Wednesday’s headlines

11 comments

1. I like Hume, and I like public space, but his column on Y-E is off the mark. The square (part of Yonge-Eglinton Centre, NOT Canada Square) is indeed a dead zone from zoning guidelines past that ended up benefiting no one. It’s all well and good to say “let’s beautify the square” and blame the city council for “weakness”, except that someone has to pay for such wishful beautification. Plus, because of the poor proportions, astonishingly ugly neighbouring buildings, fully shadowed location, and far too liberal policy on panhandlers/homeless, the square would still be a dead-zone wreck. Bryant Park this is not. Council did the right thing in approving a change that will cover up past ills and make the area better. I grew up near this corner and without question I can say that this is the right move. If the city wants to create a public space for the families of North Toronto, center a greenish square around the old Post Office a little north of this location or choose some other spot.

2. iSkyscraper,

   I agree. Christopher is an idealist and ignores practical limitations.

3. I shuddered to see – yet again – the Toronto Star fawning over Hazel McCallion. “Gets things done” – what exactly has she done lately? The only news coming out of that land is the fallout of the City Centre real estate deal involving her son.

   True, the old label of “Queen of Sprawl” may no longer apply – Mississauga ran out of land to sprawl on a few years back – and now city services, like transit, are suffering, while taxes go up big time (a shout-out to Glen) since the development charge gravy train stopped chugging.

   It may be easier, I guess to “get things done” when you have a small, deferential council.

   At least every second election Toronto gets a competitive mayoral race. One could caution against mistaking longevity for greatness.

4. I disagree. This is Yonge and Eglinton, one of the most well known intersections in the city. It’s a major node and very busy. It makes sense to have some open space for the masses at the intersection to relax rather than just funnelling them onto transit so they can relax in their suburban backyards. It’s not a dead zone now as I saw yesterday despite its landscaping that isn’t accommodating of people and blandness. It doesn’t attract that many people for those reasons.

   The buildings around it at the intersection range from bland to attractive, and shadowing isn’t really an issue because of setbacks and the midrise buildings in the area. Also, we gave up a public street in the 1960s in the times when the City was spineless towards developers. The least we can do is protect the space and expect a better square.

   In sum, I don’t know what decade iSkyscraper grew up in the area, but I think he has greatly exaggerated the problems of the square.

5. Hume’s column is always good for a few laughs. Extremely shallow analysis, breathtaking arrogance and quick to insult anyone and everyone who’s ideas regarding aesthetic value and what constitutes “progressive” are different than his own.
   t agree with him. Reading him, one gets the impression he’d be happy with us all living in a dictatorship, so long as things were done in accordance with his views. Him and Sue-Ann Levy are probably neck and neck in the insufferable columnist sweepstakes — except unlike Hume, she sometimes has real news to impart to readers.

6. While I appreciate the points above, I can’t help but suspect that Rio-Can has pulled the classic trick of deliberately neglecting a privately-owned open space, then declaring it “underperforming” and “dysfunctional” and only good for building on.

   In response to the comment that “someone has to pay for such wilful beautification”, let’s remember that:

   1. The open space was originally created partly in exchange for the developer being allowed to close and build on a public right-of-way. Since the space wasn’t actually dedicated to the city, there should have been a responsibility on the owner to maintain is as a functional public space.

   2. Rio-Can’s current proposal is to EXPAND its existing towers on the site. In return for that increased density, wouldn’t an appropriate Section 37 agreement be to improve and maintain the square?

   I’ll admit that I don’t know the area nearly as well as iSkyscraper, and maybe it’s true that the square could never work as a public space. But what exactly is Rio-Can giving back to the community in exchange for this proposal?

7. So RioCan gets a bunch of extra retail – what does the City get in return for the loss of public space (not counting the “third floor public area” – which will probably be barricaded and otherwise inaccessible)

   That said, the “plaza” as it stood was somewhere to walk through rather than linger in my experience, and I’d be happier for Council to concern itself with this.

8. The city gets a large amount of tax revenue that unlike residential, is well over and above the costs it will incur. It is revenue positive.

9. It’s nice that we now have Google streetview to enhance debates.

   The plaza is hardly being left decrepit as part of some conspiracy — the owners need to keep their front door nice to maintain their rents, after all — but rare is the private office plaza that works well as public space (Seagram House, GM Building, TD Bank). The incentives are simply opposing most of the time.

   I agree completely that the long abandoned bus terminal needs to be redeveloped much more than incremental space such as the Y-E “square”. And certainly the legal obligations resulting from the taking of a street in the creation of Y-E Centre need to be studied so that Rio-Can does give something back if that obligation is now being waived. But if you really want to create a nicer public space in this area, follow the Eaton Centre model — build over the poorly proportioned awkward space in front of Y-E Centre and then bulldoze a half block of the two-storey stuff across the street to create a Yonge-Dundas Square as an actual public space. Will never happen at Y-E, but that’s how you would do it right.

10. I have to agree with iSkyscraper. Not only is the plaza on the northwest corner of Yonge & Eg underused, it’s built directly on top of a shallow basement (limiting the potential for landscaping etc.) and extremely windy (meaning that even if a well-designed square was possible, it might still go unused).

    It seems a little pointless — though also typical of Hume — to beat ourselves up for decisions that were already made, in this case quite some time ago. The bus terminal land is city-owned, so it’d be far more practical to focus the quest for public space on that land. With careful design of new buildings — ideally factoring in wind studies — it’d be possible to make something that’d be much more inviting than the Rio-Can parcel ever was.

11. I agree with developing it. It’s perpetually shaded and the wind comes roaring up the hill and through the Yonge street canyon into this square. It’s really only used by locals going to the mall inside. Notwithstanding a couple of small, corroded sculptures, there’s nothing to attract locals to linger either. It’s generally not a pleasant place to hang out and overall a waste of space. There’s nowhere to sit even if you wanted to.

    The bus terminal lands are a better place. They’re not yet shadowed most of the day, particularly the afternoon when people are likely to want to linger, and not too windy. Unfortunately any development that occurs on these lands will probably leave public space along Eglinton, developing at the south end of the site and along Duplex to the west, boxing in a potential square.

    Perhaps we should just give up and focus our attention on improving the area around the community centre further west. A defeatist attitude, perhaps, but it seems that in Toronto that’s the best we can aspire to.