Globe & Mail’s take on the
consultation
The first round of the City of Toronto's
consultations are over. Here
is what the Globe and Mail's reporter thought was important.
How can
Toronto blend condos and community?
Dave McGinn
The Globe and Mail
Saturday 02 March 2013
Vicki
Trottier and her husband are both avid cyclists who have to lock up
their bikes outside because there’s no storage in their condo. When
they take their dog for a walk by the water, they have to scramble
across the many lanes of busy traffic on Lake Shore Boulevard.
“You have to scurry to make it across,” she says. Exercising in the
building can pose the opposite problem – too much standing around
waiting.
“We have 300-something units in our building and we’ve got this
tiny
little gym,” she says. “There’s two treadmills.”
And the Trottiers, like their neighbours in the Lake Shore and Bathurst
area, are still waiting for a park that developers promised about seven
years ago.
The Trottiers moved from Haileybury, about 150 kilometres north of
North Bay, to their condo in 2011. They chose the building because it
is close to downtown and near the lake. But despite the advantages of
geography, life as a condo resident is rife with problems – from
traffic to a lack of green space or amenities inside the buildings.
In the last decade, the condo boom in Toronto has stacked the skyline
with towers. Now, the approximately 250,000 to 275,000 people who live
in them say that, in the race to build, city planners and councillors
failed to adequately consider how to create neighbourhoods.
But the city is finally starting to listen. “I don’t think we
anticipated, say, five years ago, or even before that, that this boom
was going to continue,” says Peter Moore, project manager for the City
of Toronto. Last month, the city launched the first of its kind series
of public consultations to improve conditions for condo dwellers. The
initiative is an acknowledgment that Toronto’s condo culture is here to
stay. As the consults give a voice to the people in this community,
what’s being heard is that condo living has myriad issues – and that
greater attention needs to be paid to addressing them as more and more
buildings break ground.
“It’s time, as we review the official plan and the province reviews the
Condominium Act, to understand what the people who live in these
buildings actually experience, as residents in vertical
neighbourhoods,” says councillor Adam Vaughan, who proposed the
consultations.
The four public meetings – held downtown, in Scarborough, Etobicoke and
North York – are now over, and an online survey will be launched in
early March. Another round of consultations will be held in early
summer. A report is expected to be sent to council by the fall,
although there is no fixed date for implementing whatever
recommendations are made.
Jennifer Keesmaat, the city’s chief planner, says that, while it is too
soon to speculate about specific recommendations that might come from
the consultations, it is very likely the process will have implications
for the official plan.
“We need to be thinking much more extensively about … condos not as
buildings but as part of a neighbourhood,” she says. “We’re seeing a
significant transition in the landscape and the form of the city at
this moment that really is the impetus for us beginning to think in new
ways about how neighbourhoods are defined in the city.”
If the issues raised at the consultations don’t find their way into the
big picture of the official plan, they will almost certainly impact the
city’s approach to condos.
That could mean requiring more spaces for children to play inside
condos or decks for pet owners, among other items, Mr. Vaughan says.
“It may be small stuff, but I think it will be substantial for the
people that are making homes and neighbourhoods out of these tall
buildings,” he says.
Toronto’s condo boom began gaining momentum in 1999. Since that time,
more than 120,000 condo units have been completed, close to 55,000 of
which were finished after the financial downturn that began in 2008.
And the momentum shows few, if any, signs of slowing: As of January of
this year, there were 40,474 condo units under construction in Toronto,
according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Issues raised at the consultations have differed by area. People at the
downtown meeting were more vocal about the need for better cycling
infrastructure and parking space than were those at the Etobicoke
meeting, where there were frequent complaints about inadequate TTC
service for those who face longer commutes into the core.
But there has been much more overlap than differences in the issues
raised. A need for more green space and places to walk pets was
frequently voiced. So too was a desire for better retail at street
level beyond fast-food restaurants and dry cleaners.
Many people also criticized the city for letting developers get away
with shoddy construction: One man at the Etobicoke meeting said he
could hear
his neighbours through the walls talking on their phones and
closing cupboards. Others asked for larger communal spaces so that
residents could have more interaction with each other. Some asked for
grocery stores and community centres.
The list goes on. While it runs the gamut from small issues such as
better gyms to much larger concerns over things like traffic, the clear
desire is for policies that will help create communities – places where
you put down roots and know your neighbours and can walk to a coffee
shop or the park when you leave your building.
“I’m in an area where there are a lot of new buildings going up but not
a lot of services,” says Ms. Ermolenko. “There is a lot more need for
coffee shops and small retail. There’s only so much time you can spend
in your own building before you want to enjoy the outdoors.”
Reader's comment
Boogeyman3
2:09 PM on March 4, 2013
I work downtown in my cramped cubicle then I walk home inhaling all the
pollution to my home next to the gardiner expressway, I open my window
to let some air in but all I get is salt spray from the highway blowing
in and more diesel fumes.
I want to exercise but the two treadmills are always in use. I try to
walk my dog outside but he often ends up going in the elevator because
it takes so long to get to street level.
Sixty percent of my building is owned by landlords and the transient
students that rent here always scratch the elevators and hallways on
moving days.
Now the city is allowing social housing into my building and the bed
bugs and cockroaches are already moving in.
(I can only guess he is not a happy condo
owner.—editor)
top contents
chapter previous next