Quote:
Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
A lot of the stuff in the Yonge Eglinton Secondary plan sounded great on paper and looked at in isolation, the problem was that when they were all combined they resulted in almost 0 residential density permissions. The plan would essentially have strangled development as once you get all the required setbacks, tower separation distances, integration of heritage, mid block connections, minimum landscape provisions (45% of the site!), and all that, you are looking at an acre of land that has a few thousand square feet to put a building on.
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The prescriptive nature of setbacks in the submitted plan were overbearing but that is something that could have been worked out iteratively with the province instead of the top-down approach that was taken. I actually like the allowance for minor intensification of the few "neighbourhood" areas within the plan area, although these are so few as to be more or less meaningless. The big issues are constraining the city's ability to oppose development on the basis that appropriate infrastructure is not in place (this is a MAJOR issue in the area), and further to that the ability to collect funds through development to fund both this infrastructure and other community amenities.
Realistically though, shoving a few more tall buildings in an already congested area isn't going to do anything for the affordability or livability of the city. It's a gimme to developers and that's pretty much it.