PUBLIC SPACE RECIPROCITY

One cannot keep on piling people into the grid... and expect the urban fundamentals of: health, safety, security, sanitation, education and general well-being — to prevail. 

-  These were my words back in 2000.

In our built-up urban context, there are no open fields at the end of the street which we can simply relegate into public service.  This is midtown Toronto which is not a greenfield setting, nor is it a brownfield setting which may be re-purposed to contemporary needs.

A FEW GOOD LINES

In areas of high-density intensification there is the need to draw a few new lines. 

We are used to the simple attributes which planning endows upon properties being portrayed on flat-earth maps... so identifying land use designations, densities and heights.  It's so flat that in all of Toronto's '86 zoning by-law there is only one diagram in the vertical axis.

OMB FIX

I respect OMB Member Aristotle Christou for raising these issues with the OMB system.  At the outset he touched upon planning rules and neutrality, which deserve further attention.  If these are not addressed, then increasing the number of OMB Members to speed up the process... still leaves in question the appropriateness of the decisions that the OMB grinds out.

ICONIC PEDESTRIAN MOVEMENT

"Traffic engineers have much to say about streets and transportation; about cars, trucks, parking and public transportation - BUT - little about the streets as people places. Bigger buildings are being built; an ever-increasing population is being housed above the high streets - resulting in less street space per person."

 -  These were my words back in 2000.

It's now a decade after Yonge Eglinton was designed a principal Growth Centre where intensification is targeted to occur,  

I've seen a lot development proposals and their traffic studies.  None of these traffic studies have modeled, assessed or made recommendations about pedestrian circulation, nor for that matter bicycles.  Meanwhile, this designation presumes a highly pedestrianised context, where mobility is substantially reliant upon public transit and other non-automotive movement modes.

"WE CAN'T KEEP PILING PEOPLE INTO THE GRID...

...and expect the urban fundamentals of health, safety, security, sanitation, education and general well being to prevail."

 -  These were my words back in 2000.
  

Since then I've been watching for Planning to pull together a future-focused balanced urban strategy based upon these concerns.  

AN ICONIC TRANSIT GATEWAY

In my opinion the Yonge-Eglinton crossroad deserves an “iconic” treatment, forming a significant transit “gateway”. Something which is iconic has “a form that suggests its meaning”. If Yonge-Eglinton Gateway can be emblematic of its importance all the better, because it is a significant crossroads both below and above ground, as well as at grade.

RELATING FUTURE & PAST PRACTICES

It's hard to imagine what future will crystallise a hundred years from now. For the most part it remains to still emerge.  It is informative to look back over the past hundred years' duration, to grasp the extent and magnitude of the change that occur over time, and then apply a multiplier for envisioning the next hundred years.

THE BIG FIX

It took decades to remove fire hydrant
blocking a too narrow sidewalk.

Within fifteen years, 20,000 people will come to reside within a five minute walk of the Yonge Eglinton intersection — where a transit gateway hopefully of 'anthem proportions' might emerge — failing which, we'll simply endure the 'more of the same or less' legacy experience.

'TEMPORARY' URBAN DESIGN

TEMPORARY-PERMANENT WORKS  

We are entering a protracted era of street and sidewalk footpath disruptions of such epic length that temporary protective measures and installations will acquire a sense of temporary-permanence. The pattern of temporary measures will, over time, shift responding to development start-ups and completions. 

FIT, RESPECT AND REINFORCE

NEW HOUSES ARE TO FIT, RESPECT AND REINFORCE THE EXISTING NEIGHBOURHHOOD

The protection of Residential Neighbourhoods is a fundamental intention of Toronto's planning. These areas are not intended to be intensification targets. Furthermore, the term 'intensification' is not a measure of house size but rather refers to population increase. Hence, a larger replacement house is not intensification. It is simply super-sizing unrelated to intensification.

URBAN AUDIT

GROWTH CENTRE TOWERS FORECASTpdf

The Towers Forecast quantifiably models the extent of future growth following the current trends of build-as-usual practices. 

The Towers Forecast's projection permits an urban audit to be undertaken... assessing the sustainability, desirability, infrastructures, demographics, built form and public realm considerations of future development. 

Such an audit is required by Provincial Policy, Toronto's Official Plan, and City Planning's proposed Development Permit System.

I have a general concern about planning and growth management for the Yonge Eglinton Growth Centre (YEGC) with regard to the exercise of Good Planning, Best Practice and Area Visioning.

GOOD PLANNING

FOR THE GOOD OF THE YONGE EGLINTON GROWTH CENTRE

City Planning has recently written a prescription for Good Planning, which appears in its recently proposed area-planning tool, the Development Permit System.

One wonders why this prescription for Good Planning is not current practice within the Yonge Eglinton Growth Centre, where an extraordinary growth spiral is underway – without the benefit of a comprehensive planning framework.


Furthermore, it begs the question...
If good area-planning is not being practiced here where the need is obvious, then, can City Planning be relied upon to deliver its good area-planning prescription, either here or anywhere?


Conclusion: Whether Yonge Eglinton's planning is improved by amending the existing Secondary Plan, or by undertaking a specific Development Permit System solution-exercise, or any other process... It is imperative to see Good Planning and development management is exercised, and in particular: commensurate with the degree of intensification.