessarily be your own. Care to let us know what you think about Cityplace today and what you think these TOCs (assuming they get built) will eventually mature into?
Average Joe
at 10:14 am
LOL. So there’s huge demand for:
1) Vibrant walkable neighborhoods full of character and close to everything
2) Wide open leafy green spaces and large lots with room for family, toys and hobbies
The pitch to satisfy that demand:
3) Soulless, crushing density close to absolutely nothing desirable.
Libertarian
at 3:11 pm
I agree with you that people want detached housing, but I think David made a good point:
“At some point, we’re going to have to build “properties that people don’t want to live in” simply so that people can live there.”
I think we as a society are going to have to change our definition of middle class. Everybody wants a detached house with the front and back yards, picket fence, etc. But there is no way everybody can have that. We can’t pave over all of Ontario to give everyone a detached house. Suburban sprawl is so inefficient in so many ways, that gov’ts have no choice but to force TOCs down our throats.
JL
at 3:21 pm
All on the assumption that the local population needs to and will continue to grow. You might be able to maintain some sort of status quo if it levelled off, as it has in some other areas of the world, but that’s unlikely here.
Average Joe
at 3:57 pm
I get it. Once cities become a certain size, the suburbs sprawl too far away from the central business districts to be sustainable. Carbon footprints grow, commuting/travel time is wasted, infrastructure lifecycle costs skyrocket. Cities need densification.
But when I look at that picture, I see a suffocating condo island built to subsidize all the sprawl around it. They’re hitting density averages by concentrating it into tiny areas instead of just infilling with gentle density over a larger footprint. This is meant to ghettoize density to support the ageing detached home infrastructure nearby without sharing their schools or roadways.
Libertarian
at 10:56 am
Well said.
It’ll be interesting to see if all those towers have larger units than what we get in downtown Toronto. As David writes, even 3-bed condos are tiny. And if there are mostly 300 sq ft bachelors, then that whole area will be a disaster.
Carol
at 11:37 am
I too am pro densification especially around Provincially funded transit hubs – what I entirely fail to understand is that Metrolinx is Provincial as are Education and Health – how can we allow permits for this level of development without the involvement of the other arms of the SAME government. Build build build, yes, but plan Education, plan Health when building around planned transit for goodness sakes! Pickering has 75 towers coming with similar risks, no schools and a much needed LTC home, not condo buyers, added to the local health system! The naive dream of course is in holding OntGov to broader planning, including the exclusion of off-shore, corporate and even 2nd home investors as they build the GTA with our $$.
Nick
at 1:55 pm
I kind of view this as the first round of a concept. Not perfect but the right direction. The counter points are valid, transit isn’t the only thing that makes a community livable, you must have the services nearby as well.
Hopefully as this evolves it incorporates all of that.
Schools can take up podiums, especially if you have entries from side streets and condo entrances on main streets.
Libraries, community Centres and Health Centres can all have their parts.
I would really like to see major flagship stores built into these places. Costco, Walmart, IKEA, hell even new locations of department stores like the Bay or Nordstrom…
This would be in addition to other smaller commercial spaces for doctors offices, accountants, lawyers, etc.
Condodweller
at 2:51 pm
Let’s do a back of the napkin calculation, shall we? For ease of numbers let’s round the new units up to 100,000 and new immigrants to the GTA down to 100,000/year. Assuming two people per unit on average that’s two years’ supply of immigration only. Assuming this can be built in 10 years we would need four additional projects like this to house new immigrants for the next 10 years and so on. Going forward we would need one of these sites each year into the future. Is that sustainable?
As far as transit goes, the idea sounds great on the surface. But when you start digging in, new issues can be identified. How about the volume of people you now need to move after limiting parking spaces or dare I say no parking since you are right on top of transit therefore it’s not needed? Are they also turning our subway lines into superhighways to handle the extra load? I mean the TTC already has to hire Japanese-style people loaders at some subway stations to jam them into the trains at rush hour before covid hit. At current population levels. Imagine if all these new people to the area will have to take transit everywhere.
Clearly, this won’t happen overnight and the increase will be gradual but the end result will be the same.
I realize there is other construction as well, but we also have organic population growth and internal migration as well.
Dickson L
at 5:36 pm
You are not going to hear that “I would never want to live there” line from me. I lived in a place like that before, and I wouldn’t mind doing it again if it means I can afford it.
Though I was born Canadian (in Toronto to boot), between 1993 and 2000 I lived in a public housing complex in Hong Kong called Mei Lam Estates. When it was built in 1982, the schools and the shopping centre were part of phase 1, and yes, that includes the grocery store and the dentist you talked about and all of it is within walking distance. A full-featured sports complex in the middle was added in phase 3 a few years later, also within walking distance. While shopping centres in housing estates weren’t new, having them open from day one was revolutionary at the time. Both phase 1 and the sports complex won medals from the local professional association for architects, became the model for other Hong Kong housing estates after it, and received foreign delegates looking to study it. Mei Lam was only about 4 towers in size, a far cry from the 30+ planned for High Tech and Bridge, but there are other larger comparable complexes such as Mei Foo and Oi Man Estates (Mei Foo was a middle-class luxury like London’s Barbican, while Oi Man was working-class public housing like London’s Thamesmead). This kind of integrated construction isn’t new and it can be done, and if Toronto wants to move forward in infrastructure and housing beyond the personality cult of Jane Jacobs, it has to be done.
Here you should really be asking for an “international” conversation, as opposed to an “adult” conversation. I have been reading this blog for years, and the comments suggest that most people who reply here have never seen things done any other way. Being an “adult” in that sense just implies being that much more vested in Boomer-era North American housing culture. If they are going to build something that is new to the GTA, they can’t be too accommodating to old fogeys who equate dignity with so-called “single-family housing”, otherwise things will go nowhere. The Homestead Acts are long dead, and city planning has to move beyond desperate nostalgia for them. Like Henry Ford allegedly said, “If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”
DT
at 10:05 am
Yes to this! But also … a cluster of tall condos crammed onto 1 site, surrounded by a sea of single family homes, is a symptom of a zoning problem, no? What if we also allowed all neighbourhoods zoned as single family residential to evolve and grow with demand? Such as allowing a single family home to be converted into a 4-storey 4-plex? Or allowing several lots to be combined together to become 6 storey apartment. In every neighbourhood in the city. Then we wouldn’t be having discussions about how to manage sudden density concentrated in one spot. And there would be a bit more room for smaller builders instead of it being only the domain of large developers.
Mike Stevenson
at 10:19 pm
If this was really about planning a community and not payoffs to developers, schools would be part of the plan. Obviously.
There was a virtual forum recently with the city’s point man on developing Yonge and Eglinton. Someone asked “What about schools?” The answer was essentially: “Not our concern.”
It’s pretty funny when you think about it. They knocked down North Toronto Collegiate to build condos and put the school in a condo building. People who lived in the new buildings were told their kids wouldn’t be able to go to North Toronto.
Marty
at 12:31 pm
Porky’s – the highest-earning Canadian-produced movie ever.
30% of Canadian births are cesarean – did you give your daughter information on both ways?
Edwin
at 1:06 pm
The governments are forcing these TOCs so they can leave all the SFH areas alone. God forbid they allow some multiplex or mid rise development near their precious homes.
Graham Churchill
at 2:06 pm
Thanks for quoting me in your article. The 2 TOCs at Yonge and Highway 7 are much worse than you are reporting. Michael Fedchyshyn, Infrastructure Ontario’s Senior VP of TOCs, has signed a secret deal with the De Gasperis family on behalf of the province. The deal gave the De Gasperis’ outrageous density rights, and removed most parks and amenities. In exchange, the DeGasperis’ are providing money for the subway. The municipalities were given no knowledge of anything in this deal other than the fact that their secondary plans are now gone and they will not be receiving any parkland money-in-lieu. Since the deal was done in private, we have no visibility of the deal’s details. NOTE: This is an issue that the auditor general needs to investigate.
What we do know about the two TOCs are the following:
— They double the housing density from what Richmond Hill and Markham had in their original secondary plans, which were already making the centre the densest in the GTA.
— It reduces the employment that was in the secondary plans. The original plans called for 2:1, housing to employment. The new plan will make it closer to 4:1. This decision will force more people to seek employment elsewhere which will put either more people into cars on the road or onto the Yonge subway during rush hour. If you live in midtown Toronto, kiss goodbye to ever getting on the train. The relief line was supposed to help alleviate crowding. With this development, Toronto is going to need to dig a second Yonge subway line.
— It removes community centres, schools, and parkland, all of which are required for a healthy community. The social impact will be devastating.
— It calls for 67 condo towers, 40 @ 60 storeys or more, 11 @ 80 storeys. (For reference, First Canadian Place is 72 storeys).
— It Implements a density of 175,000 residents/km2 (which is 4 x the density of Yonge-Eglinton, 5 x that of North York Centre, and 6 x that of the Toronto Central Waterfront).
— It will make the Yonge-407 centre the 2nd most densely populated place on earth, just after the Dharavi slums of Mumbai, India – made famous by the film Slumdog Millionaire.
— It will concentrate the equivalent population of Newmarket (88,000 people) into 45.5 hectares (an area equivalent to about half of Exhibition Place).
— It will have less than 10 hectares of parkland and 1 school; Newmarket, by contrast, has more than 320 hectares of parkland and 29 schools.
When Toronto built the St. James Town development, it earned an international reputation for what not to build. This development is three times denser than St. James Town.
What most citizens have not woken to is that Doug Ward has declared war on our cities. He is marginalizing the power of the municipalities (and the voices of citizens) and giving that power directly to developers, who are his biggest donors. With his halving of the number of councillors in Toronto, his misuse of MZOs, his implementation of the TOC Act, his grabbing of sweeping powers in the Building Transit Faster Act, and his coming power give away to developers signalled by his Housing Task Force, it is a literal war on the GTA.
Become aware folks and create some opposition. Or prepare to move. The GTA is about to become a living hell.