Lower Yonge Precinct plans are a huge improvement

 Stig Harvor —

A Manhattan-like jungle of skyscrapers have shot up in the last decade west of Yonge Street in the lower downtown core. They are almost all built on small lots of land without consideration of each other.

Towers cut off each other’s views. Condos crowd around the massive, slowly crumbling elevated Gardiner Expressway. There is no enforceable overall plan to create a more humane environment.

Will this unsatisfactory situation just continue unchecked? Fortunately there is hope of change. A truly big piece of land immediately east of Yonge St. is becoming available for redevelopment.

The land is called the Lower Yonge Precinct.  It stretches east from Yonge to Lower Jarvis and south from the elevated Gardiner to Queen’s Quay Boulevard. Its 12 hectares (30 acres) is equivalent to the large area now chokingly filled up west of Yonge all the way to York St.

Our city planners in collaboration with Waterfront Toronto have been busy since 2012 developing a master plan for the new area (see website: Waterfront Toronto, Lower Yonge Precinct).

The plan involves a new street pattern to improve traffic conditions. Harbour St. at present ends at Yonge. It is now extended straight through to Lower Jarvis. A new north-south street is provided between Lower Jarvis and Cooper to break up the area into eight smaller, more manageable blocks.

The new blocks are filled with retail, office and residential facilities. Attention is paid to sensible building minimum and maximum volumes, setbacks, tower heights (max. around 45 storeys (150m) and lower (120m) toward the waterfront).The plan emphasizes pedestrian comfort with sun and wind control, wide sidewalks allowing cafés and trees. A block-sized park is included .

This is an attractive environment for living, working, recreation, enjoyment. It is a truly positive urban experience in contrast to our present very dense, uncoordinated downtown development driven by maximizing private profit at the expense of the public good.

Will this forward-looking Lower Yonge Precinct plan actually be realized? Progress was made on August 26 last year when City Council endorsed the completed first phase of the two phase plan study to be completed by the end of this year.

This precinct plan, however, is in serious jeopardy. At the moment, most of the valuable precinct land is in public ownership, mainly through LCBO, the provincial liquor control board. It means effective city planning control is possible. Such positive control is demonstrated by today’s very attractive development by Waterfront Toronto of the provincially held West Don Lands along the Don River.

Our now austerity-minded provincial government, however, has other plans. It is in the process of selling to private developers all publicly held land occupying about two-thirds of the entire Lower Yonge Precinct. Developer submissions are already due this April 17.

If the land is sold – as is likely – our city loses effective control of future development. We must brace ourselves for massive private projects and more excruciating and expensive Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) appeals.

We can expect new projects similar to the huge one already proposed in the precinct two years ago in March 2013, called 1-7 Yonge Street. It occupies about one-third of the precinct along Yonge eastward to Freeland St.

The developer, Vancouver-based Pinnacle International, had bought the existing Toronto Star tower and base building on the corner of Queen’s Quay and the large, adjacent parking lot. To cover the high purchase price, Pinnacle wants to cram its site with six extra-extra tall skyscrapers.

The site is to be divided by the proposed Harbour St. extension. The original proposal was for four condos ranging from 75 to 88 storeys (!) in the north block and two new towers from 39 to 70 storeys in the south block.

A December 2014 revised proposal reduced the total number of storeys by 14%. The 88-storey tower, however, shot up to 96 storeys, the highest condo in the city (at least for now).

To protect its own interests, the developer already in December 2013 launched an appeal to the almighty, developer-friendly OMB. The appeal, however, is on hold while discussions with city planners are continuing.

Even the revised proposal obviously in major ways contradicts existing zoning and the public-oriented, yet to be completed Lower Yonge Precinct plan.

Stay tuned. More public consultations are set for this year. The Lower Yonge Precinct plan is threatened.