[McC]

Thanks for the support, Ottawan! Because I'm a transparent kind of guy, here are the comments that I sent to the city planner, based on the information available to date (WARNING: some repetition from my posts, above).

1) With respect to the proposed height, I believe that from an urban design perspective, something in the range of Soho Parkway’s size (i.e., 15 storeys give or take a few) would be more appropriate given that the lot is immediately adjacent to a part of the neighbourhood composed primarily of detached and attached single family housing. The situation here is very different from that around 99 Parkdale, at the north end of the hood, (a proposal that we have generally supported) which is surrounded largely by high rises. This would still represent an increase in height over the current zoning, and I believe that increases in height beyond such a range should only be permitted in exchange for exceptional design (and I strongly note that Richcraft does not have a reputation for exceptional design). That said, we are not surprised by the height sought, given 99 Parkdale and many Claridge applications around town, and we are not overly concerned with the height per se, since the impacts on our backyard are about the same once the building is anything taller than about 15 storeys.

2) What I am very concerned about is the massing of the building, including the size of its floorplate, the use and location of setbacks, the situation of the tower on the lot, etc. I am supportive of the design principle of trading height limits for a podium-and-slender-point-tower form of development (with street-oriented townhouse or commercial uses at the ground floor). Such a form would somewhat mitigate the negative impacts that any high-rise development of this lot would have on natural light and air circulation to our home (we currently enjoy lovely river breezes, the loss of which would have severe impacts on both our quality of life and energy use in our home). However, I have observed that Richcraft builds/proposes towers that tend to occupy most of the lot, with few setbacks. In the letter, there is no mention about FSI to give a sense of the overall size/form of building being considered, but the request to reduce all setbacks to 1.5m is quite worrisome in this respect. Are we to expect 28 storeys of this: http://www.bit.ly/OAO56x or this: http://www.bit.ly/L65yUt? (NB: I would strongly oppose such a building form at any height)

3) A specific concern with the proposed rear setback: 1.5m does not leave enough for a delivery truck to serve the commercial spaces, nor is it a suitable distance for the neighbouring house on Lyndale Ave, e.g., to be from a restaurant's exhaust fans. Can you advise what, if any rules govern this? E.g., are there any minimum allowable setbacks from commercial ventilation?

4) Much of the back lane is currently unusable: it has heaved, and become overgrown with vegetation. However, if the developer intends to use of the lane during and after construction, there could be damage to our townhouse complex’s rear retaining wall and landscaping, which is common property of Parkdale Mews. In general I would be interested in seeing this currently-blighted area behind our property improved as part of a development, and that any “feral” vegetation removed be replaced with improved greenery.

5) The other area of concern at this time is the depth of any hole to be dug, and the safety measures that Richcraft plans to take (especially after Richcraft’s Galleria Phase I disaster, and the Centropolis mishap) as our common property, as well as service lines and foundations, will only be a few metres from a construction dig that will likely require significant and prolonged use of dynamite. As an example of the source of our concern: during the blasting for the SoHo Parkway’s deep parking garage, the vibrations appear to have caused a neighbour's gas line to leak, which made her quite ill before the problem was diagnosed and fixed.

5) Finally, with 99 Parkdale, a great deal of confusion was caused by the constantly changing numbers of units and parking spaces proposed at various points throughout the process. No number of parking spaces is specified in your letter, but I would like to ensure that any traffic study, etc., is done using a consistent number of units/parking spaces, and if those numbers increase, that a new study is required. With 99 Parkdale, the number of proposed parking spaces varied by as much as 50% in different iterations of the proposal, and it was not at all clear in reading the final Planning Department recommendation to Council which of these numbers was used to generate the traffic forecasts, etc.

We're also very happy that they're talking about ground floor commercial, since the Cottage and a Kitchen worked with a pretty niche clientele for years, and now we have new "captive markets" going in with all of the condo development (not to mention the long-term potential for massive development on the west side of Parkdale and new smaller-scale infills within Mechanicsville proper). We also think access via the laneway is the right way to go, and was among the pluses in the 99 Parkdale proposal. About the height, and comparing heights on the east side of Parkdale to those on the west side or deeper into Tunney's, the thing to keep in mind is how the triangles work from street level. RH Coates is a tall building that appears to be on Parkdale because there is nothing between it an the street, but it is effectively well over 100 metres from the neighbourhood, and it quickly becomes invisible from street level because it's blocked by the closer buildings; this wouldn't be the case with a building of the same height on the east side of Parkdale. Whereas, slightly shorter buildings on the west side of Parkdale wouldn't loom over the neighbourhood for the same reason RH Coats doesn't, and I think that in general, buildings on the east side of Parkdale should step down further from there, unless we are leveraging exceptional design. I would say the same thing about Parkdale (and Holland) south of Scott Street.