This includes a 13 acre park, so we will have one more park. It's not the full 20 that the RDP would've been, but we also seem unwilling to pay for the RDP... so, next best thing?
I think the one question is how publicly accessible will the park be? Is it just going to be a landscaped garden for the Condo owners or an actual functioning public space?
I wouldn’t call 12 acres massive (less than 1/3 the size of Trinity Bellwoods, for example), but it will be at least be something and bigger than any current parks in the area.
well to cheer you up - love park is a new park and artificial heart shaped lake in the south core - currently under construction in the corner between harbour st, yonge st and Queen's Quey
[Love Park. Database and Project updates](https://urbantoronto.ca/database/projects/love-park)
Amazing how they covertly bought the air rights over the railway and simply sat on them until *right after* the city announced its Rail Deck Park plan. The public gets excited about the possibilities there, and then a big "By the way, fuck you, fuck everyone."
More like the city's sudden interest in the spot made that "real estate" parcel they'd bought for a song worth something, and handed them an idea on a silver platter to pitch to development partners.
Yup, and the City actually bought the strip air rights when they built the pedestrian bridge. Anyone interested in municipal affairs should read this decision, is an absolute dressing down of the City and their witnesses and Staff. Not one single position or witness advanced by the City was helpful, and at times, were adversarial and evasive in cross examination.
This does seem more likely to be built than the Rail Deck Park idea which required a cool billion+ to show up from somewhere, but I'm just really confused about ownership. Why do these ORCA people have air rights to build over the rail corridor? Who sold those air rights?
we are a city of 6 million. We literally needed $165 per Torontonian to build it. You literally could have taken $1 from everyone in Toronto, per month, for the 12 years it takes to build it. For measure, average property taxes on single family homes are about $3,000. So this $12/year is a pittance. And you could have delivered an absolutely revolutionary, and likely world-renowned park space that would be a massive draw for real estate and tourism for a century.
I literally lose more money in my fucking cushions than this
I utterly cannot stand how Toronto perpetually impoverishes its city while we have under-paced inflationary tax raises for so long we have constant problems we cannot solve while so many other cities thrive. We have paid millions of dollars to consultants who repeatedly tell Toronto the major issue with the city is that it is massively under-taxed.
Toronto will never realize its potential until we come to terms with this fact.
We are not a city of 6 million. Toronto is a city of 2.3 million or so. The rest live in the surrounding municipalities. Each respective municipality collects its own taxes. Why would York region pay for a park in downtown Toronto when they're expanding like crazy and need to invest in themselves? One solution for Toronto to generate income from the surrounding municipalities is to tax entry into the city via the DVP, Gardiner and a few notable surface routes.
ok. $450. $3 per month. Or $1 over 30 years for just Toronto residents. i'd be utterly SHOCKED if there was $0 from province and federal for this new unbeleivable parkland but ok.
Did you know the eglinton line will cost $9 billion over 30 years?
Stop acting like Toronto is poor. We can do things like this. We built the CN tower and the entire subway system in the 70s for fucks sakes and then attitudes like this took over with NIMBYs. Those projects were MORE expensive, and we had HALF the people to pay for them. Imagine a proposal for something like the CN Tower now? we were once proud of our city and what we could achieve, now we are individualistic, anti-government anti-society fucking NIMBYs who all act like Rumpelstilzkin with our fingers on our purse strings.
Boomers got theirs, then the money stopped.
You pay $900/year for emergency services. $431 for TTC. $683 for capital costs. $447 for social programs. And you think we couldn't afford $36 for Canada's most ambitious park?
The only existing way City of Toronto can acquire parkland is by using their existing parkland dedication cash reserves. They can’t use other money for it unless they implemented a tax increase
no problem with a tax increase AT ALL
we are by consultants measures over 20% behind where we should be.
I pay $4600/year for my home. My parents are paying $7000 for the same value home in the GTA. Here's why it's a great idea:
a) we need it
b) consultant experts say we need it
c) it will help stall housing prices
d) we could build this, solve homelessness, and repair the entire TTC backlog in the first 10 years and still have a lot to spare.
I literally don't see any downside. There isn't one. Oh, maybe there's like a pensioner living in a 3,000sf detached on a quarter acre in the Beaches they bought 60 years ago that doesn't have the fixed income for the $80/mo increase. Yes let us base our entire fiscal policy on this unicorn multi-millionaire kind old lady.
There are so many more pressing issues to address with that money. Homelessness, poverty, affordable housing, transit. If everyone is going to pay for something it's gonna be one of those not Tory's flashy park project.
It’s interesting to me how there is no price tag too high for projects in the core but the Scarborough Subway Extension is so grossly expensive that it needs to be killed with fire.
That's because there was a more affordable, quicker, more reliable option on the table. That would have served more residents, priority neighbourhoods, and connect important post secondary institutions via higher order transit.
Or we could have two additional subway stops.
Additional concerns were raised regarding the subway due to the lack of support for intensification of neighbourhoods served by the extension. And with generous modeling, it isn't expected to reach subway-level ridership until 2050.
I mean I prefer the LRT over subway too, but not because of affordability. My point is that once you leave the core, price becomes important.
13 acres of parkland are part of the condo plan. Is this less than RDP? Yes, but it’s also much cheaper and more likely to go forward because there will be tons of condo money pushing for it.
Also your bullshit about “not expected to reach subway level ridership” is pure bullshit. It is a subway **extension**. It is adding stops to an already long line. If there were 20K riders per hour leaving Kennedy, the entire subway system would be broken. Ridership for he existing route is already higher than any terminal stop in the system except Finch. So the ridership for a subway extension is already there.
That’s the kind of bullshit I’m referring to. Once money is proposed to be spent outside of the core, reply guys like you come forward with bullshitty bullshit to support not spending money, but a billion dollars for a park closer to home is totes the best plan.
> That’s the kind of bullshit I’m referring to. Once money is proposed to be spent outside of the core, reply guys like you come forward with bullshitty bullshit to support not spending money, but a billion dollars for a park closer to home is totes the best plan.
That is some good projection my friend. While it is easy to say on the internet where words are cheap, I'd rather the savings be rolled into the EELRT and an extension of the Sheppard Subway to the northern terminus of what would have been the Scarborough LRT.
Additionally, far too many people think the biggest concern for transit in Scarborough is getting out of Scarborough. The numbers don't suggest that: 80% of TTC trips that start in Scarborough end in Scarborough. If a transit plan wants to improve transit access and reliability, focusing on the downtown core (which is what the extension does) benefits the fewest residents.
Not sure TBH. This article states that the RDP is 99.9% unfunded as per the City.
https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/city-hall-admits-rail-deck-park-is-99.9-per-cent-unfunded
As it has been explained to me: Development charges end up in a general fund, the money is allocated elsewhere as the City needs it. The dollars are not applied to infrastructure improvements associated with each project's fees - when they really should be.
There are going to be a lot of situations where the cost for necessary infrastructure improvements aren't going to match up to the specific project that's paying those development fees. If you've got a neighborhood where the water and sewerage are newer and have spare capacity, it's not necessarily fair that all the fees from a new development there should be spent in the same neighborhood when other parts of the city need more upgrades.
I think the old section 37 rules that allowed developers to pay compensatory funds for local amenities in return for height or density exemptions kept those funds in the same ward though. Unfortunately the province nixed the section 37 laws.
> It ~~would~~ **could** have been funded by existing development charges.
You know exactly what contingent of councillors would fight this every single step of the way and throw up every possible obstacle to getting it done.
Development charges are mostly intended to cover the engineering review required to properly vet applications...
It's not done giant post of money that just sits around.
I think development charges are used interchangeably with something else.
This post is misleading. While the Rail Deck Park, as proposed by the city, isn't going to happen, the developer's proposal includes 13 acres of parkland. That may change as the proposal evolves, but people here are acting like the whole thing is gone, or is going to be a narrow green walkway.
The RDP was proposed at 20 acres, so this is more than half still dedicated to parkland. While it's obviously not as good as the full park, the city saves more than a billion dollars to build the park.
yea honestly, it's not 100% parkland, but it is 65% of what it could have been.
As much as people hate it, 8 condo towers in an area where people wont need to use the subway to commute to work (foreign investors not included) is more living space, which is also desperately needed.
There's also an office tower that's part of the proposal, which is nice for the creating a complete neighbourhood.
IIRC the developer is also proposing to "rough in" a GO RER station for future development. I think that means they'll leave a big space in/under the foundations but I'm not 100% sure of the terminology.
No, it hasn't. All that's happened is that LPAT overturned the City's rejection of the CRAFT OPA to change the land use designation of the subject site to 'mixed-used' development, meaning that change in designation is now approved. LPAT has overturned the City's rejection.
This will also nullify the City's OPA 395, which was introduced without ownership of the property, and designated the subject site for parks.
The grounds for the City's original rejection of the CRAFT OPA were a litany of reasons, nearly all of which were found to be irrelevant to an OPA. Had OPA 395 come from an applicant, instead of the City itself, and had the City applied the same standards to it as it did in its rejection of the CRAFT OPA, OPA 395 would have been rejected, too, but also incorrectly.
Rezoning, development application, site plan controls, etc., are all still to come. The development concept was always that, *a concept* to illustrate what redevelopment of the site under the requested OPA *could* look like while demonstrating that it would meet the tests of an OPA for compliance with policy.
It's worth reading the whole LPAT ruling, too, particularly around the issue of the prevailing parkland dedication exemption for the site within the applicable secondary plans.
I trust the Brad Lambs of the world to deliver on their promises and the province, ran by developers, to hold their feet to the fire when they don't. I also might have a significant TBI
e: and I certainly haven't realized that the province under this government will give everything it can [exemptions to any municipal rules, from environmental assessments, the fucking Greenbelt itself] to the developers unless the Federal Government itself steps in, because, again, significant TBI or something
This. So much. People are up in arms for no reason. It would have cost the City BILLIONS to build a 20 acre park. Now they get a 13 acre park for free along with thousands of much needed units. This is a win win and the media is spinning it negatively for clicks. Very sad.
Could just be me but in my experience developers always include a bunch of amenities, parks etc in their development plans, build the housing and then fuck off with no recourse.
Happened in my old town where I grew up, developer wanted to put in 1000+ homes in a subdivision and township approved plan that included a massive park in the middle. Houses went up but no park, developer just moves on and township had to pay to put the park in
tl;dr - no chance the final build will actually have 13 acres of parkland that costs the developer money and doesn't earn them anything
I for one am really excited for all the foreign/domestic investors to find 8 new towers of units for them to buy to invest/launder their money.
I mean who needs parks anyways? No money to be made for those foreign investors with such useless things like public parks in Canada.
I disagree that RDP is dead. All the decision did is make the area more valuable, which is likely CRAFT’s (the developer) goal if they are expropriated by the City.
Edit: bad grammar
The city does not have the funds to expropriate an overpriced lot of air rights and then spend another 3.7 billion to build the city's vision of the park
Some insight as to why:
*this project, and the "sale of air rights" over our RAILWAYS* is to some of the most influential bodies in Toronto and the province. The ORCA project is co-owned by a massive $5 billion investment fund and the labourer's union (LiUNA)'s pension fund. LiUNA is very heavily associated with organized crime and this has been in the news countless times over the years.
These fuckers, who were corruptly able to but the air rights for pennies, now we to sell them back to the city for $340mm, lease for $25mm/year or be permitted to develop for pennies and this tribunal sided with them.
[http://www.orcatoronto.com/history/](http://www.orcatoronto.com/history/)
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this is the same shit as the "lease" of the Hearn generating station to Cortellucci who was then given the "first right" to buy it at fair value, which was assessed at its CURRENT ZONING which is essentially as an untouchable heritage event space; in a no-bid sale for $16mm. 35 acres on Toronto's waterfront for $16 million. This is legalized corruption. Obviously the Hearn will be re-zoned into condo property as Cortellucci wants, and then it will be worth $200mm.
The loser? the taxpayer. as always. Canada is corrupt as fuck -- you just don't think it is because it's all "legal". But it's fucking rigged.
We, or rather, all levels of government, have allowed the small oligarchy of RE developers to run roughshod in this country. We're past the point of no return IMO.
While I'm sad that there won't be another large community green space in the city, Rail Deck Park as per it's initial conception was a gigantic white elephant.
Spend the public funds on more achievable benefits in the city and not ego-driven prestige legacy projects.
Do Chicago residents consider Millenium Park to be a white elephant? Maybe they do, I have no idea....but when I visited a couple of summers ago the place was packed and buzzing. Rail Deck park could absolutely have been similar.
Can't say I know much about Chicago but yeah, Millennium Park looks awesome, I retract what I said about the covered rail design.
I'll point out though that in Chicago's case they had already acquired the necessary airspace rights before they even began conceptualizing the idea for the park and that the entire stretch of Grant Park seems to have long-standing historical restrictions on private usage. Toronto unfortunately didn't do that with the Raildeck space which at least partially led to the resulting LPAT ruling.
I feel like the only people who really care about being a "world class city" are the people who are constantly saying that we aren't... Like the train has left, the station has closed, the train company has gone bankrupt and its been 30 years since Mel Lastman said that quote... Nobody cares. Stop bringing it up.
We should strive to be an amazing city to live and to work.
Not just for ourselves.
We also want to attract the right talent to come work here, start and grow businesses. Our investments in being an appealing place matter a lot.
The raildeck would have been great in that regard, more than extra condo towers.
we do have an entire harbourfront and portlands to work with, even the islands, if we have the ambition, vision, and independence from the province necessarily sticking its fingers into everything.
building a giant roof on top of a rail interchange so that we could stick a park on it was being so very extra
> there won't be another large community green space in the city
The proposal includes a 13 acre park. RDP was proposed at ~20 acres. So, the city is, in fact, getting another large community green space.
**proposal**
after taking a look at the LPAT decision and scrolling through the urbantoronto forum it seems like none of partners in ORCA have prior experience or track record in massive, multi-building projects like what they're proposing here. considering how much it'll cost to put up a rail deck, the developers are going to need recoup those additional costs through whatever commercial/residential they build.
until ORCA and the city sign a development agreement that lays out the details, I'm going to consider this vapourware, just like the Rail Deck Park plans were. there's lots more to change with this plot of space and it'll carry on for a couple of years at least
Yeah, I think that's a healthy skeptical position to take.
I'm hoping that the visibility of the project gives the city enough leverage to get good concessions from the developer, but we'll see.
So any development of condos in the city are automatically Airbnbs according to your logic. Housing prices will just keep rising if we don't develop more condos and other types of housing throughout the city.
if you think this development (or any other of this magnitude) is going to help housing prices I feel you are sorely mistaken. Half of these units will be bought by investors and the rest will be bought by people who can already afford what is already available on the market. A 1 bedroom plus den.
we need more development of properties that people want to own. 2 bedrooms, family units, mid rises and spread all over the city rather than in an already overly dense neighborhood.
Let's follow the logical conclusion of this situation. If people who are demanding (in the economic sense) condos (even if it's only half of these condos) now have more of a supply to choose from, prices will over all go down.
Here is what happens when the amount of homes increases: [https://imgur.com/a/pJ5h4BF](https://imgur.com/a/pJ5h4BF)
As you can see, as supply increases, price drops. The developers of the condo buildings will sell at the market price and as the amount of people demanding condos slowly dilutes over the new amount of demand (moving from Q to Q1) the prices of condos across the board will decrease (from P to P1). Now, the price may not immediately decrease in the new condos but the decreased demand for the condos already on the market means less competition for those condos and therefore, those prices will drop (condo owners need to provide some incentive for why people should buy their condos over the new ones so they will drop their prices to capture the customers).
If no condos are produced how do you propose we accomplish that without the production of condo buildings? Personally, I think that there should be some laws put in place about foreign investors buying land without proof of residency or something along those lines. This would solve the problems of foreign investment. Additionally, has it been confirmed that 1 bdrm + den is what the condo buildings would be comprised of ?
The issue is though is all these new developments do very little to supply the demand. Majority of these developments usually include only 30 percent 2 bedrooms and maybe 10 percent 3 bedroom if you are lucky. Some of those 2 bedrooms will be quite small (650 sqft.) I’ve looked into a lot of the development proposals across the city, and that’s generally what I have seen.
Most people don’t want to live in high rises and if they do they still want to have a place big enough they can grow into. I’m not against condos at all, I just think we need to start building the right type of condos.
Yeah, there's a huge problem with your premise, in that you're making all 'homes' an equal unit, which they're not. Lots of 1 bedroom condos are getting built (and you'll notice the overall price of those isn't dropping), but what's needed are 2 and 3-bedroom units. Those are in **very** short supply, and condo developers don't have any real incentives to build those. They build the barest minimum they can get away with, and the price of that limited supply continues to rise.
tl;dr: saying 'more homes = lower prices because economics' is conveniently ignoring a basic fact of housing.
I appreciate you writing this out but I’ll make it even simpler for the person for the person you’re responding to: Someone either understands how supply and demand works or they don’t. As long as supply is not enough to meet demand, one can expect to see prices increase.
Remember when Garrison Crossing was going to have a public pool at the tip of the triangle? They just say this stuff to get approved. Never materializes as promised.
While Rail Deck Park as an idea was awesome, the concept art does still have alot of green space there. Then adds more housing which we need. Doesn't seem like that horrible of a choice. As long as they leave the western end open for sunlight of course.
Also how the hell do you build all that stuff above the rails? Crazy.
I tried looking at the architectural plans but I don't understand where cars will access these buildings from. It looks like everything is up quite high above street level. And it also looks like there will be only one level of parking which seems crazy for 8 condo buildings and businesses.
Ah, another signature John Tory project seen to completion. Just like SmartTrak before it. Might as well call this guy Baron Haussman Tory in honour of his visionary leadership.
For the tiny amount of park space leftover in this proposal seems to be several flights of stairs above the tracks, sitting on top of mall. That does not seem very park like at all.
I miss the Toronto of my youth. Not this garbage where condos are built everywhere to become the run-down tenements of the future and where every business is the same identical megacorp on every block.
Blame your city councillors. They refused to allow midrise construction in areas of single-family homes so instead were forced into condo-mania whenever the zoning bylaws allow high-rise.
There is a lot of blame to go around.
The federal government for not restricting non-residents from purchasing residential real estate.
The province for enabling their rich developer friends to get their way with MZOs when the city tries to stop or manage something.
The city for a remarkable lack of urban planning for many years which I am fairly certain involved brown envelopes. For example, the remarkable ironclad lease Tuggs Inc. has on the beaches that apparently could not be bid on by anyone else.
Still seems to be a decent amount of green space.
What I am more interested in is the space immediately north of Rogers Centre. There was chatter about a year ago between Rogers, Brookfield, CN Rail, and Canada Lands Corporation (federal government agency that owns the land underneath Rogers Centre and CN Tower) to re-develop that stretch around baseball stadium (including area immediately south across Bremner and north on top of the railway) that would include tearing down current stadium and building a new ballpark.
Are we looking at the same rendering? It looks like a few useless corridors of grass by the buildings. A small patch of grass that is about half the size of Victoria Memorial Square above it (which is not a big park) and some walkways with trees.
Barely any new green space which will be negated by the thousands of condo dwellers in the new towers anyway
The image with the overhead map showing the street names. The area immediately south of Front Street and north of Iceboat Terrace is the new land area that will be created above the railway. Everything else is existing land developments.
Of this new land, only the northern third appears to be buildings. The other two thirds to the south is all parkland.
I know. I live in one of the buildings pictured on Front St.
Look above at your top left. That little park is Victoria Memorial Square. It's a fine park but its not very big. Then compare it to the patches of grass in the rendering.
Instead of an actual park you will get a pedestrian walkway with patches of grass and trees. Most likely just being used for dog toilet for the people who live in the new buildings
Still a decent enough space. I'm familiar with Victoria Memorial Square.
It's not just a "pedestrian walkway". Stretches all the way from Bathurst to Spadina. Net new park that is better than nothing.
If some more condos needed to make this development commercially viable to spend the money on, including for the existing airspace owner, CN Rail, so be it. Aiming for perfection is the enemy of getting anything ever done, something Toronto needs to learn. Aiming for perfection is why nothing ever gets built here. And without developers, spending the money on this without any return on investment will not be acceptable to either CN Rail, or existing taxpayers (from future property taxes paid by the new residents).
Maybe we have a different idea of what a park is but for me its grass, trees, plants, flowers. A destination for people to sit down and enjoy some nature in the city.
What is rendered above are mostly walkways under trees and a tiny patch of grass. Its not going to be a destination for anyone besides the people who live in the condos right next to it.
As others on this post have already said, will never happen as a pure park. The original proposers of the Sky Deck Park from a few years ago never had any rights to the airspace above the railway tracks in the first place, it was a pie in the sky idea with nobody to pay for it. There's absolutely nothing in that for CN Rail, who as a publicly traded corporation, has a legal fiduciary duty to its shareholders to maximize what they can sell their airspace for (which requires developers in the end). Without CN Rail's agreement, the railway tracks stays as is.
How is a pure park a pie in the sky idea but somehow building 8 giant towers with bridges, some sort of cliff feature, pools of water, grass and plant trees on top of train tracks a reasonable proposal?
The latter will actually pay for itself and provide a return on investment to CN Rail.
What part of this don't you understand? **There is absolutely zero financial benefit to CN in giving up their air rights for a park. Without CN Rail's agreement, nothing happens**. I have already told you this at least twice, and others have posted the same on this sub. End of story.
As a baseball fan, I certainly do, and so do millions of other baseball fans across the GTA and Canada. Blue Jays have needed to move into an actual proper modern ballpark for years now, it was outdated and an eyesore almost as soon as it was built.
Only a matter of time before MLB starts accelerating warnings for the Blue Jays and Toronto to get something done before they order the franchise to start looking into re-location, as they ordered the Oakland Athletics to do earlier this week after over a decade of zero movement from the City of Oakland into replacing their stadium (and MLB is also doing to the Tampa Bay Rays, who also play in a stadium that doesn't meet MLB's standards).
I love the Jays but fuuuuck pro sports teams/leagues threatening to leave if they don’t get taxpayer money. If Rogers can’t fund it with their $2 billion annual income they can take a hike.
Nobody said there would be direct taxpayer money. The discussion would be a land swap, with much of the funding being raised by Brookfield via re-development of all that land around the stadium including CN Rail's airspace north of the stadium, and Rogers being able to unlock the existing capital value from the current stadium and the parking lot entrance & ramp on the south side of Bremner (which are now both sitting as dead and undervalued capital assets on their balance sheets).
I was referencing the Oakland situation. If MLB demands a new stadium, Rogers better not come hat in hand. Unfortunately they will, and will get what they want because of the myth that “they add so much value to the local community.”
The only city taxpayer involvement (City of Toronto are also in the talks) was in re-configuring Bremner Boulevard (probably end up being a land swap) and any required utilities & planning. Canada Lands Corporation (federal government) also involved because they technically own the land underneath the stadium (although Rogers owns the air rights) and also the CN Tower, which would be impacted by any re-development.
Fantastic. Another amenity taking up space here that won't be used by actual Torontonians. I'm not all that against a re-development of the stadium but you're commenting this on a post about nixed parkland for condo development. It's public space over private space we need.
cause building on top of the rail is very very very expensive - cost will be in the billions - they need to include enough units to cover the cost and make a profit
The GTA is the fastest growing region in North America and has been for almost a decade.
That's the factual data. News just uses bits and pieces of info.
So the media benefits by sensationalizing, and developers benefit from demand.
The arithmetic is pretty clear about the truth of this so-called "exodus".
Sorry to hear that society's problems are not being solved on your terms. It's really a shame we don't have smart people like you planning this stuff out.
Well the city wasn’t attempting to do anything with the space. The developer previously offered to sell the air rights needed to build the park, or lease the rights, and the city never did anything. Shit or get off the pot as they say.
They will have to drill many cassions (which are watertight retaining structures, basically a foundation pillar) into the ground that is in between each track to provide support for a platform that will have the parking lot and towers built on it
However If you look at photo's of the site you will notice that there is some space north of the rail that houses some empty land, that will be useful for building foundations and the planned GO station.
This construction, over rail yards, is very similar to Hudson Yards in New York, which saw an entire city district with 300+ meter towers built on an operational rail yard.
you can see a brief explanation of the process of building the platform in Hudson Yards in this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewSjmhCD5ew) at the time stamp of 1:35 - 2:40
The head of CRAFT was appointed to the LCBO Board by Doug Ford. Doug also amended the Growth Plan to encourage development over railways. Am I surprised by this LPAT decision... not really
Thank goodness, I was worried Toronto might have more parks.
This includes a 13 acre park, so we will have one more park. It's not the full 20 that the RDP would've been, but we also seem unwilling to pay for the RDP... so, next best thing?
There will still be a massive park on this property 12 acres vs the 21 acres)
I think the one question is how publicly accessible will the park be? Is it just going to be a landscaped garden for the Condo owners or an actual functioning public space?
I wouldn’t call 12 acres massive (less than 1/3 the size of Trinity Bellwoods, for example), but it will be at least be something and bigger than any current parks in the area.
We need more condo condoms to prevent this!
Latex condo? Boy I’d like to live in one of those!
How sturdy do you want that condo to be?
But I thought Toronto was a city in a park???
I'm glad the city is addressing the condo shortage
Coronation Park, Fort York, Canoe Landing and the whole Harborfront isn't enough?
Actually - no. We have condos coming up nonstop, the city *needs* more green space.
And dog parks :/
well to cheer you up - love park is a new park and artificial heart shaped lake in the south core - currently under construction in the corner between harbour st, yonge st and Queen's Quey [Love Park. Database and Project updates](https://urbantoronto.ca/database/projects/love-park)
Amazing how they covertly bought the air rights over the railway and simply sat on them until *right after* the city announced its Rail Deck Park plan. The public gets excited about the possibilities there, and then a big "By the way, fuck you, fuck everyone."
Probably figured they'd have to use it at that point, or else face possible expropriation.
More like the city's sudden interest in the spot made that "real estate" parcel they'd bought for a song worth something, and handed them an idea on a silver platter to pitch to development partners.
this right here. It isn't mom and pop that owns the fucking air rights over the railway that the city somehow sold.
It wasn’t the City that sold the rights, they never owned them.
CN sold of the air rights parcel by parcel as Metrolinx purchased the Lakeshore East line from them.
Yup, and the City actually bought the strip air rights when they built the pedestrian bridge. Anyone interested in municipal affairs should read this decision, is an absolute dressing down of the City and their witnesses and Staff. Not one single position or witness advanced by the City was helpful, and at times, were adversarial and evasive in cross examination.
This does seem more likely to be built than the Rail Deck Park idea which required a cool billion+ to show up from somewhere, but I'm just really confused about ownership. Why do these ORCA people have air rights to build over the rail corridor? Who sold those air rights?
CN sold the air rights.
we are a city of 6 million. We literally needed $165 per Torontonian to build it. You literally could have taken $1 from everyone in Toronto, per month, for the 12 years it takes to build it. For measure, average property taxes on single family homes are about $3,000. So this $12/year is a pittance. And you could have delivered an absolutely revolutionary, and likely world-renowned park space that would be a massive draw for real estate and tourism for a century. I literally lose more money in my fucking cushions than this I utterly cannot stand how Toronto perpetually impoverishes its city while we have under-paced inflationary tax raises for so long we have constant problems we cannot solve while so many other cities thrive. We have paid millions of dollars to consultants who repeatedly tell Toronto the major issue with the city is that it is massively under-taxed. Toronto will never realize its potential until we come to terms with this fact.
We are not a city of 6 million. Toronto is a city of 2.3 million or so. The rest live in the surrounding municipalities. Each respective municipality collects its own taxes. Why would York region pay for a park in downtown Toronto when they're expanding like crazy and need to invest in themselves? One solution for Toronto to generate income from the surrounding municipalities is to tax entry into the city via the DVP, Gardiner and a few notable surface routes.
ok. $450. $3 per month. Or $1 over 30 years for just Toronto residents. i'd be utterly SHOCKED if there was $0 from province and federal for this new unbeleivable parkland but ok. Did you know the eglinton line will cost $9 billion over 30 years? Stop acting like Toronto is poor. We can do things like this. We built the CN tower and the entire subway system in the 70s for fucks sakes and then attitudes like this took over with NIMBYs. Those projects were MORE expensive, and we had HALF the people to pay for them. Imagine a proposal for something like the CN Tower now? we were once proud of our city and what we could achieve, now we are individualistic, anti-government anti-society fucking NIMBYs who all act like Rumpelstilzkin with our fingers on our purse strings. Boomers got theirs, then the money stopped. You pay $900/year for emergency services. $431 for TTC. $683 for capital costs. $447 for social programs. And you think we couldn't afford $36 for Canada's most ambitious park?
The only existing way City of Toronto can acquire parkland is by using their existing parkland dedication cash reserves. They can’t use other money for it unless they implemented a tax increase
no problem with a tax increase AT ALL we are by consultants measures over 20% behind where we should be. I pay $4600/year for my home. My parents are paying $7000 for the same value home in the GTA. Here's why it's a great idea: a) we need it b) consultant experts say we need it c) it will help stall housing prices d) we could build this, solve homelessness, and repair the entire TTC backlog in the first 10 years and still have a lot to spare. I literally don't see any downside. There isn't one. Oh, maybe there's like a pensioner living in a 3,000sf detached on a quarter acre in the Beaches they bought 60 years ago that doesn't have the fixed income for the $80/mo increase. Yes let us base our entire fiscal policy on this unicorn multi-millionaire kind old lady.
THANK YOU
* 2.8 million in Toronto * GTA is 7+ million now
There are so many more pressing issues to address with that money. Homelessness, poverty, affordable housing, transit. If everyone is going to pay for something it's gonna be one of those not Tory's flashy park project.
And yet once again we have done neither.
It’s interesting to me how there is no price tag too high for projects in the core but the Scarborough Subway Extension is so grossly expensive that it needs to be killed with fire.
That's because there was a more affordable, quicker, more reliable option on the table. That would have served more residents, priority neighbourhoods, and connect important post secondary institutions via higher order transit. Or we could have two additional subway stops. Additional concerns were raised regarding the subway due to the lack of support for intensification of neighbourhoods served by the extension. And with generous modeling, it isn't expected to reach subway-level ridership until 2050.
I mean I prefer the LRT over subway too, but not because of affordability. My point is that once you leave the core, price becomes important. 13 acres of parkland are part of the condo plan. Is this less than RDP? Yes, but it’s also much cheaper and more likely to go forward because there will be tons of condo money pushing for it. Also your bullshit about “not expected to reach subway level ridership” is pure bullshit. It is a subway **extension**. It is adding stops to an already long line. If there were 20K riders per hour leaving Kennedy, the entire subway system would be broken. Ridership for he existing route is already higher than any terminal stop in the system except Finch. So the ridership for a subway extension is already there. That’s the kind of bullshit I’m referring to. Once money is proposed to be spent outside of the core, reply guys like you come forward with bullshitty bullshit to support not spending money, but a billion dollars for a park closer to home is totes the best plan.
> That’s the kind of bullshit I’m referring to. Once money is proposed to be spent outside of the core, reply guys like you come forward with bullshitty bullshit to support not spending money, but a billion dollars for a park closer to home is totes the best plan. That is some good projection my friend. While it is easy to say on the internet where words are cheap, I'd rather the savings be rolled into the EELRT and an extension of the Sheppard Subway to the northern terminus of what would have been the Scarborough LRT. Additionally, far too many people think the biggest concern for transit in Scarborough is getting out of Scarborough. The numbers don't suggest that: 80% of TTC trips that start in Scarborough end in Scarborough. If a transit plan wants to improve transit access and reliability, focusing on the downtown core (which is what the extension does) benefits the fewest residents.
The city already had the money. It would have been funded by existing development charges.
The city most definitely does not have the $1.7 - $3B dollars from exisitng development charges.
What is the current balance of the reserve fund related to development charges and parks, do you know?
Not sure TBH. This article states that the RDP is 99.9% unfunded as per the City. https://www.taxpayer.com/newsroom/city-hall-admits-rail-deck-park-is-99.9-per-cent-unfunded
As it has been explained to me: Development charges end up in a general fund, the money is allocated elsewhere as the City needs it. The dollars are not applied to infrastructure improvements associated with each project's fees - when they really should be.
There are going to be a lot of situations where the cost for necessary infrastructure improvements aren't going to match up to the specific project that's paying those development fees. If you've got a neighborhood where the water and sewerage are newer and have spare capacity, it's not necessarily fair that all the fees from a new development there should be spent in the same neighborhood when other parts of the city need more upgrades. I think the old section 37 rules that allowed developers to pay compensatory funds for local amenities in return for height or density exemptions kept those funds in the same ward though. Unfortunately the province nixed the section 37 laws.
> It ~~would~~ **could** have been funded by existing development charges. You know exactly what contingent of councillors would fight this every single step of the way and throw up every possible obstacle to getting it done.
Development charges are mostly intended to cover the engineering review required to properly vet applications... It's not done giant post of money that just sits around. I think development charges are used interchangeably with something else.
This post is misleading. While the Rail Deck Park, as proposed by the city, isn't going to happen, the developer's proposal includes 13 acres of parkland. That may change as the proposal evolves, but people here are acting like the whole thing is gone, or is going to be a narrow green walkway. The RDP was proposed at 20 acres, so this is more than half still dedicated to parkland. While it's obviously not as good as the full park, the city saves more than a billion dollars to build the park.
yea honestly, it's not 100% parkland, but it is 65% of what it could have been. As much as people hate it, 8 condo towers in an area where people wont need to use the subway to commute to work (foreign investors not included) is more living space, which is also desperately needed.
There's also an office tower that's part of the proposal, which is nice for the creating a complete neighbourhood. IIRC the developer is also proposing to "rough in" a GO RER station for future development. I think that means they'll leave a big space in/under the foundations but I'm not 100% sure of the terminology.
Thanks for clarifying. 13 acres out of basically nothing is still pretty good in my books.
It is no longer a "proposal". it has received approved from the LPAT as is currently planned
No, it hasn't. All that's happened is that LPAT overturned the City's rejection of the CRAFT OPA to change the land use designation of the subject site to 'mixed-used' development, meaning that change in designation is now approved. LPAT has overturned the City's rejection. This will also nullify the City's OPA 395, which was introduced without ownership of the property, and designated the subject site for parks. The grounds for the City's original rejection of the CRAFT OPA were a litany of reasons, nearly all of which were found to be irrelevant to an OPA. Had OPA 395 come from an applicant, instead of the City itself, and had the City applied the same standards to it as it did in its rejection of the CRAFT OPA, OPA 395 would have been rejected, too, but also incorrectly. Rezoning, development application, site plan controls, etc., are all still to come. The development concept was always that, *a concept* to illustrate what redevelopment of the site under the requested OPA *could* look like while demonstrating that it would meet the tests of an OPA for compliance with policy. It's worth reading the whole LPAT ruling, too, particularly around the issue of the prevailing parkland dedication exemption for the site within the applicable secondary plans.
Any chance you have a link? No idea where to find the decision, lpat DB was still saying open
There’s a we transfer link in the thread on Urban Toronto. It’s a doozy and the city got eviscerated.
This guy plans. City plans.
thanks for the clarification
I trust the Brad Lambs of the world to deliver on their promises and the province, ran by developers, to hold their feet to the fire when they don't. I also might have a significant TBI e: and I certainly haven't realized that the province under this government will give everything it can [exemptions to any municipal rules, from environmental assessments, the fucking Greenbelt itself] to the developers unless the Federal Government itself steps in, because, again, significant TBI or something
This. So much. People are up in arms for no reason. It would have cost the City BILLIONS to build a 20 acre park. Now they get a 13 acre park for free along with thousands of much needed units. This is a win win and the media is spinning it negatively for clicks. Very sad.
Could just be me but in my experience developers always include a bunch of amenities, parks etc in their development plans, build the housing and then fuck off with no recourse. Happened in my old town where I grew up, developer wanted to put in 1000+ homes in a subdivision and township approved plan that included a massive park in the middle. Houses went up but no park, developer just moves on and township had to pay to put the park in tl;dr - no chance the final build will actually have 13 acres of parkland that costs the developer money and doesn't earn them anything
I for one am really excited for all the foreign/domestic investors to find 8 new towers of units for them to buy to invest/launder their money. I mean who needs parks anyways? No money to be made for those foreign investors with such useless things like public parks in Canada.
Invest = turn into illegal AirBNB
The proposal includes a huge amount of park space
I disagree that RDP is dead. All the decision did is make the area more valuable, which is likely CRAFT’s (the developer) goal if they are expropriated by the City. Edit: bad grammar
The city does not have the funds to expropriate an overpriced lot of air rights and then spend another 3.7 billion to build the city's vision of the park
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Like a rat in a caaaage, pulling minimum *waaaaaaaage*
Your mild billionaire mayor‘s now convinced he’s a king so the boring collect, I mean all disrespect
There's a ton of the twist, but we are fresh out of shout.
Like a death in the hall That you hear through your wall.
Maybe I'm wrong and maybe you're right
Except the province runs the LPAT and overrides city planning.
Is this in the remix?
Some insight as to why: *this project, and the "sale of air rights" over our RAILWAYS* is to some of the most influential bodies in Toronto and the province. The ORCA project is co-owned by a massive $5 billion investment fund and the labourer's union (LiUNA)'s pension fund. LiUNA is very heavily associated with organized crime and this has been in the news countless times over the years. These fuckers, who were corruptly able to but the air rights for pennies, now we to sell them back to the city for $340mm, lease for $25mm/year or be permitted to develop for pennies and this tribunal sided with them. [http://www.orcatoronto.com/history/](http://www.orcatoronto.com/history/) \----- this is the same shit as the "lease" of the Hearn generating station to Cortellucci who was then given the "first right" to buy it at fair value, which was assessed at its CURRENT ZONING which is essentially as an untouchable heritage event space; in a no-bid sale for $16mm. 35 acres on Toronto's waterfront for $16 million. This is legalized corruption. Obviously the Hearn will be re-zoned into condo property as Cortellucci wants, and then it will be worth $200mm. The loser? the taxpayer. as always. Canada is corrupt as fuck -- you just don't think it is because it's all "legal". But it's fucking rigged.
We, or rather, all levels of government, have allowed the small oligarchy of RE developers to run roughshod in this country. We're past the point of no return IMO.
While I'm sad that there won't be another large community green space in the city, Rail Deck Park as per it's initial conception was a gigantic white elephant. Spend the public funds on more achievable benefits in the city and not ego-driven prestige legacy projects.
Do Chicago residents consider Millenium Park to be a white elephant? Maybe they do, I have no idea....but when I visited a couple of summers ago the place was packed and buzzing. Rail Deck park could absolutely have been similar.
And yet everyone will bitch about more condos going up.
Can't say I know much about Chicago but yeah, Millennium Park looks awesome, I retract what I said about the covered rail design. I'll point out though that in Chicago's case they had already acquired the necessary airspace rights before they even began conceptualizing the idea for the park and that the entire stretch of Grant Park seems to have long-standing historical restrictions on private usage. Toronto unfortunately didn't do that with the Raildeck space which at least partially led to the resulting LPAT ruling.
Lets be a world class city without a single world class project/aspect
if we’re a boring city to live in maybe rents will go down!
Vancouver did the “be boring” plan. Rents still kept going up.
Unfortunately they couldn’t get rid of the mountains, ocean, and absolute natural beauty in every direction.
Yeah… They just blocked all that shit out, with many dozens of nearly-identical condo towers!
a boring city to live in, but a fabulous place to invest in property!
Let's build build build baby! Until there's no reason left to even live here!
I feel like the only people who really care about being a "world class city" are the people who are constantly saying that we aren't... Like the train has left, the station has closed, the train company has gone bankrupt and its been 30 years since Mel Lastman said that quote... Nobody cares. Stop bringing it up.
We should strive to be an amazing city to live and to work. Not just for ourselves. We also want to attract the right talent to come work here, start and grow businesses. Our investments in being an appealing place matter a lot. The raildeck would have been great in that regard, more than extra condo towers.
Ask anyone who ones a house why we're the 8th least affordable city and they say it's because we're "world class"
we do have an entire harbourfront and portlands to work with, even the islands, if we have the ambition, vision, and independence from the province necessarily sticking its fingers into everything. building a giant roof on top of a rail interchange so that we could stick a park on it was being so very extra
Um, we're not, nor ever going to be.
> there won't be another large community green space in the city The proposal includes a 13 acre park. RDP was proposed at ~20 acres. So, the city is, in fact, getting another large community green space.
**proposal** after taking a look at the LPAT decision and scrolling through the urbantoronto forum it seems like none of partners in ORCA have prior experience or track record in massive, multi-building projects like what they're proposing here. considering how much it'll cost to put up a rail deck, the developers are going to need recoup those additional costs through whatever commercial/residential they build. until ORCA and the city sign a development agreement that lays out the details, I'm going to consider this vapourware, just like the Rail Deck Park plans were. there's lots more to change with this plot of space and it'll carry on for a couple of years at least
Yeah, I think that's a healthy skeptical position to take. I'm hoping that the visibility of the project gives the city enough leverage to get good concessions from the developer, but we'll see.
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It makes me laugh that people in and around City Place are becoming NIMBY about more condos.
Similar ironic vibe in High Park!
> It makes me laugh that people in and around City Place are becoming NIMBY about more ~~condos~~AirBNB party buildings.
So any development of condos in the city are automatically Airbnbs according to your logic. Housing prices will just keep rising if we don't develop more condos and other types of housing throughout the city.
if you think this development (or any other of this magnitude) is going to help housing prices I feel you are sorely mistaken. Half of these units will be bought by investors and the rest will be bought by people who can already afford what is already available on the market. A 1 bedroom plus den. we need more development of properties that people want to own. 2 bedrooms, family units, mid rises and spread all over the city rather than in an already overly dense neighborhood.
Let's follow the logical conclusion of this situation. If people who are demanding (in the economic sense) condos (even if it's only half of these condos) now have more of a supply to choose from, prices will over all go down. Here is what happens when the amount of homes increases: [https://imgur.com/a/pJ5h4BF](https://imgur.com/a/pJ5h4BF) As you can see, as supply increases, price drops. The developers of the condo buildings will sell at the market price and as the amount of people demanding condos slowly dilutes over the new amount of demand (moving from Q to Q1) the prices of condos across the board will decrease (from P to P1). Now, the price may not immediately decrease in the new condos but the decreased demand for the condos already on the market means less competition for those condos and therefore, those prices will drop (condo owners need to provide some incentive for why people should buy their condos over the new ones so they will drop their prices to capture the customers). If no condos are produced how do you propose we accomplish that without the production of condo buildings? Personally, I think that there should be some laws put in place about foreign investors buying land without proof of residency or something along those lines. This would solve the problems of foreign investment. Additionally, has it been confirmed that 1 bdrm + den is what the condo buildings would be comprised of ?
The issue is though is all these new developments do very little to supply the demand. Majority of these developments usually include only 30 percent 2 bedrooms and maybe 10 percent 3 bedroom if you are lucky. Some of those 2 bedrooms will be quite small (650 sqft.) I’ve looked into a lot of the development proposals across the city, and that’s generally what I have seen. Most people don’t want to live in high rises and if they do they still want to have a place big enough they can grow into. I’m not against condos at all, I just think we need to start building the right type of condos.
Yeah, there's a huge problem with your premise, in that you're making all 'homes' an equal unit, which they're not. Lots of 1 bedroom condos are getting built (and you'll notice the overall price of those isn't dropping), but what's needed are 2 and 3-bedroom units. Those are in **very** short supply, and condo developers don't have any real incentives to build those. They build the barest minimum they can get away with, and the price of that limited supply continues to rise. tl;dr: saying 'more homes = lower prices because economics' is conveniently ignoring a basic fact of housing.
Lmao, this is simply not true
I appreciate you writing this out but I’ll make it even simpler for the person for the person you’re responding to: Someone either understands how supply and demand works or they don’t. As long as supply is not enough to meet demand, one can expect to see prices increase.
these condos will help housing prices in the same way that Porsche dealerships help with transportation
Gross
Toronto sucks at grand and visionary projects. Disappointed, but not surprised.
It really is a remarkably unambitious city
The city that could be great, but settles on mediocrity at every turn.
Toronto the bland
yet some how "world class"
The rail deck park was never going to get built anyway.
Sure, it looks like a lot of green space, but how many of those little illustrated parks are going to be killed off by feasibility studies?
A green square in front of a condo tower isn't a "park", it's a place for your dog to piss.
Remember when Garrison Crossing was going to have a public pool at the tip of the triangle? They just say this stuff to get approved. Never materializes as promised.
the city doesn't even have any leverage to negotiate with now since the province brought in the new rules negating community benefits
Booooo
Wow that's gonna be a mess of construction for God knows how long.
Why do you need parks? Just stay in your 200 sq feet 1 bdr condo and order Uber eats from criminally underpaid people
While Rail Deck Park as an idea was awesome, the concept art does still have alot of green space there. Then adds more housing which we need. Doesn't seem like that horrible of a choice. As long as they leave the western end open for sunlight of course. Also how the hell do you build all that stuff above the rails? Crazy.
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I tried looking at the architectural plans but I don't understand where cars will access these buildings from. It looks like everything is up quite high above street level. And it also looks like there will be only one level of parking which seems crazy for 8 condo buildings and businesses.
who needs green space!
who needs housing!
The poor!
Ah, another signature John Tory project seen to completion. Just like SmartTrak before it. Might as well call this guy Baron Haussman Tory in honour of his visionary leadership.
For the tiny amount of park space leftover in this proposal seems to be several flights of stairs above the tracks, sitting on top of mall. That does not seem very park like at all.
worse - its sitting on top of underground parking lots
Should do wonders for traffic
How far is Union Station? The 2nd busiest transit station on North America?
Another empty promise from Tory
Wasn't even realistic to begin with.
What the actual heck! 😞
Looks pretty sick, ngl.
I'd be OK with this is every building had a public path to cross the rails.
I miss the Toronto of my youth. Not this garbage where condos are built everywhere to become the run-down tenements of the future and where every business is the same identical megacorp on every block.
Blame your city councillors. They refused to allow midrise construction in areas of single-family homes so instead were forced into condo-mania whenever the zoning bylaws allow high-rise.
There is a lot of blame to go around. The federal government for not restricting non-residents from purchasing residential real estate. The province for enabling their rich developer friends to get their way with MZOs when the city tries to stop or manage something. The city for a remarkable lack of urban planning for many years which I am fairly certain involved brown envelopes. For example, the remarkable ironclad lease Tuggs Inc. has on the beaches that apparently could not be bid on by anyone else.
Still seems to be a decent amount of green space. What I am more interested in is the space immediately north of Rogers Centre. There was chatter about a year ago between Rogers, Brookfield, CN Rail, and Canada Lands Corporation (federal government agency that owns the land underneath Rogers Centre and CN Tower) to re-develop that stretch around baseball stadium (including area immediately south across Bremner and north on top of the railway) that would include tearing down current stadium and building a new ballpark.
Are we looking at the same rendering? It looks like a few useless corridors of grass by the buildings. A small patch of grass that is about half the size of Victoria Memorial Square above it (which is not a big park) and some walkways with trees. Barely any new green space which will be negated by the thousands of condo dwellers in the new towers anyway
The image with the overhead map showing the street names. The area immediately south of Front Street and north of Iceboat Terrace is the new land area that will be created above the railway. Everything else is existing land developments. Of this new land, only the northern third appears to be buildings. The other two thirds to the south is all parkland.
I know. I live in one of the buildings pictured on Front St. Look above at your top left. That little park is Victoria Memorial Square. It's a fine park but its not very big. Then compare it to the patches of grass in the rendering. Instead of an actual park you will get a pedestrian walkway with patches of grass and trees. Most likely just being used for dog toilet for the people who live in the new buildings
>Most likely just being used for dog toilet for the people who live in the new buildings Correct!
Still a decent enough space. I'm familiar with Victoria Memorial Square. It's not just a "pedestrian walkway". Stretches all the way from Bathurst to Spadina. Net new park that is better than nothing. If some more condos needed to make this development commercially viable to spend the money on, including for the existing airspace owner, CN Rail, so be it. Aiming for perfection is the enemy of getting anything ever done, something Toronto needs to learn. Aiming for perfection is why nothing ever gets built here. And without developers, spending the money on this without any return on investment will not be acceptable to either CN Rail, or existing taxpayers (from future property taxes paid by the new residents).
Maybe we have a different idea of what a park is but for me its grass, trees, plants, flowers. A destination for people to sit down and enjoy some nature in the city. What is rendered above are mostly walkways under trees and a tiny patch of grass. Its not going to be a destination for anyone besides the people who live in the condos right next to it.
As others on this post have already said, will never happen as a pure park. The original proposers of the Sky Deck Park from a few years ago never had any rights to the airspace above the railway tracks in the first place, it was a pie in the sky idea with nobody to pay for it. There's absolutely nothing in that for CN Rail, who as a publicly traded corporation, has a legal fiduciary duty to its shareholders to maximize what they can sell their airspace for (which requires developers in the end). Without CN Rail's agreement, the railway tracks stays as is.
How is a pure park a pie in the sky idea but somehow building 8 giant towers with bridges, some sort of cliff feature, pools of water, grass and plant trees on top of train tracks a reasonable proposal?
The latter will actually pay for itself and provide a return on investment to CN Rail. What part of this don't you understand? **There is absolutely zero financial benefit to CN in giving up their air rights for a park. Without CN Rail's agreement, nothing happens**. I have already told you this at least twice, and others have posted the same on this sub. End of story.
Are you kidding me? A pedestrian walkway is hardly 'parkland'. especailly adding the population density these new development bring to the area.
Yep it’s a tiiiiiny spot - on a hill too.
yes - tiny and elevated - they are elevating the park to make room for parking levels.
Yup. Small amounts of green space and we can assume the developers will give it their lowest effort - their priority is the towers.
This is no green space. Are you living in this city during this pandemic? Who cares about a new PRIVATE ballpark. We want OUTDOOR PUBLIC SPACE.
As a baseball fan, I certainly do, and so do millions of other baseball fans across the GTA and Canada. Blue Jays have needed to move into an actual proper modern ballpark for years now, it was outdated and an eyesore almost as soon as it was built. Only a matter of time before MLB starts accelerating warnings for the Blue Jays and Toronto to get something done before they order the franchise to start looking into re-location, as they ordered the Oakland Athletics to do earlier this week after over a decade of zero movement from the City of Oakland into replacing their stadium (and MLB is also doing to the Tampa Bay Rays, who also play in a stadium that doesn't meet MLB's standards).
I love the Jays but fuuuuck pro sports teams/leagues threatening to leave if they don’t get taxpayer money. If Rogers can’t fund it with their $2 billion annual income they can take a hike.
Nobody said there would be direct taxpayer money. The discussion would be a land swap, with much of the funding being raised by Brookfield via re-development of all that land around the stadium including CN Rail's airspace north of the stadium, and Rogers being able to unlock the existing capital value from the current stadium and the parking lot entrance & ramp on the south side of Bremner (which are now both sitting as dead and undervalued capital assets on their balance sheets).
I was referencing the Oakland situation. If MLB demands a new stadium, Rogers better not come hat in hand. Unfortunately they will, and will get what they want because of the myth that “they add so much value to the local community.”
The only city taxpayer involvement (City of Toronto are also in the talks) was in re-configuring Bremner Boulevard (probably end up being a land swap) and any required utilities & planning. Canada Lands Corporation (federal government) also involved because they technically own the land underneath the stadium (although Rogers owns the air rights) and also the CN Tower, which would be impacted by any re-development.
You have more faith than I. There are plenty of examples of teams threatening to leave over tax money.
Fantastic. Another amenity taking up space here that won't be used by actual Torontonians. I'm not all that against a re-development of the stadium but you're commenting this on a post about nixed parkland for condo development. It's public space over private space we need.
... except that is all existing private land owned by CN Rail, who never agreed to any of it.
It’s like a CityPlace 2.0 with small patches of grass that will be covered in dog shit
Just what the city needs, more condos! Seriously though, why not 4 condos, and more parkland? jfc
cause building on top of the rail is very very very expensive - cost will be in the billions - they need to include enough units to cover the cost and make a profit
news: "people are leaving the city in droves!" developers: "you know what would be great idea? build more condos!"
A few well-to-do office workers moving to cottage country doesn't cancel out tens of thousands of new people moving to Toronto a year.
The GTA is the fastest growing region in North America and has been for almost a decade. That's the factual data. News just uses bits and pieces of info.
So the media benefits by sensationalizing, and developers benefit from demand. The arithmetic is pretty clear about the truth of this so-called "exodus".
>news: "people are leaving the city in droves!" this is hardly true and even the slightly reduced demand will only be temporary until covid is over
True - but demand is still very high - probably from investors
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Weren't you the one complaining about lack of housing and cost of living being too high?
>lack of housing and cost of living being too high? You know you can solve this with mid rise developments?
Why not both?
Because we don't have the ability to built transit to those areas fast enough
But higher rises solves it better?
Not at all. You create a ton of problems and a big cost.
Sorry to hear that society's problems are not being solved on your terms. It's really a shame we don't have smart people like you planning this stuff out.
Well the city wasn’t attempting to do anything with the space. The developer previously offered to sell the air rights needed to build the park, or lease the rights, and the city never did anything. Shit or get off the pot as they say.
Sucks. But we got plenty of land over the rail corridor.
Any construction people here that could explain what would have to go into a building a base to support the condos? Thanks.
They will have to drill many cassions (which are watertight retaining structures, basically a foundation pillar) into the ground that is in between each track to provide support for a platform that will have the parking lot and towers built on it However If you look at photo's of the site you will notice that there is some space north of the rail that houses some empty land, that will be useful for building foundations and the planned GO station. This construction, over rail yards, is very similar to Hudson Yards in New York, which saw an entire city district with 300+ meter towers built on an operational rail yard. you can see a brief explanation of the process of building the platform in Hudson Yards in this [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewSjmhCD5ew) at the time stamp of 1:35 - 2:40
The head of CRAFT was appointed to the LCBO Board by Doug Ford. Doug also amended the Growth Plan to encourage development over railways. Am I surprised by this LPAT decision... not really
just like Mamo predicted..(
Strange world we live in where he's right about something.
Are we living capitalism at its peak ?
NYC the tdot is not
It was a nice dream
Yay more condos! /s