Suburban Skylines

[Nite]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

I wouldn't call Yonge & Eg a "pseudo-downtown" (or suburban) though - it's really just a pre-war, inner city neighbourhood that developed a bit of a high-rise node around a transit hub. But yes, it's otherwise probably the most vibrant & walkable of Toronto's non-downtown skylines.

Yonge and Eglinton is in the North Toronto neighbourhood which is 8 km away from Lake Ontario, which is a suburban area of Toronto with high-rise dominating at the intersection.
For a Chicagoan, Yonge and Eglinton would be where Jackson Blvd and S. Homan Ave is

[suburbanite]

That picture is so Toronto it's almost cliche.

[Crawford]

Yonge-Eglinton (and Yonge-Lawrence) are more inner suburban or outer urban. Very dense at the core, but streetcar suburban on the fringe. Probably developed in the interwar period, which isn't particularly old.

It's hard to compare to U.S. norms, though, because there are no U.S. cities with the Toronto typology. DC probably comes closest, with areas like Ballston and Bethesda serving as rough analogues, but DC at street level doesn't feel much like Toronto. If it were in Chicagoland Yonge-Eglinton would be somewhere like Oak Park or Evanston.

North York is a whole other typology, however. It's like an alien civilization compared to U.S. suburban development. I can just imagine someone proposing a North York to a typical suburban U.S. planning board, the type that screams bloody murder if a three-floor building is proposed.

North York is so big that you can be driving/walking down Yonge and confused which way is headed downtown.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

North York is a whole other typology, however. It's like an alien civilization compared to U.S. suburban development. I can just imagine someone proposing a North York to a typical suburban U.S. planning board, the type that screams bloody murder if a three-floor building is proposed.
.

This is why I find suburban Toronto to be a very bewildering place.

Do the people who live in those SFH's simply not care that there are 40 story condo towers in their backyards, or are they powerless to do anything to stop it?

In suburban chicago, that kind shit would get tied up in litigation indefinitely, until the developer either got bored or went broke.

In fact, to Crawford's point, lawsuiting away every proposed development taller than 3 or 4 floors, that is thus "completely out of scale and character with our quaint suburban village" has become such standard operating procedure in suburban chicago that, with few exceptions, developers won't even bother wasting their time proposing anything more ambitious, and voter-weary village councils won't even entertain such obviously DOA nonsense.

So how did suburban Toronto get the power to build giant condo towers in the backyards of SFH owners? How did that happen, politically?

Because where I live, the SFH owner is god.

Everything bends to their will.

Because they vote!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

This is why I find suburban Toronto to be a very bewildering place.

Do the people who live in those SFH's simply not care that there are 40 story condo towers in their backyards, or are they powerless to do anything to stop it?

I'm pretty sure Canada has provincial-level or regional-level planning, so the SFH neighbors have much less of a voice. Not sure if it would be possible to stop these developments at the grassroots.

[suburbanite]

Ontario used to have the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) which could override local planning decisions. Basically, get denied by the municipality, go appeal to the OMB and be much more likely to get a favourable outcome. The OMB has since been replaced by the Ontario Land Tribunal which was intended to be more sensitive to local planning considerations.

I'm not sure how much of a role the OMB had in the formation of places like North York or Downtown Mississauga near Square One though. My experience with them was more along the lines of, appeal for 45 stories instead of the 35 stories city council granted you. I was never under the impression that they officially designated North Yonge as a high-rise corridor when local planning wanted to keep it low-rise suburban.

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

This is why I find suburban Toronto to be a very bewildering place.

Do the people who live in those SFH's simply not care that there are 40 story condo towers in their backyards, or are they powerless to do anything to stop it?

In suburban chicago, that kind shit would get tied up in litigation indefinitely, until the developer either got bored or went broke.

In fact, to Crawford's point, lawsuiting away every proposed development taller than 3 or 4 floors, that is thus "completely out of scale and character with our quaint suburban village" has become such standard operating procedure in suburban chicago that, with few exceptions, developers won't even bother wasting their time proposing anything more ambitious, and voter-weary village councils won't even entertain such obviously DOA nonsense.

So how did suburban Toronto get the power to build giant condo towers in the backyards of SFH owners? How did that happen, politically?

Because where I live, the SFH owner is god.

Everything bends to their will.

Because they vote!

The answer to your question is that the province of Ontario ultimately controls growth and what gets built.
The City of Toronto is always on the sides of the nimbys to prevent development across the city. the province through mandates for all the cities in the GTHA to have a certain amount of new housing every year. so cities like Toronto, Mississauga, Vaughan, etc...
have to have a certain amount of new housing stock each year and since most of these cities are fully built out or can't expand more because of the greenbelt, this new housing must be built denser and taller.
But to get around upzoning the entire area, Toronto and it surrounding cities decide to massively densify a small area of the city and leave the rest for SFH in order to meet their housing mandates.

If you travel through the GTHA you will constantly see dense clusters in the horizon in every direction.

[Steely Dan]

^ but doesn't Canada have civil courts where "concerned citizens" can just tie up anything that they don't like in indefinite litigation without end?

Maybe Canada just isn't as lawsuit-happy as the the US is? Or maybe Canadian courts just have much lower tolerance for those kinds of painfully transparent stall tactics?

[Nite]

North York City Centre - Toronto

[Nite]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ but doesn't Canada have civil courts where "concerned citizens" can just tie up anything that they don't like in indefinite litigation without end?

Maybe Canada just isn't as lawsuit-happy as the the US is? Or maybe Canadian courts just have much lower tolerance for those kinds of painfully transparent stall tactics?

IANAL but undertaking a lawsuit in Canada can hurt you more than it helps as if you loose you are on the hook for paying for you opponents legal fees. I really don't know how a regular american citizen is allowed to sue a development that has been approved to go by a municipality. I have never heard of an individual or group being able to sue a development in Ontario and stop it from going ahead.

To clarify what I said earlier, the cities in the Greater Golden Horseshoe have to plan for population growth over the next 25 or so years but they can decide where in their city that growth will happen. The province produces estimates and the cities have to allow for these population figures by increasing housing.


"One of Places to Grow’s requirements is that by 2015 and for each subsequent year, at least 40 per cent of residential development in municipalities must happen within their existing boundaries, rather than sprawling out into new territory, a rule meant to encourage building up instead of out. Based on data from 2007 to 2010, many GTA municipalities were already meeting that annual target; a few are still lagging"
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ticle23886492/

[mhays]

Litigation isn't that common in my region (Seattle, Bellevue, Washington state, etc.). Anything that's basically allowed by zoning can make it through. The typical contention will be any variances they attempt, but those can be fairly straightforward too.

Sometimes an agency decision to award a land use permit is appealed to the local hearing examiner. They look at compliance with the required processes and City codes. It might take five months or so iirc. After that, only rarely will the HE's decision be appealed to the court system.

The lengthy process before the agency approval, plus the appeals can delay a project. But it's predictable enough that a deep-pocketed developer is pretty sure they'll get through it in the end.

Our bigger problem is height and FAR limits. Everything in Bellevue goes to the allowable height or square footage, almost universally.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

So how did suburban Toronto get the power to build giant condo towers in the backyards of SFH owners? How did that happen, politically?

Because where I live, the SFH owner is god.

Everything bends to their will.

Because they vote!

Aside from some of the planning differences mentioned above, I think there's also just more of an ingrained cultural acceptance of towers as being part of the suburban landscape here. Suburban greenfield high-rises have been around as long as the surrounding houses have (and in some cases longer).


http://towerrenewal.com/bathurst-and-steeles/

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by mhays

Anything that's basically allowed by zoning can make it through.

well, yeah.

my point was that in 95% of suburban chicago, virtually nothing beyond detached SFH's and strip malls is allowed "as of right".

the NIMBidiots in these villages will break out their torches and pitchforks over a simple little 5-story mixed-use development in a traditional town center across the street from a goddamn commuter rail station.

that's the level of stupid we're talking about here.

a 20+ story apartment tower that will cast shadows upon someone's backyard?

G. T. F. O.

NOW!



that kinda stuff is a complete DOA non-starter around here, which is why i find suburban toronto so strange, because they somehow manage to do just that to SFH owners all over the place.

people in suburban chicago would start assassinating their political leaders if that happened here.

and, sadly, i don't think i'm really exaggerating all that much.

[mhays]

We don't have a vast gray area like that. Either it's allowed or it isn't, aside from a little fringe where the variances exist.

A variance might be something like trading a little more setback at 50' height for a little less at 200'.

[JManc]

That's smart on the part of Seattle since it keeps legal costs down.

[TWAK]

Originally Posted by BnaBreaker

Wasn't the angular building in the middle there a landmark building on Sim City 3000?

Yup it's California Plaza and I think that's where Maxis had their offices.

[Doady]

Toronto invented NIMBYism. It all started here with Jane Jacobs and the cancellation of the Spadina Expressway. So do not underestimate the NIMBYs and the power they wield here. Perhaps their priorities and fears are a bit different.

Maybe it is easier to build condo towers along suburban roads that have buses coming by every 3-4 minutes. Not just less opposition from SFH homeowners and their children who take the bus, but more economical for developers to build taller when there is less parking needed. When you have more transportation options, then it becomes more natural to have more housing options.

And it isn't as black vs. white as SFHs vs. high-rise condos either. See housing in Mississauga in 2016:

Total 240,910
Single-detached house 90,780
Apartment in a building that has five or more storeys 63,130
Semi-detached house 26,730
Row house 34,115
Apartment or flat in a duplex 8,120
Apartment in a building that has fewer than five storeys 17,630

More than 1/3 of housing units in Mississauga were semi-detached house, townhouse, or low-rise/mid-rise apartment. Do the high-rise apartment buildings popping up in Mississauga still seem so strange?

Urbanity is not as black vs. white as city vs. suburb, rail transit vs. automobile, or SFH vs. high-rise apartment. Toronto is not an urban area of extremes. It is everything in-between. Plethora of housing options accompany a plethora of transportation options. That is natural.

That's why it is hard to be pessimistic about Chicago, despite some of the problems Klippenstein describes. As I said, much stronger foundation for urbanity than Toronto. A place like North York City Centre was not a big leap, but rather the result of a series of small steps, and those small steps have made it closer and more connected to Downtown Toronto rather than stand further apart on its own. It is less a reflection of the power of the suburbs but the continued influence of Toronto's core. Likewise, Brampton and Mississauga might be referred to some as "edge cities", but their transit ridership and high density developments shows the strong connection they will still have with Toronto, and that is what "suburb" really means. Only problem with Chicago, the suburbs seem unwilling to take those small steps, they don't want to get closer and more connected. Once that changes, Chicago area will overtake Toronto once again, very easily.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by TWAK

Yup it's California Plaza and I think that's where Maxis had their offices.

Lord, I miss Maxis and the old days of SimCity (4, 3, 2, 1). One of my all time favorite games, along with the Civilization franchise.

EA Games ruined SimCity.

[nameless dude]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

which of these pseudo-downtowns have dense pedestrian traffic? That, to me, is the true litmus test...not banal tall glass office buildings or condos.

Just back to this briefly for Sydney Australia, but it could be interesting for a North American or even Australian perspective in that most of Sydney's commercial areas are built differently to what you might expect in typical low density suburbia.

Rather than the strip mall and freestanding shopping mall kind of development, Sydney's commercial areas are built into more of these (kinda) UK style town centres and retail strips wrapped right around a train station, just not to the scale or grandeur of what you see in say, London. So you'd have these tight, pedestrian friendly pockets built around train stations, surrounded by swathes of low density housing.

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Okay the third one's cheating I suppose, because it doesn't have a skyline.

[Crawford]

I think wealthy American suburbia should use this modest suburban Toronto development as a template:
https://www.blogto.com/real-estate-t...-near-toronto/

Maybe propose this to the bluebloods in Darien, CT, or the technocracy in Palo Alto, CA.