About Building Heights

Last term, we went through the tedious public planning process at least once for the apartment proposal at the north east corner of Yonge and Centre Street. It wasn't approved. It wasn't refused. It was sent back to staff for changes. 

It came at least two more times. The last time, the Heritage Committee pronounced  it should be no higher than five storeys. The objective was to keep it in scale with a heritage neighbourhood of probably hundred and fifty years vintage.

It  came  back once more  with a plan to provide the  desired number of storeys without the same  height.

The Yonge Centre corner is the most blighted site in our downtown core. The worst one was our public works yard&nbsp. We moved that to Scanlon Court in the mid- seventies and replaced it with a very fine building to serve the needs of the Board of Education and the Town.

Still the plan went back to staff. The direction was   revised  recently when attention was drawn to the unsightly mess of the site and  the  Mayor  changed her recollection  and claimed it had  actually been approved.

For years  architects  have been attempting to explain to Council it is not economically viable with todays building standards  to erect a five storey  building.

The  condominiums units are anticipated at a value of more than half a million each;mega-millions into town coffers and pedestrian traffic for neighbourhood shopping. A win-win situation.

Owners of the former Price- Chopper two and a half acre site , are also proposing  multiple residential with commercial on the ground floor for their property opposite the Yonge and  Centre Street proposal

Nancy Henderson, spokeperson for the group,   came to the many  meetings of the fol-de-rol Promenade Study to plead the same contention; it is not economically viable to build  five-storeys.

Each time the same answer was given.  The concerns would be included in the "Matrix"which forms part of the plan. At the second  meeting I attended, I asked if  that meant there was an opportunity to provide input but the input had fallen on deaf ears.

"Well"  agreed the  Mayor."We can't all get what we want, can we?"

 Following up with the  insinuation "some people" would like to approve  ten storey  buildings in residential  neighbourhoods snd "see how the neighbours would like that"

I've never been quite sure if the Mayor doesn't hear properly, doesn't comprehend what she hears,
doesn't understand the language or hears perfectly well and  is adept at  twisting what she hears to say something  incorrect. 

Whatever the problem is, it's  constant.

Nancy Henderson was listed as a delegation on Tuesday  evening again but  didn't take it up. She must have finally realised  "having input" isn't the same as being heard.

 I asked the Director of Planning a question:I noted an Official Plan is intended to take into consideration, social and economic aspects of  the municipality's  status.

I noted how many times, Council  has been advised by proponents of multiple residential  projects it is impossible to build  economically a  five storey building.

I asked, if  under the economic aspect of planning for the community. and the desirability of having multiple residential  accommodation in our down-town core, do planners have any responsibility to hear  and determine  if there is substance to an argument about economic viability in height of buildings. 

The Mayor must have heard that question clearly. As Mr Ramunno paused to contemplate, the Mayor intervened to state the decision about height of buildings was directed by Council..

I thought....  AHA.....The Mayor previously. claimed the Steering committee, under her chairmanship, had gone over  every word of the Fol-de-Rol Promenade study .Now we know they directed its content.

The document  before us was  not a plan.  It  was  a political manifesto.

We  spent ar quarter of a million dollars and thousands of staff man hours  and dozens of residents input, to make it look like a  community plan.

Kind of like the Master Recreation Plan that cost $53Ks, disappeared for  nearly a couple of years,then re-appeared after re-writing  by Councillor MacEachern and Ken Whitehurst not elected but also a member of the Promenade Steering Committee with Christopher Ballard also a friend of the Mayor.