Lessons from Cliffside Village, Toronto

CORRIDOR INTENSIFICATION IN THE INNER SUBURBS: LESSONS FROM CLIFFSIDE VILLAGE, TORONTO

ADRIAN PHILLIPS SUPERVISED RESEARCH PROJECT SUBMITTED TO PROFESSOR RAPHAËL FISCHLER SCHOOL OF URBAN PLANNING MCGILL UNIVERSITY MASTERS OF URBAN PLANNING PROGRAM MARCH 2017 Abstract

This research investigates the challenges, obstacles and dilemmas associated with the realization of the City of Toronto’s Avenue Vision for the densification of Toronto’s inner suburbs. This is accomplished by reviewing relevant policy documents and by interviewing key informants regarding the implementation of the Avenue Vision (a) in Toronto’s inner suburbs broadly and (b) in the Cliffside Village segment of Kingston Road specifically. The research shows that the inner suburban avenues present a number of challenges to densification and to local interventions that makes it possible. Achieving traffic-calming measures to tame traffic presents complex procedural challenges to City staff. The width of the suburban Avenues presents challenges to efforts to establish a comfortable pedestrian realm. The large and deep lots commonly fronting the inner suburban Avenues introduce questions in the development review process that do not have clear answers from policy directives. Existing retail activity and fragmented land ownership can inhibit land assembly. The cost of building the mid-rise typology projected in the Avenues policy and the difficulty of finding retail tenants can inhibit development.Along many segments of the suburban Avenues, market demand for housing is weak. The local community in the inner suburbs often does not support new development. Last but not least, the City is limited in its ability to invest in the Avenues, as there are competing priorities and limited funds. The Cliffside Village case study highlights the record of densification on a segment of an avenue at the edge of market demand and reveals the existence of distinct views of the City’s role in its evolution. It shows that, as the Avenue policy is growth-dependent, it can only address social and physical needs in a piecemeal and fragmented manner. The City must balance its obligation to realize the Avenues Vision in Cliffside Village with an obligation to meet local needs without significant growth. The research suggests that the fragmented development of the Avenues does not significantly transform post-war, auto-dependent areas and that land use intensification must take place together with improvements in public transit in order to initiate broader changes in the inner suburbs. Résumé

La recherche vise à étudier les défis, obstacles et dilemmes associés à la réalisation de l’ « Avenues Vision » de la ville de Toronto, qui a pour objectif de densifier la proche banlieue. Cette tâche est accomplie grâce à l’analyse de documents de politique publique et à des entrevues avec des acteurs clés au sujet de la mise en œuvre de l’ « Avenues Vision » (a) au niveau des banlieues de la première couronne de Toronto en général et (b) au niveau du secteur Cliffside Village de la Kingston Road en particulier. La recherche démontre que les avenues de la proche banlieue soulèvent un certain nombre de défis à la densification et à la réalisation des travaux qui la rendent possible. Réaliser les travaux nécessaires à l’apaisement de la circulation soulève des défis complexes de procédure chez les professionnels munipaux. La largeur des avenues constitue un défi à la création d’un milieu confortable pour les piétons. La taille et la profondeur des lots font apparaître dans l’étude des projets de développement des questions auxquelles les politiques en place ne fournissent pas de réponses claires. Les activités commerciales existantes et la fragmentation de la propriété foncière mettent un frein au remembrement des terrains. Dans certaines sections des avenues, la demande en logements est faible. Les communautés locales dans les proches banlieues ne soutiennent que rarement les nouveaux développements. Les autorités municipales ne peuvent investir comme il le faudrait pour changer les avenues, à cause des diverses priorités qu’elles doivent servir et par manque de moyens. L’étude de cas de Cliffside Village met en lumière le processus de densification d’une section d’avenue où la demande des marchés immobiliers est marginale et révèle la présence de conceptions différentes du rôle de la Ville de Toronto dans son évolution. Elle montre que, puisque la politique des avenues dépend de la croissance, elle ne peut répondre aux besoins sociaux et spatiaux que de manière fragmentaire. Les autorités doivent établir un équilibre entre leur obligation de mettre en œuvre l’ « Avenues Vision » et leur obligation de répondre à des besoins locaux sans qu’il y ait de croissance importante. La recherche suggère que le développement fragmentaire des avenues ne transforme pas la banlieue d’après-guerre de manière significative et que l’intensification de l’usage du sol doit avoir lieu en même temps que l’amélioration des services de transport en commun pour initier des changements plus profonds en proche banlieue. Acknowledgments

There are many people I would like to thank who have helped me in one way or another. First is my supervisor Professor Raphaël Fischler. Thank you for your guidance and encouragement.

Secondly, I would like to thank the staff at the City of Toronto, as well as all other informants, for generously giving me their time. This paper is also far richer thanks to the insights and comments of Professor David Wachsmuth. Thank you very much for your help and for always being available to chat. I would also like to thank Professor Richard Shearmur for his consistent support as well.

Finally, I could not have done this without the support of my family, friends and classmates. Thank you. Table of contents

Abstract/ Résumé i Acknowledgments ii Table of contents iii List of figures, tables, and charts iv

1 Introduction and Methodology 6

1.1 Introduction 7 1.2 Methodology 12

2 Intensification Policy in Toronto 13

2.1 Intensification 14 2.2 Early Intensification Planning and Policy in Toronto 15 2.3 Current Intensification Policy in Toronto 18

3 Toronto’s Inner Suburban Avenues 22

3.1 Introduction 23 3.2 Built Environment 24 3.3 Demographics / Social 27 3.4 Economic / Real Estate 39 3.5 Transportation 31

4 Analysis of the Avenues Policy in Toronto’s Inner Suburbs 34

4.1 Introduction 35 4.2 Urban Design 35 4.3 Economic /Real Estate 36 4.4 Transportation 38 4.5 Governance 38

5 Cliffside Village 40

5.1 Site 41 5.2 History 42 5.3 Built Environment 47 5.4 Demographics and Social Character 53 5.5 Economic / Real Estate 54 5.6 Transportation 57 5.7 Policies and Plans for Cliffside Village 59

6 Analysis of the Avenues Policy in Cliffside Village 62

6.1 Introduction 63 6.2 Urban Design 63 6.3 Economic /Real Estate 63 6.4 Governance 65

7 Conclusion 68

7.1 Lessons from Cliffside Village 69 7.2 Summary of Key Findings 74 7.3 Recommendations 74 List of figures:

1. Toronto’s Inner City and Inner Suburbs 2. Evan’s Shopping Centre at Kipling Avenue and the Queensway in 1956 3. Designated centres in the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto’s 1981 Official Plan 4. City of Toronto Urban Structure Map 5. Performance Standard # 1 6. The Avenues 7. Avenue Right-Of-Way Widths 8. Sheppard Avenue at Hawksbury Drive in North York 9. The Hive Lofts 10. Priority Neighbourhoods 11. City of Toronto Proposed Residential Units (2011-2015) 12. City of Toronto 2012 Transit Score 13. City of Toronto 2016 Transit Plan Recommendations 14. Kingston Road and Three Study Areas 15. Cliffside Village Study Boundary 16. The Halfway House, corner of Kingston Road & Midland Avenue, 1920 17. Cliffside Village Urban Morphology 18. Cliffside Village study area and surroundings c. 1949 19. Cliffside Village study area and surroundings c. 1954 20. The Andrews Motel, 1955 21. Cliffside Fire Insurance Plan 1955 22. Pedestrian crossing Kingston Road in Cliffside Village 23. Portion of Kingston Road in Cliffside Village 24. Typical buildings fronting Kingston Road to the north 25. Building Foot Prints and Property Boundaries in a Section of Cliffside Village 26. Lay-by parking in Cliffside Village 27. Parking lot of the No Frills Store 28. 2229 Kingston Road Northern Elevation 29. 229 Kingston context map 30. Cliffside Village Residential Subdivision 31. Converted store-front residences on Kingston Road 32. Proposed Residential Units on Kingston Road, 2000-2017 A 33. Proposed Residential Units on Kingston Road, 2000-2017 B 34. Vacant Retail Space in Cliffside Village 35. Tony of Tony’s Shoe Repair 36. Cliffside Village Transportation Network 37. Proposed Transit Improvements in Scarborough 38. Rendering of A Redevelped Cliffside 39. Proposed Rail-Deck Park 40. Kingston Road Street Car Lines

List of Tables:

1. Intensification in Toronto: Timeline of policy and documents 2. Kingston Road: Major Planning Initiatives

List of Charts:

1. Percentage Occupied Private Dwellings by Structural Type 2. Percentage of Total Proposed Residential Units in City of Toronto (2011-2015) 3. Percentage of Total Applications for 4 to 11 Storey Buildings (2010-2014) 4. Percentage of Total Applications for 4 to 11 Storey Buildings on the Avenues (2010-2014) A 5. Percentage of Total Applications for 4 to 11 Storey Buildings on the Avenues (2010-2014) B CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION AND METHODOLOGY

source: Author 1 1.1 Introduction

What we might recognize as suburban in Canada today is remarkably diverse. A number of theories and classifications regarding what constitutes suburbia have been proposed. Newman and Hull comment that theories on city regions “tend to ignore those parts of reality that the theoretical construct and conveying image cannot capture, and thereby gloss over the complexity of the contemporary city region” (Newman and Hull, 2009: 780). Phelps and Wu (2011:1) note that “definitions of cities and suburbs are rarely very precise and are rendered relative and arbitrary in geographical terms by the passage of time and the manner in which their cultural meaning and socioeconomic content is socially constructed.” The relativity of urban definitions is apparent in every major Canadian city as many neighbourhoods currently associated with the inner city were once remote residential neighbourhoods considered suburban (Walks, 2007). One of the most basic assumptions about the suburbs is that they are categorically different from the inner city, both spatially and socially (Keil et al, 2012). The inner city ends here and the suburbs begin there. The inner city is compact and dense while the suburbs are low-density sprawl. The inner city is diverse in population while the suburbs are homogenous and middle-class. These distinctions may at times, to varying degrees, describe some truth, but they are also the remnants of an enduring image of early postwar suburbanization. While historically the suburbs emerged on the periphery, today most new suburban development in Canada is built in a “newly-defined in-between city that resembles neither the old inner city nor the glamorous cookie-cutter suburbs” (Keil et al, 2012: 83). In Toronto, the historically diverse centre is increasingly gentrifying and whitening, while the “inner suburbs” now feature diverse, non-white and immigrant populations (Hulchanski, 2010). The divide between urban and suburban is further blurred as city regions like Toronto and Ottawa have amalgamated formerly suburban municipalities. Ekers et al (2012) suggest that, beyond the city and suburb divide, powerful processes of urban decentralization affect all urban and regional spaces.

Toronto’s inner suburbs

There are many different ways to define inner city and inner/outer suburbs, which have their pros and cons, and for this report I’m using the following commonly accepted distinction. In Toronto, the “inner suburbs” refer to the community council wards Etobicoke York, North York and Scarborough, while the “inner city” refers to the community council ward of Toronto and East York (see figure 1). Built-out predominantly in the decades following the Second World War, Toronto’s inner suburbs feature a wide variety of environments, from the curvilinear streets of a master-planned postwar subdivision, to a cluster of recently built high-rise condos adjacent to an expressway. Poppe and Young acutely describe Toronto’s inner suburbs as “a hybrid landscape: a mix of single-family homes and high-rise buildings, ethnic strip malls, warehouses and post-secondary educational institutions, 16-lane freeways and heavily used public transit bus routes” (Poppe and Young, 2013: 616).

Figure 1: Toronto’s Inner City and Inner Suburbs Source: City of Toronto Open NORTH YORK DISTRICT Data SCARBOROUGH ETOBICOKE DISTRICT YORK DISTRICT

TORONTO & EAST YORK DISTRICT Inner City

Inner Suburbs

7 Early History of Canadian Suburbanization

In Canada, extensive suburbs emerged around large cities in the prosperous decades following the 1840s (Harris, 2004). In Toronto, the area that would become known as the Annex began development during the 1880s (Harris, 2004). But it was during the first quarter of the twentieth century that Canada experienced the most significant early wave of suburban development. Between 1900 and 1914, the emergence of the electric streetcar along with unprecedented population growth and the decentralization of jobs sparked the most significant early wave of suburban development in Canadian history, producing suburbs around almost every Canadian city (Harris, 2004). The electric streetcar was far cheaper than the horse car and greatly extended the distance that the population could locate from employment in the city centre, encouraging speculators to buy and subdivide land beyond the city limits (Harris, 2004). As the streetcar became more and more affordable, suburban worker’s districts emerged in the City of Toronto in the early twentieth century (Harris, 1996). By the 1920s, the automobile began to “loosen the ties of home and work still further” (Harris, 1996, p.8). Post-War Suburban Growth in Canada

Following the Second World War, the process of suburbanization accelerated to unprecedented levels, fundamentally reordering the Canadian city (Harris, 2004). A number of factors precipitated post-war suburbanization, including an increased demand for housing after the war and the role of the State in financing mortgages, building infrastructure and regulating development. Most significantly, automobile ownership rose in tandem with home ownership, radically transforming the built environment (Nijman, 2013). As Filion oberves:

A cursory look at aerial photographs is sufficient to reveal the stark difference between pre- and postwar urban development. After the war, the consumption of space increased dramatically, the road network was transformed by wide arterials organized in a super-grid configuration and curvilinear road layouts within super-blocks, expressways crisscrossed metropolitan regions, and multi-functionality waned as land use specialized. Above all, cities went rapidly from being highly centralized to taking on a dispersed pattern (Filion, 2013: 40).

The Canadian federal government entered the housing field in 1935 with the Dominion HousingAct (DHA). The DHA encouraged approved lenders to provide long-term, amortized mortgages by offering DHA insurance on loans (Hulchanski, 2006). In 1938 the National Housing Act (NHA) replaced the original DHA and in 1946 almost all housing programs were transferred to a new Crown corporation, the Central (now Canada) Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) (Hulchanski, 2006). From the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, the majority of households obtained at least part of their mortgage loan directly from the federal government (Hulchanski, 2006). The CMHC strongly promoted home ownership and was instrumental in making the development of Canadian suburbia possible. The federal government had been developing building and subdivision guidelines since the 1930s (Harris, 2004). These guidelines specified standards in building materials, dwelling setbacks, street widths, preferred layouts and so on. Those neighbourhoods and houses that did not conform to these guidelines would not qualify for NHA insurance and were subsequently avoided by institutional mortgage lenders (Harris, 2004). These regulations, and the development of a national building code, led to an emerging uniformity in the Canadian suburban landscape that Richard Harris describes as a “creeping conformity” (Harris, 2004). With the Planning Act of 1946, municipalities were required to prepare ‘official plans’, a primary component of which was a comprehensive zoning scheme (Harris, 2004). While zoning had originated in the early years of the 20th century in Canada, it developed in an ad hoc fashion in response to petitions from property owners (Harris, 2004). In Toronto, zoning-like restrictions had accumulated until the mid-century when they covered much of the city (Harris, 2004). With the Planning Act of 1946, zoning became a systematic planning tool and its application in the newly developing suburbs was instrumental in shaping the form they took. As zoning rigidly separating land uses on a large scale, the mixed-use, compact neighbourhoods that characterized pre-war suburbanization were replaced with residential areas stripped largely of anything other than dwellings, schools, and the occasional church, making the automobile an integral component of daily life. Between 1945 and 1952 the number of cars registered in Canada doubled, and by 1961 it had doubled again (Harris, 2004). The emerging ubiquity of the automobile radically influenced the urban landscape, encouraging dispersed settlement, lower densities, and larger lots (Harris, 2004). The segregation of uses in new suburban subdivisions made the private car more necessary, but the diffusion of the car promoted the development of sprawl in turn. The first retail malls in the early 1950s featured more parking space than retail floor space (Harris, 2004). Filion observes that “the combination of post-war prosperity and an interventionist Keynesian state secured resources needed for the development of infrastructure systems compatible with new

8 Figure 2: Evan’s Shopping Centre at Kipling Avenue and the Queensway in 1956. Source: City of Toronto Archives, Series 1464.

urban forms” (Filion, 2010: 7). These infrastructure systems primarily consisted of arterial road networks and expressways. The Development of Toronto’s Inner Suburbs

At the end of the Second World War, the Toronto urban area consisted of three urbanized municipalities: the City of Toronto, with a population of almost 700,000, the borough of East York, with 100,000 residents, and the township of York with another 100,000 (Sewell, 2009). This urban area was dense and compact, and beyond it lay mainly farmland and small settlements (Sewell, 2009). To the north was North York Township, with a population of under 40,000, to the east was the Township of Scarborough with a population of 35,000 and to the west was Etobicoke with a population of 30,000 (Sewell, 2009). In the wake of the Second World War, the population of Canadian cities swelled. By the early 1960s, almost three million immigrants had come to Canada, about one-quarter of whom settled in the Toronto area (Sewell, 2009). By the 1950s, the area of settlement had pushed beyond Toronto’s boundaries, into the townships of North York, Etobicoke, and Scarborough. The population of the Toronto area increased from about one million at mid century to some five million people fifty years later (Sewell, 2009).The pressures for growth in Toronto took form just outside of the already dense and compact urban areas of Toronto, in Scarborough, North York and Etobicoke. Roads constituted the majority of provincial spending in the 1950s and regional and local development in the Toronto area was largely shaped by their construction (Sewell, 2009: 64). The construction of the superhighway system in Ontario “was a major influence on the pace, size, and scope of urban growth, beginning with the innovative Queen Elizabeth Way in the 1930s” (Sewell, 2009: 50). Fringe development was encouraged by the access to downtown Toronto that these highways provided. A network of highways soon crisscrossed the Toronto area. Commercial activity that serviced the new residential development was found in auto-oriented shopping plazas and shopping malls, with some retail and service activities also located within industrial campuses. (Sewell, 2009: 71) While most suburbs grew by accretion after the Second World War, several were also built as planned communities (Shoenauer, 1994). Don Mills was built on farmlands to the north and east of the compact, urban

9 areas of Toronto, in what we recognize today as the North York district of the City of Toronto (Sewell, 2009). The Don Mills community was developed with a looping, discontinuous street system that winds through four neighbourhoods of detached homes set on large lots, with an area for walk-up apartments, a central shopping mall, and industrial uses at its edges. The Don Mills street network was organized within arterial super-blocks in an effort to separate pedestrians and traffic. Within the neighbourhoods, the curvilinear road layout and frequent intersections were designed to slow traffic. The success of Don Mills encouraged other developments to follow these principles (Sewell, 2009). Distinctively, the postwar “sprawl” that developed in Toronto featured a physical mix of low- and high-rise buildings, as well as a mix of private market and public housing. Young (2013) observes that Toronto’s inner suburbs are typically suburban in some ways (with single-detached houses, shopping plazas, and wide arterial roads) and typically urban in others (with residential towers and public housing). The state supported suburban home ownership through cheap financing, but government housing policies also led to the clustering of high-rise apartment buildings in Toronto’s inner suburbs (Keil and Young, 2011; Ekers et al., 2012). The modern residential tower was the most popular form of middle-class housing during the post-war years in the Toronto metropolitan area (Young, 2013). By 1971, North York’s population had passed the half-million point, from less than 100,000 at mid-century, while Scarborough and Etobicoke grew more slowly with 1971 populations of 334,000 and 202,000, respectively (Sewell, 2009).

The Evolution of Toronto’s inner-suburbs

In the late 1970s, a detailed study of change in Toronto’s inner suburbs was carried out by the Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto (now called Social Planning Toronto). Titled Metro’s Suburbs in Transition, the report concludes:

The traditional suburban neighbourhood may remain physically intact, but it is no longer the same social environment as in earlier days. Within it, around it, at the periphery, in local schools, in neighbourhoods nearby, are the visible signs of social transformation. The exceptions have continued to grow. There reaches a stage when the scale of the exceptions can no longer be ignored for established earlier settlers. Nevertheless, we would conclude that the social minorities taken as a whole now constitute the new social majority in Metro’s post-war suburbs (SPCMT, 1979: 356).

This shift in social composition in the 1970s resulted largely from the development of high-rise apartment buildings, including many that contained social housing (Hulchanski, 2010). High-rise housing became home to many newly arrived, low-income immigrant families that came to Canada as a result of the shift in immigration policy in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Hulchanski, 2010.) Low-income neighbourhoods and non-white, immigrant populations now characterize much of Toronto’s inner-suburbs (Hulchanski, 2010). Today, much of Toronto’s aging inner suburbs have slipped “several rungs on the ladder of desirability, becoming devalorized in comparison to other districts in their respective city-regions: the successive waves of newer suburbs and the gentrified and/or hip neighbourhoods in the city’s center” (Young, 2013: 63). Evidence of this shift is presented in Chapter Three. The Critique of Suburbia

Since the 1970s, the post-war suburban development model has come “under severe criticism from the media, the literature, planners, politicians and the public” (Filion, 2010: 2). The low density, segregated land uses and automobile dependence of suburbia have come to be seen as a “a source of social segregation and anomie, a strain on public resources, a waste of depleting sources of energy, and above all, a foremost cause of environmental damage” (ibid). In recent decades a discourse has emerged that posits the advantages of higher-density settlement patterns and positions the “compact city” in contrast to “sprawl” and the negative effects attributed to it (Jenks, 2000; OECD, 2012). In North America these principles are often rallied under the banner of “Smart Growth”. Smart Growth originated in the 1990s when in many urban areas growth became “synonymous with rising pollution and property taxes, crowded services and traffic congestion” (Filion, 2010: 2). Smart Growth encourages a range of measures: urban growth boundaries, green belts, urban intensification, public transit improvement, multifunctional and mixed-income developments and pedestrian-oriented environments (Smart Growth Network, 2002; 2003). Continued interest in Smart Growth is propelled by a sense that dispersed urban settlement patterns cannot be replicated forever (Filion, 2010).

10 Intensifying Toronto’s Inner Suburban Arterial Streets

Achieving higher densities in already urbanized areas, or “intensification”, has been a prominent urban policy objective in the Toronto region since the early 1980s (Filion, 2007). Toronto’s Avenues policy is distinct as a corridor intensification strategy with a clear urban design vision of mixed- use, mid-rise urbanism.The Official Plan identifies that “the opportunities for reurbanization through theAvenues are greatest in the post-war city: areas that were urbanized for the first time during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s” (Toronto, 2015: 2-16). The Avenues policy is presented as a strategy to (a) transform the post-war corridors themselves through streetscape and transit improvements, new housing and retail; (b) transform the surrounding neighbourhoods by encouraging walking and transit-use, contributing to the Official Plan goal of “reducing our reliance on the automobile” (Toronto, 2010, 2-16); and (c) play an important role in the Toronto region by providing new housing opportunities, and alleviating the pressures associated with growth in Toronto’s inner city, including congestion and housing affordability. The Avenues in the inner suburbs are wide, heavily trafficked arterial corridors. Mid-rise development is emerging along the suburban Avenues, as well as accompanying streetscape improvements and community benefits, but development is not evenly distributed throughout the city, and many segments of the suburban Avenues are not experiencing growth. The literature shows a significant gap between intensification planning policy objectives and impact on the suburban environment (Downs, 2005; Filion, 2010; 2012). Obstructions have been identified as an inability to meet transit modal share objectives, limited public sector investment potential and interests vested in the existing environment (Downs, 2005, Filion, 2010). Little research has been done to identify the challenges and obstructions regarding the realization of Toronto’s Avenues vision for the transformation of the City’s inner suburbs. This research aims to identify the obstacles to Toronto’s Avenues vision in the inner suburbs by investigating the implementation of Avenues policy using two levels of inquiry: (a) the suburban Avenues broadly, and (b) the Cliffside Village segment of Kingston Road, a designated Avenue in Scarborough. Cliffside Village was selected as a case for in-depth study because since the implementation of a local Avenue-related study in 2009 there has not been significant development uptake in the area. This research consists of seven chapters. Chapter One establishes a historical context for the research and details the methodology. Chapter Two defines intensification, outlines its potential benefits, presents an overview of historical Intensification policy and its impact on theToronto region, and details the current most relevant intensification policy in Toronto, including Official Plan policy. Chapter Three describes the inner suburban Avenues, including descriptions of built environment, social demographics, economics and real estate, and transportation. Chapter Four presents the key findings of interviews with a wide range of informants regarding the implementation of Avenue policy in the city’s inner suburbs. Chapter Five describes the Cliffside Village case study, including descriptions of history, built environment, social demographics, economics and real estate, transportation, as well as area-specific policy. Chapter Six presents the key findings of interviews with informants regarding the implementation of the Avenue policy on Kingston Road and in Cliffside Village. Concluding the report, Chapter Seven will present a critical discussion of the preceding chapters, summarize the key findings and offer recommendations.

11 1.2 Methodology

For the purpose of this study, the current community council boundaries were used to establish Toronto’s inner city and inner suburbs, with the community council wards of Etobicoke York, North York, and Scarborough comprising the inner suburbs and the community council ward of Toronto and East York comprising the inner city. Acknowledging that defining urban areas is an increasingly complex task in the twenty-first century, the term inner suburb is useful as the Avenues in these areas are distinct physically from those found in the inner city and broadly the inner suburbs are distinct from the inner city in their needs and in the challenges they present. At the level of inquiry looking at the inner suburban Avenues broadly, interviews with eight provided the research material. Informants included City planning, urban design, transportation, and economic development staff, as well as the Director of Urban Design for the City of Toronto and a land economist. Toronto staff are divided at the community council level, with staff working in Scarborough, North York, Etobicoke, or the Old City ofToronto and staff were selected from each of the City’s former suburban municipalities. Interviews were roughly an hour long and were semi-structured. The range of informants at this level of inquiry is fairly broad, but the key issues identified and presented are not intended to be comprehensive. They are instead discrete explorations into a number of the complex issues regarding suburban Avenue redevelopment. The key findings are organized according to the following themes: (a) urban design; (b) economics/real estate; (c) transportation; and (d) governance. At the Cliffside Village case study level of inquiry, the boundaries of the Cliffside Village study area are the same boundaries identified in the Kingston Road (Cliffside Community) Avenue study (2009). This area is a segment of Kingston Road, a designated Avenue in the former City of Scarborough. This area was chosen as it has been the subject of significant policy development, although little development has emerged in the area. The Cliffside Village case study is an opportunity to look closely at a segment of an Avenue where market demand is weak. At this level of inquiry, interviews with ten informants provided the research material. Despite the appearance of symmetry between the levels of inquiry, the research at the case study level is far more detailed, with a greater number of informants and also a wider variety of informants. Informants included City of Toronto planning, urban design, transportation and economic development staff, the executive assistant to Ward 36 Councilor Gary Crawford, a land economist, as well as local business owners and residents. Interviews were roughly an hour long and were semi-structured. The key findings are organized according to the following themes: (a) urban design; (b) economic/real estate; and (e) governance. Information obtained through interviews, as well as through literature review, informed the policy recommendations presented in Chapter 7.

12 CHAPTER 2: INTENSIFICATION POLICY IN TORONTO

source: Author 2 2.1 Intensification

Defining intensification

While the term “intensification” is in common use, its definition is not always consistent. In Ontario, intensification is defined in the Provincial Policy Statement (2014) as “the development of a property, site or area at a higher density than currently exists through: a) redevelopment, including the reuse of brownfield sites; b) the development of vacant and/or underutilized lots within previously developed areas; c) infill development; and d) the expansion or conversion of existing buildings” (Ontario, 2014, p. 43). This definition, which is used widely in other policy documents in Ontario, defines intensification as all development that increases the density of a location within an area defined as urbanized, whether on previously developed land or undeveloped land. Although this definition may suggest intensification is measured by residential intensification alone, density can be measured in a number of ways. In the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, density is measured by jobs and residents per hectare, this reflects a comprehensive approach to urban growth that considers the importance of mixed-use development (Ontario, 2006). The terms “densification” and “reurbanisation” are also used to describe the same process as intensification (Mays, 2016; King, 2015; Toronto, 2015). The forms intensification can take are largely dependent on the legal tools in place within a locality. Commenting on the types of intensification policy implemented in the suburbs of the Paris region, Touati (2015) describes a range of “soft” to “hard” intensification. Hard intensification involves the construction of tall building forms which may substantially alter the existing built environment. Soft intensification does not radically change the prevailing urban form, and may include the introduction of secondary suites, or the intensification of low-rise single- family neighbourhoods through the subdivision of land into smaller plots, followed by low-rise construction on the newly created plots. Varying degrees of intensification exist between these extremes.

The benefits of intensification

Intensification is promoted as a way to achieve a great variety of benefits. Accommodating population growth at higher densities within existing urban areas reduces the amount of greenfield development, thereby conserving farmland and natural areas (IBI Group, 1993; Blais, 2000). Higher densities make efficient use of infrastructure, including public transit, water and sewer pipes, as well as “soft” infrastructure such as social services (Blais, 2003; De Sousa, 2002; Carruthers & Ulfarsson, 2003). In connection with other factors, higher densities can lead to a decline in automobile use in favour of transit ridership, walking and cycling (Cervero, 1998; Miller & Shalaby, 2000; Newman & Kenworthy, 1999). Intensification can provide a variety of housing choices, including affordable housing and housing suitable for families (Ontario, 2009). Intensification can also form a key component of strategies to revitalize areas in decline, including restoring heritage buildings, rehabilitating contaminated sites, and carrying out streetscape improvements (Ontario, 2009). The benefits of intensification are often positioned in contrast to the negative effects attributed to “sprawl” (low density settlement patterns that emerged in the early post-war years) (Jenks, 2000; OECD, 2012).

Critical appraisals of intensification

A number of critical appraisals of intensification should be noted. Rydin (2013) develops a critique of growth-dependent planning from an economic, social and environmental perspective. From an economic perspective, she argues that “economic conditions are not always favourable to a reliance on growth dependent planning to deliver desired outcomes” (Rydin, 2013: 11). Intensification relies on economic growth to drive urban development activity and without demand for new land uses, the growth dependent model will not work. From a social perspective, Rydin notes low value land uses are at risk of being replaced by higher value uses in a growth dependent planning system (ibid). In some cases low-value land uses may fulfill an important function, as in providing affordable workspaces for small businesses, or affordable rental units for low-income residents. Intensification can thus be seen as often going hand in hand with gentrification. From an environmental perspective, a growth-led approach can raise concerns from a sustainability perspective as it relies on new development as the engine of urban change and therefore involves the use of resources in the construction process, largely through the use and transportation of materials (ibid). There is also a line of critique according to which intensification policy in practice generally fails significantly to live up to the theory. Neptis Foundation researchers found that, despite the fact that intensification and growth- management policies were in place between 2001 and 2011 in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, only 14% of net new residents were accommodated through the intensification of existing urban areas, while 86% of new residents were housed in new suburban subdivisions built on greenfield sites (Neptis, 2015)

14 Fig. 3. Designated centres in the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto’s 1981 Official Plan source: Metro Toronto. Metro Toronto Official Plan. (Toronto: Metro Toronto, 1981), 19. 2.2 Early Intensification Planning and Policy in Toronto

Intensification has been a prominent feature of growth management policy in Ontario since the early 1980s (Filion, 2007). A substantial number of growth management and intensification policies have been implemented over the second half of the twentieth and first quarter of the 21st centuries, addressing a wide range of problems related to urban areas. The evolution of concepts, strategies and tools that are central to current intensification policy in Toronto can be seen in the historical overview of intensification policy (see table 1). Historically, intensification policy in the Toronto region has emphasized “node” approaches, but it has recently shifted to include “corridor” approaches. Nodal concepts involve the creation of planning districts for intensification such as the sub-centres that were planned for inToronto’s former suburban municipalities North York and Scarborough. Corridor concepts propose the creation of planning districts for intensification along thoroughfares and have the characteristics of being long and narrow. The impact of these early policies on the Toronto region has been varied. Three nodes stand out by the extent of their growth in the City of Toronto: The Yonge-Englinton node in the inner city, and North York Centre and Scarborough Town Centre in the suburbs. Filion (2007) identifies that the success of these nodes in attracting office and residential development can be contributed to a number of factors, including good public transit access, public-sector investments, the presence of a regional mall, and zoning by-laws that encouraged high-density development. The corridor concept received far less early policy attention than the node concept, and due to this had little early impact on the Toronto region. The challenges associated with the implementation of corridor intensification strategies in Toronto will be looked at in Chapters Four, Six and Seven.

15 Table 1: Intensification policy in Toronto Timeline of documents and events

Period Planning Excercise Principal Actor Description Implementation and Impact

1954 Establishment of Metro Toronto, an upper-tier municipality composed of the Old City of Toronto, the towns of New Toronto, Weston and Leaside, the villages of Long Branch, Swansea and Forest Hill, and the townships of Etobicoke, North York, East York and Scarborough. 1968 Scarborough Official Plan amendment designates town centre 1977 North York Council approves the concept of a city centre 1981 1981 Metro Toronto Metro Toronto, Aside from the cenral node Two major centres experience Official Plan Upper-Tier downtown, identifies two significant growth, two Municipality major centres (North York intermediate centres were Centre and Scarborough already developed and the five Town Centre) and seven other intermediate sub-centres intermediate centres experienced limited growth (Eglinton, St. Clair, Islington/ Kipling, Kennedy, Malvern, West Hill and York) 1989 Land Use Planning Province of Requires municipalities Met with resistance from for Housing Policy Ontario to designate areas for municipalities. Nearly all Statement residential intensification municipalities fail to comply to and adopt policies to allow accessory apartments promote intensification, within the timeline given by the including allowing the province creation of accessory apartments 1990 Urban Structure Province of Introduces the term “nodes”. By 1997, 47 nodes are identified Concepts Study Ontario (Office 29 actual or possible nodes in official plans within the for the Greater identified GTA, but relatively few of them Toronto Area) materialize 1991 /1992 Guidelines for the Metro Toronto, Emphasizes the design Not formally adopted by council. Reurbanization of Upper-Tier concerns of developing Serves to informally help Metropolitan Toronto Municipality nodes and corridors planners evaluate development and Study of the / Provincial proposals in the Metro Toronto Reurbanization of (Office for the area Toronto Greater Toronto Area) 1994 Residents Rights Act Province of Prevents municipalities Strong municipal opposition to Ontario from prohibiting accessory the Act. In 1995, the province apartments by allowing introduces an amendment that exemptions from municipal gives municipalities the right to zoning regulations ban secondary suites once again 1994 Official Plan for Metro Toronto, New development to be Main Street strategy adopted by Metro Toronto Upper-Tier concentrated in nodes Metro Toronto, as well as the Old Municipality and corridors; emergence City of Toronto although has little of Main Street concept impact that envisions moderate intensification along designated corridors. 1998 Amalgamation of upper-tier municipality Metro Toronto with its six constituent lower tier municipalities East York, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, York and the City of Toronto to form the City of Toronto

16 2000 Secondary Suites City of Toronto Allows secondary suites Bylaw throughout city 2002 City of Toronto City of Toronto Outlines a number of Corridor intensification emerges Official Plan intensification strategies as a priority. Four pilot Avenue and policies, including studies are developed and “Avenues”, “Centres”, and subsequently many more are “Neighbourhoods”. produced. Avenues experience varying degrees of growth. 2003 Smart Growth Province of Produced a concept plan The Central Zone Panel Panels Ontario for a large region including produced a plan, but it lacked Toronto whose growth both an implementation strategy was be managed to nodal and technical specifications centres 2005 Places to Grow Act Province of Requires municipal plans to Ontario conform to “growth plans” produced by the province 2006 Growth Plan for Province of Identifies “urban growth “Urban growth centre” targets are the Greater Golden Ontario centres” in the City of on track to be met by the City of Horseshoe Toronto, and specifies Toronto growth targets for these areas to be reached by 2031 2010 Avenues and Mid- City of Toronto Developed vision for The results of a 5-year monitoring Rise Buildings Study Avenues involving process produced an addendum mixed-use, mid-rise to the Performance Standards urbanism, evaluated in 2016. The Performance Avenues characteristics, Standards are working well, and developed a set of requiring only minor changes. “Performance Standards” for new mid-rise buildings sources: Metro Toronto, Metro Toronto Official Plan. (Toronto: Metro Toronto, 1981). Pierre Filion,The Urban Growth Centres Strategy in the Greater Golden Horseshoe: Lessons from Downtowns, Nodes, and Corridors, (Toronto: Neptis Foundation, 2007). Roy Tomalty, The Compact Metropolis: Growth Management and Intensification in ancouver,V Toronto, and Montreal (Toronto: ICURR Press, 1997). Anastasia, Touati, Soft densification in Canada: The example of Accessory Apartments in Ontario, http://www. metropolitiques.eu/Soft-densification-in-Canada.html, accessed 24 March 2017. Rian Allen and Phillipa Campsie, Implementing the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe: Has the strategic regional vision been compromised? (Toronto: Neptis Foundation, 2013). City of Toronto,Official Plan (Toronto: City of Toronto, 2015). City of Toronto, Avenues and Mid-Rise Buildings Study (Toronto: City of Toronto, 2010).

17 2.3 Current Intensification Policy in Toronto:

Places to Grow: Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe

The Places to Grow Act of 2005 gave the provincial government the ability to establish “growth plans” specifying policies for urban growth and land use in defined areas.The Act requires regional and municipal official plans to comply with policies contained in provincial plans. The Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe is the first such provincial plan, adopted in 2006. The Greater Golden Horseshoe1 (GGH) is one of the fastest- growing metropolitan regions in North America and the Growth Plan is intended to prevent “urban sprawl,” which contributes to traffic congestion, hinders the introduction of transit, adds to infrastructure costs, and degrades the natural environment (Ontario, 2006). The Growth Plan is part of a suite of provincial policies adopted around the same time – including the 2005 Provincial Policy Statement and the Greenbelt Plan – that collectively seek to better manage growth and development in the region, and to avoid the negative consequences of dispersed, low- density development patterns. Among the Growth Plan’s key policy directions are the following:

• minimum intensification targets: the Growth Plan requires that at least 40% of residential development occurring annually must be located within existing built-up areas (with some exceptions) • designated greenfield area minimum density targets: the Growth Plan requires that development on currently undeveloped land be planned to achieve a minimum density of 50 persons and jobs per hectare combined by 2031 (with some exceptions) • urban growth centres (UGCs): the Growth Plan designates areas as focal points for investment and population and employment growth and sets minimum density targets for these areas, to be achieved by 2031 (with some exceptions)

In the City of Toronto, the directives of the Growth Plan have been incorporated in the Official Plan. Because the City of Toronto’s entire municipal territory is considered urbanized, all development in the city can be considered intensification, and therefore the minimum intensification target is irrelevant.The minimum greenfield area density target is also irrelevant in the City of Toronto because there is no remaining supply of greenfield land. To comply with the Growth Plan, the City of Toronto needs to reach the objectives set out for its five UGCs and is on track to accomplishing this objective. The Urban Growth Centres (UGCs) describe what has been defined in other planning exercises as nodes, centres or sub-centres (Ontario, 2006). In the City of Toronto, five UGCs were identified in the Growth Plan: “Downtown”; “Yonge-Eglinton Centre”; “North York Centre”; “Scarborough Centre” ; “Etobicoke Centre” (Ontario, 2006). Minimum density targets of 400 residents and jobs combined per hectare by 2031 are given to the UGCs in Toronto (Ontario, 2006). Neptis Foundation researchers have observed that the Growth Plan is not being fully implemented by the municipalities in the GGH, with many municipalities not intending to achieve the minimum intensification targets, or to accommodate the density of development required in new developments (Allen & Campsie, 2013). The lack of a standard approach to implementation of the Growth Plan has led to a patchwork of approaches by municipalities and to inconsistencies in the way the Plan has been implemented. The Neptis report determined that because of this the Growth Plan will not protect the amount of agricultural and rural land that the government stated it would like to conserve. Provincial review of the Growth Plan, as well as the other regional plans – the Greenbelt Plan, and the Big Move – will be available in 2017, and will shed further light on the implementation and impact of the Growth Plan.

City of Toronto Official Plan

The Official Plan office consolidation of 2015 offers the most current copy of the Official Plan policies in effect in the City of Toronto. The Official Plan’s central theme is to direct growth to appropriate areas and away from the City’s stable residential neighbourhoods and green spaces. The locations identified as most appropriate for growth are the Avenues, Centres, and Downtown, as well as the Mixed-Use Areas and Employment Areas (see figure 4). The term intensification is used infrequently in the Official Plan. In its place, the term “reurbanization” is favoured: “a co-ordinated approach to the redevelopment of land within the existing urban fabric to accommodate regional growth is known as reurbanization” (Toronto, 2015, 2.1). This choice was likely made to emphasize the comprehensive objectives of the intensification strategies being pursued by the City. Three distinct areas are described in the Official Plan regarding growth.There are stable, protected areas 1 The Greater Golden Horseshoe comprises the GTA (the city of Toronto and the Regional municipalities of Halton, Peel, York, and Durham), the cities of Hamilton and Kawartha Lakes, the Regional Municipalities of NIagara and Waterloo, and Haldimand, Brant, Wellington, Dufferin, Simcoe, Peterborough, and Northumberland Counties. 18 Figure 4: City of Toronto Urban Structure Map. Map identifies the “Downtown” in orange, the stable “Neighbourhoods” in beige, the “Green Space System” in green, “Employment Areas” in blue, “Avenues” in yellow, and “Centres” in red. source: City of Toronto, City of Toronto Official Plan (Toronto: City of Toronto) map 2. such as the residential neighbourhoods, watercourses, ravines, and parks which “can expect to see little physical change” (Toronto, 2015, 2-3). Other parts of the City will change gradually, such as the “Avenues” (designated mixed-use intensification corridors). Finally, some areas are “ripe for major growth” such as the “Centres” (nodes designated for mixed-use intensification), and large vacant or post-industrial sites identified as “Regeneration Areas” (Toronto, 2015, 2-3). These areas are shown on Figure 2. Four land use designations “protect and reinforce the existing physical character” of areas: Neighbourhoods, Apartment Neighbourhoods, Parks and Open Space Areas, and Utility Corridors (Toronto, 2015, 4-1). Four land use designations “distribute most of the increased jobs and population anticipated by the Plan’s growth strategy: Mixed Use Areas, Employment Areas, Regeneration Areas and Institutional Areas (Toronto, 2015, 4-1). The Official Plan emphasizes that growth will be directed to areas “where good transit access can be provided along bus and streetcar routes and at rapid transit stations” (Toronto, 2015, 2-3). The “Centres” designated in the Official Plan correspond exactly to the Urban Growth Centres outlined for the City in the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe and some of the “Centres” had been identified as nodes as early as the 1981 Urban Structure Plan. The Official Plan states that Secondary Plans for each Centre will “outline a growth strategy, show how transportation and other local amenities can be improved, specify variations in the mix of land uses and intensity of activities within each of the Centres and knit each Centre into the surrounding fabric of the City” (Toronto, 2015, 2.2.2). The Official Plan identifies the “Downtown” will have the greatest intensity of growth, while the other centres will “develop at differing scales and densities, set out in their respective Secondary Plans and zoning by-laws, reflecting the context of their surroundings and transportation infrastructure” (Toronto, 2015, 4.5). The early Main Streets corridor intensification concept in the Old City ofToronto developed into the “Avenues” concept in the first Official Plan for the City after amalgamation in 2002. Avenues are designated in the Official Plan as certain corridors along major streets “where intensification is anticipated and encouraged” (Toronto, 2015, 2.2.3). City objectives for the Avenues are “to create new housing and job opportunities while improving the pedestrian environment, the look of the street, shopping opportunities and transit service for community residents” (Toronto, 2015, 2.2.3). A vision for the redevelopment of the Avenues with mixed use, mid- rise buildings emerged in the first decade of the 21st century, along with significant policy guidance to implement that vision, including city-wide urban design guidelines and area-specificAvenue studies with local policy recommendations. These policies will be looked at further on in this chapter.

19 “Employment Areas” are seen to “play an important role in the Plan’s growth management strategy... [and] can accommodate substantial growth in jobs and meet the needs of some of the key economic clusters that are the focus of the City’s Economic Development Strategy” (Toronto, 2015, 2.2.4). As shown on Figure 2, these Employment Districts are dispersed throughout the city. Three-quarters of the City’s land area is comprised of Neighbourhoods and Green Spaces, and these areas provide a stable counterpoint to the growth areas descibed above (Toronto, 2015, 2.2.3). The Plan notes that directing growth to the Centres and Avenues, along with other strategic locations, is part of the strategy to achieve relative stability in the Neighbourhoods, and will also provide the Neighbourhoods with better access to transit, greater housing choice, increased shopping opportunities and other advantages that these growth areas will provide (Toronto, 2015, 2.2.3). The physical change expected in these areas – additions and infill housing occurring mainly on individual sites – is strictly regulated by Official Plan policy, with directives that all infill development is required to be of the “prevailing building type” of the neighbourhood. “Apartment Neighbourhoods” are distinguished from “Neighbourhoods” by being composed predominantly of apartment towers. The Official Plan directs that “Apartment Neighbourhoods are stable areas of the City where significant growth is generally not anticipated [...] there may, however, be opportunities for additional townhouses or apartments on underutilized sites and this Plan sets out criteria to evaluate these situations” (Toronto, 2015, 4-5). According to a 2016 City of Toronto report analyzing development proposals in the period between 2011 and 2015, 83% of new residential development proposed in the City was located in areas targeted for growth in the the Official Plan (Toronto, 2016). The most growth was proposed in the “Downtown and Central Waterfront”, accounting for 38% of proposed residential units, and 46% of proposed nonresidential ground floor area (GFA) (Toronto, 2016). The Centres continue to develop, with Yonge-Eglinton Centre having the most residential activity (39% of units proposed in the Centres) and North York Centre leading non-residential development (52 % of nonresidential GFA in the Centres) (Toronto, 2016). There is significant development activity along the Avenues, with more than 72,800 residential units proposed between 2011 and 2015 (Toronto, 2016). Following this chapter, this research will take a closer look at the impact of Toronto’s Avenues policy in the City’s inner suburbs. In summary, the Official Plan’s central theme is to direct growth to appropriate areas and away from the City’s stable residential neighbourhoods and green spaces. The Avenues policy is an important component of this growth management strategy. Avenue Studies and Mid-Rise Building Performance Standards

Along the designated Avenues in the Official Plan, the segments of the Avenues designated as Mixed-Use Areas, Employment Areas, Institutional Areas, and Regeneration Areas are locations targeted for intensification. Policy directives regarding development in these areas are primarily guided by the Mid-Rise Performance Standards, which apply to all the segments of the Avenues that have the aforementioned land use designations excluding those areas that have been subject to a local area study, secondary plan, or any other City-led study that has resulted in an Official Plan Amendment and/or new Zoning by-law (Toronto, 2010). The priority of Avenue policy development is to develop area-specific Avenue Studies for segments of designated Avenues, and these studies detail a vision and recomendations specific to that area but also reflect the directives and guidance of the overarching Mid-Rise Building Performance Standards. With limited resources to study all of the Avenues, the Mid-Rise Performance Standards fill in the gaps and establish the basic conditions all the Avenues are to follow. For example, on the Kingston Road Avenue in Scarborough, the evaluation of a hypothetical project at the corner of Victoria Park and Kingston Road in the Birch Cliff area of Scarborough Southwest would be guided by a local Avenue study that was adopted in 2007, while further east along Kingston Road, the review of a hypothetical development at St Clair Avenue East and Kingston Road would be guided by the Mid-Rise Building Performance Standards as no local study is in effect in this area. This section outlines the Mid-Rise Performance Standards, while a detailed study of the Kingston Road (Cliffside Community) Avenue Study is presented in Chapters Five and Six. The Mid-Rise Performance Standards originate from the Avenues and Mid-Rise Buildings Study, a document prepared by the City Planning Division, along with Brook Mcllroy Planning + Urban Design/Pace Architects (BMI/Pace) (Toronto, 2010). The objective of the Study was identified as “to develop recommendations for urban design, policy and process that will encourage the development of more and better designed mid-rise buildings on the Avenues” and the Study provided a vision for Toronto’s Avenues transformed with mixed-use, “mid-rise urbanism”. The study established a list of best practices, evaluated the Avenues based on historic, cultural and morphological characteristics and developed a set of “Performance Standards” (urban design guidelines) for new mid-rise buildings. The Study was adopted by City Council in 2010 and following a five-year monitoring period, an addendum to the Performance Standards was approved in 2016 by City Council, and this addendum is meant to be used with the 2010 Performance Standards in evaluating development applications as well as to help inform the preparation or review of area studies and policies involving mid- rise buildings. The Mid-Rise Performance Standards provide detailed urban design directives for new development and are comprehensive in scope. One of the principal directives of the Mid-Rise Performance Standards is the achievement of

20 moderate building heights by limiting the maximum height of a building to the width of the right-of-way (ROW) the building faces. Potentially preventing development from reaching that maximum height, the Performance Standards also direct the application of a 45-degree angular plane to the front and rear of the site respectively in order to determine maximum building height (See Figure 5). The dimensions of the lot – particularly the depth of the lot – significantly impact the ability of a given site to be built to its maximum height. Regardless of the ROW and allowances of the site regarding the angular planes, a maximum height of eleven stories is recommended for development along the Avenues. These dimensions were developed in order to allow for a minimum of five hours of sunlight to reach the street, and for new development on the Avenue to be contextually sensitive to the abutting Neighbourhood. According to the City of Toronto, “Mid-rise buildings have a good scale and relationship to the street [...] They support a comfortable pedestrian environment, and animate the street by lining the sidewalk with doors and windows with active uses including stores, restaurants, services, grade related apartments, and community uses” (Toronto, 2016). The City’s monitoring has shown that the Performance Standards have required only minor change and have generally been successful in guiding development and in framing the review of development applications (Toronto, 2015). Challenges regarding the implementation of the Performance Standards in suburban Toronto will be looked at in Chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven.

Figure 5: Performance Standard # 1 source: City of Toronto and Brook McIlroy Planning + Urban Design/Pace Architects, Avenues and Mid-Rise Buildings Study (Toronto: City of Toronto, 2010) p.15.

The Avenues: A Corridor Intensification Strategy

In Toronto’s long history of intensification and growth management policy, the Avenues policy is distinct as a corridor intensification strategy for its clear urban design vision of mixed- use, mid-rise urbanism. The Avenues policy originated in the Official Plan, but the Avenues and Mid-Rise Builings Study and the Performance Standards complemented the Official Plan and specified some of its provisions.The Avenues policy is presented as a strategy to achieve a comprehensive set of objectives. According to the Official Plan, “the Avenues are important corridors along major streets where reurbanization is anticipated and encouraged to create new housing and job opportunities while improving the pedestrian environment, the look of the street, shopping opportunities and transit service for community residents” (Toronto, 2010, 2-16). The Avenues policy is distinct from the intensification policy that preceded it in Toronto, as it is a corridor strategy, and not a nodal or centre- oriented strategy. As corridors, the Avenues are very different in their qualities from nodes. The Avenues are decentralized and dispersed throughout the City. These corridors encompass far more surface area than a typical node or sub-centre, such as North York Centre. Because of its geographic scope, a single Avenue may be characterized by hundreds of unique segments, with widely differing built environments, surrounding communities and market demand for new housing. The following Chapter will describe the Avenues in Toronto’s inner suburbs in more detail.

21 CHAPTER 3: TORONTO’S INNER SUBURBAN AVENUES

source: Author

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Figure 6: The Avenues. Location of the Avenues, Downtown & Centres Toronto’s inner suburban Avenues: approximated by author. Sources: Developed during the post-war years, Toronto’s inner suburban Avenues City of Toronto Open Data are wide, heavily trafficked arterial corridors. Residents of adjacent neighbourhoods Catalogue. rely on these corridors to buy groceries, to take their children to school, to catch the City of Toronto, City of Toronto bus, and so on. They are important parts of the communities they serve. The inner Official Plan (Toronto: City of suburban arterial corridors are to be urbanized – that is, to be made urban – with the Toronto, 2010) map 2. introduction of mixed use, mid-rise buildings, with the intention of creating the kind of City of Toronto, City of Toronto vibrant, pedestrian and transit-oriented traditional main streets one finds in the central Official Plan (Toronto: City of city. The post-war arterial corridors present unique challenges and opportunities Toronto, 2010) map 3. regarding this vision and we will uncover those in the remainder of this report. The following chapter will look at the inner suburban Avenue’s built-environment, demographics, economics/real-estate, and transportation.

23 3.1 Built Environment

Toronto’s inner suburbs:

Toronto’s inner suburbs are largely built on a super-grid and super-block structure, a primary feature of the early post-war suburb. While a traditional grid is defined by all streets, a super-grid is defined exclusively by arterial roads. This basic structure of the post-war suburbs defines to a large extent many of the problems contemporary planning identifies in these areas, including poor connectivity. As Filion notes, “The super-grid/ super-block structure plays a determining role in defining suburban accessibility and setting the scale at which development takes place and how it is regulated” (2012:107). Toronto’s inner suburbs are characterized by two contrasting forms: high-rise apartments on major arterial roads and single-detached, traditional suburban housing on quiet residential streets (see chart 1). The majority of the high-rise residential buildings were built from the 1950s to the early 1980s and reflect the tower-in-the-park concept set put forth by Le Corbusier. Within and around that base of aging, post-war architecture, new development has emerged, and a a “hybrid landscape” of curvilinear subdivisions, apartment towers, commercial plazas, and high-density transit-oriented development has come to characterize Toronto’s inner suburbs (Poppe and Young, 2015; Keil et al, 2012).

Chart 1: Percentage Occupied Private Dwellings by Structural Type

50 City of Toronto

North York

Scarborough 40 Etobicoke York

Toronto & East York

30 Source: Statistics Canada, 2011 Census.

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The inner suburban Avenues

The inner suburban Avenues are arterial streets, often with four to six lanes of traffic, and a wider ROW than most major streets in the inner city. While the ROW width of major arterial streets in the inner city is generally twenty metres, in the city’s inner suburbs it is generally thirty-six metres wide (see figure 7). The lots that front the suburban Avenues are also often far larger and deeper in proportion than those found in the inner city. The character of the environments and buildings fronting the Avenues throughout the inner suburbs varies,

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RO DUNDAS THE QUEENSWAY QUEEN EASTERN 20-23 KING 27 LAKE SHORE 30 33 36 Figure 7: Avenue Right-Of-Way Widths. Location of Avenues and widths 45 approximated by author. Source: City of Toronto Open Data Catalogue. City of Toronto, City of Toronto Official Plan (Toronto: City of Toronto, 2010) map 2. but common features include one- and two-storey commercial strip plazas set back and seperated from the street by large areas of surface parking lots, along with pockets or stretches of post-war single-detached homes and apartment towers. Many new developments are mid-rise buildings shaped by Avenues policy, but townhouses and taller building forms have also developed. Sheppard Avenue is a dramatic example of a suburban arterial corridor being “retrofitted” to a more urban condition in Toronto. The construction of the controversial Sheppard Line of the subway in 2002 spurred the construction of high-rise and mid-rise development along its route in North York. One devleopment project included the assembly of an entire neighbourhood of single-family detached homes to create a large parcel for an apartment neighbourhood (see figure 8) (Hardiwcke & Hertel, 2011). Other developments included the conversion of former warehouse land to mixed-use apartment neighbourhoods. Along the Queensway in Etobicoke, the “Hive Lofts” by Teeple Architects is an example of recent, moderately scaled, incremental growth on the suburban Avenues (see figure 9). This six-storey building is one of a number of mid-rise buildings that have emerged on the Queensway, but which remain scattered along the corridor. Retail space is provided at grade, and the influence of the Mid-Rise Performance Standard’s is apparent in how the building transitions to the neighbourhood at the rear. A detailed analysis of the environments produced by the Avenues policy is not within the scope of this study, although further research of this nature is required. The case of Sheppard Avenue makes it clear that the introduction of density, high-order transit, and new urban form to the suburban arterials is not a guaranteed recipe for vibrant pedestrian-oriented urbanism at grade. Hardwicke & Hertel comment:

a decade ago Sheppard Avenue could be characterized as a typical suburban arterial, now it is framed with urban buildings along a street jammed with traffic. The people you see on the street are on their way to the subway, and not lingering or visiting cafes (Hardwicke & Hertel, 2011: 5)

The impact of the Hive Lofts on the Queensway is far more difficult to identify, as the introduction of the building to the street has not significantly raised local population density or transformed the area physically.

25 Figure 8: Sheppard Avenue at Hawksbury Drive in North York. Source: Google maps.

Figure 9: The Hive Lofts. Source: Teeple Architects.

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Community Council Boundaries Figure 10: Priority Neighbourhoods. Location of Avenues approximated by author. Source: City of Toronto Open Data Catalogue. City of Toronto, City of Toronto Official Plan (Toronto: City of Toronto, 2010) map 2.

3.2 Demographic Profile

Toronto Region

Between 2011 and 2016, the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (the Greater Toronto Area) grew by 344,976 people, to 5,928,040, a 6.2% increase (Statcan, 2016). The City of Toronto absorbed roughly one-third of the Toronto Census Metropolitan Area’s growth during this time, with some suburban municipalities like Bramp- ton growing faster than the city of Toronto (13.3% with a 2016 population of 593,638) (Statcan, 2016). The Great- er Toronto Area is projected to be the fastest growing region of the province, with its population increasing by over 2.8 million, or 42.9 per cent, to reach almost 9.5 million by 2041 (Ontario, 2015). The Toronto Foundation observed that many of the immigrants coming to the Toronto region over the last several decades have settled in the suburbs of the Toronto region, creating distinct ethnic suburbs characterized by residences, businesses and cultural instutions with a high concentration of one ethnic group (Toronto Foundation, 2016). Three distinct ethnoburbs were identified in the Region, one that includes Brampton, most of Missisauga, the north of Etobicoke and western Nort York in the City of Toronto, and is predominantly South Asian, a second that includes most of Markham, Scarborough, eastern North York and part of Richmond Hill, with a predominantly Chinese population, and a third emerging in Pickering and Ajax with a South Asian population.

Three Cities

According to Hulchanski, over the past three decades, “Toronto has become an increasingly divided city, economically and racially” (Hulchanski, 2014: 1). The city has polarized into increasingly wealthy neighbourhoods largely found in the central city and in proximity to the city’s subway lines, and growing areas of disadvantaged neighbourhoods concentrated in the inner suburbs. In the 1970s, the city’s low-income neighbourhoods were located predominantly in the inner city, where low-income households had good access to transit and services (Hulchanski, 2010). As the inner city became more affluent over the late 20th century, low-income households concentrated in North York, Etobicoke and Scarborough, where there is relatively poor access to transit and

27 services (Hulchanski, 2010). The Toronto Foundation showed that visits to food banks have increased 48% in Toronto’s inner suburbs since 2008 as “hunger continues its shift from the downtown to the inner suburbs” (Toron- to Foundation, 2016: 88) The City of Toronto and the United Way of Greater Toronto identified thirteen areas with extensive poverty and without many social and community services as “priority neighbourhoods” (Hulchanski, 2010). All thirteen neighbourhoods were in Toronto’s inner suburbs. In 2014, the City of Toronto identified additional neighbourhoods, totalling thirty one priority neighbourhoods (see figure 10). Only three of these neighbourhoods are not in the inner suburbs. It is apparent in figure 10 that the Avenues overlap very little with the priority neighbourhoods. Regarding the 2014 mayoral elections, Hulchanski showed that the social divisions characterizing To- ronto have produced a divided voting pattern, with wards that supported John Tory and Olivia Chow sharing a significantly higher socio-economic status and less ethno-cultural diversity than those voting for Ford (Hulchanski, 2014).

28 Figure 11: City of Toronto New Proposed Residential Units (2011- 2015). source: City of Toronto, 2016. How Does The City Grow? September 2016. Accessed: http://www1.toronto.ca/City%20Of%20Toronto/City%20 Planning/SIPA/Files/pdf/Grow/HDCG_2016_Final_accessible.pdf 3.3 Economics / Real Estate Market Context:

Toronto is Canada’s most populous city, and is the Chart 2: Percentage of Total New Proposed Residential Units focal point of development and growth at the heart of the in City of Toronto (2011-2015) Greater Toronto Area. The pattern of real estate development in Toronto is strongest approaching the downtown core Downtown & Central Waterfront and along major subway lines, where accessibility, service, employment, and opportunities for entertainment and Centres socialization are the greatest (Toronto, 2012). A document Avenues prepared by real estate consulting firm N. Barry Lyon Other Mixed-Use Areas Consultants for the City of Toronto Official Plan Review notes that, “These factors create demand for new living and working All Other Areas spaces. Where these factors become less favourable, demand weakens” (Toronto, 2012: 3). The factors account for the continued growth of Toronto’s Downtown, of the Development projects with activity between January 1, 2011 Centres, as well as accounting for the varying intensity of and December 31, 2015. Including built, active and under development along the Avenues (see figure 11 and chart 2). review projects. Source: City of Toronto. How Does The City Grow? – September 2016. Accessed: http://www1.toronto.ca/ Toronto’s housing market is characterized by rising City%20Of%20Toronto/City%20Planning/SIPA/Files/pdf/Grow/ inaffordability. According to Shaun Hildebrand, senior vice HDCG_2016_Final_accessible.pdf president for Urbanation, a real estate consulting firm, “There is such a lack of affordable entry-level homes for sale, and prices are rising so quickly, that more and more would-be first-time buyers are being pushed out of the market and are renting for longer periods of time” (Marten, 2017). According to Urbanation, the majority of new builds in Toronto are condos, with 18,000 condo units completed construction in 2016, and only 1,700 purpose-built rental units (Marten, 2017). According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s 2016 data, the condo apartment vacancy rate is at one per cent — the lowest in

29 seven years. Because of this, according to Geordie Dent, executive direction of the Federation of Metro Tenants Association, “rents are shooting through the roof” (Marten, 2017).

Development on the Avenues:

Some of the emerging Avenues are apparent on Figure 11, with Sheppard Avenue in both North York and Scarborough showing significant development uptake following the completion of the new Sheppard subway line (Line 4 – Sheppard). According to a 2016 City of Toronto report analyzing development applications between 2010 and 2015, proposed residential units on the Avenues accounted for 23% of all proposed residential units in the City of Toronto (see table). Market demand along the Avenues varies, and along some segments, there is no significant development activity. Wilson Avenue, Jane Street, Lawrence Avenue and Kingston Road have seen little development activity. A 2015 City of Toronto report representing the results of five years of monitoring the Mid-Rise Performance Standards shows that between 2010 and 2014 roughly 60% of mid-rise building applications occurred on Avenues, while 40% were in other areas (see chart 3). Of the mid-rise development proposed on the Avenues, 30% occurred In North York, 12% in Scarborough, 38% in Toronto – East York, and 20% in Etobi- coke (see Chart 4).

Chart 3: Percentage of Total Applications for 4 to 11 Storey Buildings in the City of Toronto (2010-2014) A

Other Locations Active development proposals for 4 to 11 Storey Downtown or Centres Buildings, excluding townhouses and stacked Avenues townhouses, in the City of Toronto, 2010-2014. Source: City of Toronto. Mid-Rise Building Performance Standards Monitoring 2016. (Toronto: City of Toronto, 2016).

Chart 4: Percentage of Total Applications for 4 to 11 Storey Buildings on the Avenues in the City of Toronto (2010-2014) B

Etobicoke-York Active development proposals for 4 to 11 Storey Toronto-East York Buildings, excluding townhouses and stacked Scarborough townhouses, in the City of Toronto, 2010-2014. Source: City of Toronto. Mid-Rise Building Per- North York formance Standards Monitoring 2016. (Toronto: City of Toronto, 2016).

30 Avenues Community Council Boundaries

Figure 12: City of Toronto 2012 Transit Score. community council area boundaries and Avenues approximated and added to map by author. Source: Martin Prosperity Institute, Moving 3.4 Transportation Toronto Forward (Toronto: University of Toronto: 2012).

Transit

All of the major transit service types available in Toronto can be found in the city’s inner suburbs, including the TTC subway, and bus services, and the GO rail system. The TTC streetcar primarily services the inner city although it extends into Etobicoke along Lakeshore boulevard. Recent major transit improvements to the city include the addition of the Sheppard subway line in North York. The benefits associated with access to the transit network are not equally distributed throughout theTo - ronto region. A recent study identified that “the GTHA has structural inequities created over decades, if not more than a century, of decisions being made and not made; where growth occurs; the type and density of development; where transit and other infrastructures are constructed, and, where public and private capital is invested and extracted” (Hertel et al, 2016: 3). The Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI, 2012) examined transit access in the City of Toronto and showed that downtown Toronto had the highest transit accessibility, while the inner suburbs had the lowest transit scores (see Figure 12). Those living in Toronto’s inner suburbs are underserved by the transit system, and rely predominantly on bus services. We have seen that poverty is, increasingly, found in Toronto’s suburban areas, where less transit and public services are available compared to the more affluent, core areas. Limited access to transit can limit individual’s economic prospects, and contribute to a cycle of poverty (Hertel et al, 2016). Roger Keil (quoted in a 2015 Toronto Star article) comments,

The majority of infrastructure investments in the modern city have privileged the rich. This is not only because wealthier citizens tend to wield more political clout, but because conventional planning wisdom dictates that major rapid transit lines should connect areas that are already thriving: dense residential zones, booming commercial areas, and transportation hubs (Spurr 2015: 7).

The City of Toronto released a new Transit Plan in 2016, and, if implemented and constructed, it will add kilometres of rapid transit to the city and surrounding region, connecting many inner suburban communities in the City that are currently marginalized from a transit perspective (see figure 13). This plan resurrects key aspects of the Transit City plan put forward by former mayor David Miller and halted under former mayor Rob Ford. The plan includes seven provincial and city-led projects, from SmartTrack and electrified GO service, to a relief subway along Queen-Street and a 17-stop eastern extension of the Crosstown LRT (a project currently under constrution). Toronto has never been short of transit expansion ambitions and the real question is: how much will

31 Figure 13: City of Toronto 2016 Transit Plan Recommendations. source: City of Toronto, retrieved from Tess Kalinowski. 2016. Planners want public’s input on ‘motherlode’ of GTA transit (The Toronto Star: Feb. 16). actually be built? A contentious one-stop subway extension in Scarborough has faced numerous delays and its associated costs have risen well beyond previous estimates.

Automobile Use & Congestion

According to the 2011 National House Survey, roughly 70% of Torontonians rely on automobiles to get to work, with only 23% using public transit. The annual traffic index from TomTom, a Dutch company that specializes in navigation and mapping products, measures travel times across the day and for peak versus non-peak periods. Toronto is ranked as the second most congested city in Canada, following Vancouver, and 6th in North America (TomTom, 2016). The 2011 Transportation Tomorrow Survey by the Univeristy of Toronto’s Data Management Group looked at the level of car ownership in the former City of Toronto, City of York, North York, East York, Scarborough and Etobicoke (University of Toronto, 2011). The highest ratio of car ownership was in Etobicoke and Scarborough, where there was an average of 1.3 vehicles per property, while North York had an average of 1.2 per home, and the old City of Toronto had the least amount of cars, an average of 0.9 per home. A report from the Toronto Cycling Think & Do Tank disputes the measures of this report as it does not take into account the number of people in a household. In Scarborough, the focus of the Cycling Think & Do Tank report, there is an average of 2.9 persons per household, while in the core there are only 1.9 persons per household (TCTDT, 2016). If examined on a per person basis, Scarborough still has more vehicles per home, with 0.44 cars per person, but the city has 0.36 cars per person, a difference that is not as extreme as that shown by the Transportation Tomorrow Survey data (TCTDT, 2016). This suggests that, given similarly higher persons per household in the inner suburbs compared to the inner city, this evening out effect would also apply to Etobicoke and North York, but that car ownership still remains very high in the City’s former suburban municipalities.

32 Summary

The population of the Toronto region is growing rapidly and a significant percentage of new residential units are being built on the city’s Avenues. Sill, development on the Avenues is not equally distributed: on many segments, there is no significant development activity. The suburban Avenues are predominantly wide arterial roads whose common features include one- and two-storey commercial strip plazas set back and separated from the street by large areas of surface parking lots, along with pockets or stretches of post-war single-detached homes and apartment towers. Automobile use in Toronto is high and the inner suburban population has a high ratio of car ownership. The inner suburbs are under-served by Toronto’s transit system; the majority of the suburban Avenues feature bus service only. The following chapter - Chapter Four - will present the key findings of interviews with a wide range of informants regarding the implementation of Avenue policy in the city’s inner suburbs.

33 CHAPTER 4: ANALYSIS OF THE AVENUES POLICY IN TORONTO’S INNER SUBURBS

source: Author

34 4 4.1 Introduction

What are the obstacles and challenges regarding the Avenues vision for the transformation of Toronto’s inner suburban arterial corridors? What are unique issues regarding the inner suburban Avenues that distinguish them from those in the inner city? This research found that the inner suburban Avenues present unique challenges regarding urban design, economics and real estate, transportation, and governance. Interviews with a range of key informants provided the material for this research. Informants included City of Toronto community planning, urban design, transportation and economic development staff working in Etobicoke, North York and Scarborough, as well as the Director of Urban Design at the City of Toronto, and a land economist. First, the key findings will be presented, their content organized by the following themes: (a) urban design; (b) economics/real estate; (c) transportation; and (d) governance. Concluding the key findings is a brief critical discussion. Following this chapter, a detailed analysis of a case study on the Kington Road Avenue will be looked at. 4.2 Key findings: urban design

Public realm: comfort and intimacy

City urban design staff commented that the inner suburban Avenues are distinguished from Avenues downtown by the basic relationship of the building to the street. On the wider arterial streets in the inner suburbs, the face-to-face distance of buildings fronting the street increases, and the intimacy enjoyed walking in a more urban setting with narrower streets is difficult to achieve. Helene Iardas, senior urban designer for the North York district of the City of Toronto, emphasized that the absence of on-street parking on the inner suburban Avenues presents a significant challenge. This layer of parked cars protects pedestrians and allows for a comfortable, enclosed pedestrian space in front of buildings. On the heaviliy trafficked, wide suburban Avenues, where on-street parking is often absent, urban designers will encourage deeper setbacks for new development in order to provide a comfortable pedestrian space in front of the building. Deeper setbacks again bring up the issue of a diminished intimacy in the pedestrian realm. The Mid-Rise Performance Standards address issues of pedestrian comfort by encouraging the use of setbacks to create the appearance of a low streetwall. On-street parking, or lay-by parking, is also actively pursued by City planners in an often-complex negotiation with other departments and stakeholders. Large, deep lots

Planning and urban design staff with the City of Toronto noted that properties along suburban Avenues are often deeper and larger overall than those in central areas of the city and identified a number of urban design issues associated with this. Large sites can present a need for new public lanes, streets or public spaces to break up the site. A senior urban designer with the City commented that urban design and planning staff generally hold that sites one hectare or larger require additional street connections. A senior urban designer with the City of Toronto identified a lack of clear policy direction for the redevelopment of Avenue sites over one hectare and under five hectares as they fall outside of the scope of the City’s New Neighbourhoods policy (which pertains to sites of five hectares or more), and are also not adequately addressed in the Mid-Rise Building Performance Standards. The senior urban designer commented that new formal policy to address this gap would be helpful during development review. Urban design staff identified another challenge regarding large sites and unclear policy directives regarding tall buildings on the suburban Avenues. A senior urban designer commented:

It would be more straightforward if we talk about a smaller Avenue, a pre-war Avenue or in areas of the City where you just don’t have existing tall buildings. It’s straightforward from our perspective that we should go mid-rise in that context because there is a smaller street. When you go to the postwar areas, the bigger Avenues, then you see the fabric completely change, large sites, plazas, and open roads and a lot of tall buildings, the apartment buildings built in the 60s and 70s. Often developers come in and say we are in a different area, a different character, a different context, we should be able to have something taller than eleven stories.

While Avenue policy is clear that mid-rise buildings with a maximum height of eleven stories are to

35 develop on the Avenues, City community planning and urban design staff noted that some large, deep sites may potentially be suitable for buildings taller than the eleven story maximum recommended by Avenue policy. A senior urban designer with the City noted that one way that planning staff address these larger, irregular sites is through Avenue/Area studies. The Sheppard Avenue East Avenue Study is an example where tall building forms are considered based on the context: lot sizes, shadow impacts, transition to the Neighbourhood, as well as other issues such as transportation capacity, public realm considerations (new streets and parks) and density expectations in the context of the City structure. In the Mid-Rise Performance Standards Monitoring it is identified that “new guidelines are necessary for the lots that are deeper than 60 metres that front on to many of the City’s Avenues and arterials” (Toronto, 2015, p.20). The report goes on to note that,

of the 61 approved mid-rise buildings since July 2010, 23% have been on ‘extra deep lots’ (defined as lots deeper than 60 metres)” and, “In many cases, these deep lots are generating irregularly shaped building configurations, or tall buildings in some instances, without guidance for building separation and transition. In the absence of additional study at this point, existing light, view and privacy guidelines should be utilized (ibid).

The policy challenges associated with deep lots will be looked at further in the Cliffside Village case study. Out of context

City planning and urban design staff commented that new developments on the suburban Avenues are frequently isolated and large in scale, therefore standing in high contrast to the existing, adjacent environment which might be parking lots, low-rise commercial buildings and neighbourhoods of one-storey buildings. A senior urban designer with the City commented that, “over time this changes, as you build more and more the street starts to take shape, but the reaction from the community and the councilors is that these buildings feel massive and unfriendly to the street environment.” While ultimately it is the passage of time that addresses this issue, the Performance Standards currently also address this issue with the Pedestrian Perception Stepback, which encourages the use of setbacks to create the perception of a low streetwall. Applying Avenue policy to inner-suburban corridors not designated as Avenues:

In the monitoring reports on the Mid-Rise Performance Standards, it was found that roughly fourty per cent of mid-rise projects were not being built on designated Avenues, and a great number of these projects were occurring in the city’s inner suburbs. While City staff are permitted to use the Mid-Rise Performance Standards as an interim measure in non-Avenue locations, the Performance Standards were not written considering these contexts. The Performance Standards were written to establish a two-sided streetwall and shopping street, and many of these non-Avenue contexts do not present opportunities to develop such an urban form. There is not clear policy direction on how to approach these non-Avenue mid-rise projects. A senior urban designer noted that policy development is moving towards defining and tracking the development of mid-rise typology, and a new set of city-wide mid-rise guidelines will be adopted in 2017. These guidelines will address non-Avenue, mid-rise development. 4.3 Key findings: economics /real estate

Rate of return and the economics of the mid-rise typology

Development further out from the downtown and subway lines faces greater challenges from both the demand and supply sides of the equation. A number of informants identified that construction costs remain largely constant for developers across the city, while variations in the rate of return – a measure of the benefit a developer makes – vary widely between the inner suburbs and the inner city. According to a land economist, while the demand for housing and associated land value varies throughout the inner suburbs, with higher value located near the subway, waterfront and in other amenities, generally developers have to sell units for far less in the inner suburbs than in the inner city. In some areas along the Avenues, such as along much of the Kingston Road Avenue in Scarborough, the economics do not support the development of mid-rise buildings. A number of cost issues unique to mid-rise buildings were brought up by informants. Providing parking

36 space is a significant cost to developers. Mid-rise buildings will often require underground parking and several informants noted that underground parking garages could easily be built in the inner city, where the rate of return could justify the expense, but on the inner suburban Avenues, where demand is significantly lower, this was much more difficult as the cost of building parking must be downloaded onto the end users. The economist said that “what makes condominiums economic[al] are the economics of scale that come with building a big building.” He added: “You need some pretty high pricing to make a mid-rise building work.” With a tall building, costs can be distributed across units, allowing units to be far more affordable. Undergrounding parking can cost up to $60,000 per space, with surface parking by comparison costing only $2000 to $8000 per space (Pembina Institute, 2015). A senior urban planner commented that developers also prefer to build tall buildings as it is relatively inexpensive to continue building storeys once the cranes and equipment are set up. The economics involved with building the mid-ryse typology are prohibiting development from occurring (and certain Avenues from intensifying) and this presents a real policy problem for the City.

Main street vitality

With the relatively low densities of most neighbourhoods in the inner suburbs, compared to the older, central city, densities sufficient to activate a commercial main street often must be achieved with the introduction of populations to the Avenue itself. Because the suburban avenues develop incrementally and don’t have the benefit of downtown locations where a density supporting vibrant retail environments already exists, these commercial areas may require time to evolve. They may be unsuccessful for a number of other reasons as well. City planning and economic development staff commented that the retail at grade in mid-rise projects on the Avenues generally “doesn’t do so well”. Struggling retail spaces present challenges to the Avenue policy vision for vibrant main streets, but they also present costs to the owners of mixed-use buildings who rely on the income leasing these units provides. To address these issues, senior urban designer Helene Iardas commented,

All we can do at this point is create the stage for that to happen in the future. Sometimes we do the best that we can and they [retail space in new mid-rise development] turn out to be dental offices and real estate offices and sometimes they[the owners of the buildings] film up the windows or block them off but we hope that he next generation will be more active as more mid-rise buildings start to populate a particular arterial road.

Both Helene Iardas and the senior economic development officer also noted that retail at grade along the developing inner-suburban Avenues may be more successful in certain areas if developed in nodes, rather than establishing retail at grade equally dispersed on the corridor. This organization of retail has been recommended in a number of Avenue/Area studies. The problem of struggling commercial corridors and vacant storefronts certainly isn’t unique to suburban avenues these days and most observers connect this phenomenon to a broader restructuring of retail in favour of big box stores and, more recently, online shopping. 4.4 Key findings: housing

Avenues Place in Toronto Housing Strategy

The land economist commented that the suburban Avenues could and should play an important part in the City’s housing strategy. As land acquisition costs are lower in the inner suburbs, units that are far lower in cost in comparison to the inner city can be developed in areas of the inner suburbs and the economist identified “that is a product people would like and we can’t do that downtown”, adding that, “we are giving choice to the person who may not be able to afford downtown, who might move to Calgary, Oakville or North Bay.” Lorna Day, the Director of Urban Design at the City of Toronto stated that “there was a sense that that was where the empty nesters would go [the Avenues] and thus free up housing stock in the neighbourhoods, but now we see it’s difficult for young people to buy houses so now we see the demographic in mid-rises is the young people”. Lorna Day continued, “I think it’s more about the unit size and layout: how do you accommodate families in those units?” The senior economic devleopment officer I spoke with also argued that the intensification of the Avenues would also “relieve some of the pressures downtown”. These pressures include the housing crisis, as well as congestion and the pressure of growth on transit and other services downtown. A 2012 study showed that Official Plan rental replacement policies are not excessively inhibiting the redevelopment of the Avenues, although along with the other challenges facing the developing suburban

37 Avenues, the study identified that it can be an extra challenge to developers (Toronto, 2012).

4.5 Key findings: transportation

Redefining Arterial Streets

City urban design and transportation staff stated that a need to balance the shared use of arterial corridors by pedestrians, cyclists, automobiles and transit is a key issue in the redevelopment of the suburban Avenues. As post-war, arterial corridors, the majority of the Avenues in the inner suburbs are busy arterial streets, with wide ROW, little bicycle infrastructure, and often a low quality public realm for pedestrians. Urban design staff stated that in order to establish a safe and comfortable pedestrian environment on the inner suburban arterials, the introduction of “road diets” and traffic calming measures was often called for. A road diet is a technique in transportation planning whereby the number of lanes and/or effective width of the road is reduced. Traffic calming measures might include the introduction of new traffic lights, as well as other strategies. Choices regarding how to balance the shared use of arterial corridors often present dilemnas where choices must be made to favour one use over another. While road diets and traffic calming measures may be essential to establishing a comfortable and safe pedestrian and active transportation environment along the arterial, they will impede the efficiency of the arterial as a thoroughfare for automobiles, potentially increasing congestion and increasing travel times. City planning and urban design informants noted that implementing road diets and traffic calming measures required entering into a complex dialogue with multiple stakeholders, including planning, urban design, and transportation divisions, along with the community and other stakeholders. While the wider ROW of suburban arterial roads presents many challenges, including in establishing an intimate and safe pedestrian environment, City urban design staff noted that a wide ROW also presents a significant advantage by providing ample space within which to negotiate a range of planning objectives, including establishing a generous public realm, bicycle infrastructure and public transit infrastructure. City urban design staff commented that negotiating multiple objectives for a ROW can be more difficult in downtown areas, which are far more constrained for space. Increasing transit use and reducing congestion:

City staff identified that a primary objective of the Avenues strategy is to increase public transit use. Lorna Day, Director of Urban Design at the City of Toronto commented “the Avenues strategy was about accommodating growth, but its also now just as much about reducing congestion. We need to get people out of cars and into transit”. The issue of increasing transit use through intensification poses a dilemna. As many of the inner suburban Avenues are primarily serviced by limited bus services, City staff commented that for transit improvements to be made along an Avenue, transportation advisors need to be certain of a ridership that will make the transit economics work, meaning that a certain density within walking distance of the transit line must be achieved. In the inner suburbs, where the neighbourhoods surrounding the Avenues are lower in density than the inner city, this density will need to be achieved by introducing population to the Avenue itself. Many areas along the suburban Avenues are not well connected to the city, and until transportation improvements are made, devleopment in these areas is unlikely to be transit-oriented. There are substantial synergies to be realized here, if the city would proactively make transit investments to support the Avenues strategy. 4.6 Key findings: governance

Community:

Lorna Day, director of urban design with the City of Toronto, stated that in the inner suburbs, “often you are dealing with a stakeholder group that is more fearful of change.” Community planning and urban design staff echoed this comment and elaborated that while each stakeholder group and project is unique, there are common concerns regarding development on the suburban Avenues. Community planning staff noted that the most frequent concern heard from the community regarding the intensification of theAvenues is a concern for the increase in congestion that could accompany intensification. This is another clear example of how transit policy could help facilitate the Avenues strategy.

38 Spatial inequity resulting from growth dependent policy

The Avenues policy is largely a framework for growth, relying on private investment to redevelop and improve areas. The senior economic development officer with the City of Toronto commented that a growth- dependent system is problematic when considering that the market does not naturally incline towards areas in need but instead generally inclines to affluent areas, contributing to inequities between wards. As Toronto’s downtown experiences far more development uptake than the city’s inner suburbs, the associated benefits gained through intensification, including community benefits derived through Section 37 agreements1, streetscape improvements, and other investments, will locate within the area or ward where the development is occurring, while areas not experiencing growth do not benefit. The Avenues policy is premised on the idea that, wherever the city designates intensification corridors, private development will arrive to deliver that intensification. This premise isn’t necessarily true, because there are areas without a lot of growth potential in the foreseeable future, and these are areas where and actually these are the areas where a number of corridors have been designated. The expected benefits of intensification may therefore not arrive in these area--not for a long time at least.

Summary

The research shows that the inner suburban avenues present a number of challenges to densification and to local interventions that makes it possible. The width of the suburban Avenues presents challenges to efforts to establish a comfortable pedestrian realm. The large and deep lots commonly fronting the inner suburban Avenues introduce questions in the development review process that do not have clear answers from policy directives. The cost of building the mid-rise typology projected in the Avenues policy and the difficulty of finding retail tenants can inhibit development. Along many segments of the suburban Avenues, market demand for housing is weak. Achieving traffic-calming measures to tame traffic presents complex procedural challenges to City staff. The local community in the inner suburbs often does not support new development. The next chapter describes the Cliffside Village segment of the Kingston Road Avenue. It includes descriptions of the history, built environment, social demographics, economics and real estate, transportation, as well as area-specific policy. Following that chapter, the key findings regarding the implementation of the Avenue policy on Kingston Road and in Cliffside Village will be presented.

1 Section 37 of the Planning Act permits municipalities to pass a by-law authorizing increases in the height and density of development beyond what is permitted in the relevant regulations in exchange for “facilities, services or matters” 39 CHAPTER 5: CLIFFSIDE VILLAGE

source: Author

40 5 5.1 Site

Kingston Road

Kingston Road (formerly Provincial Highway No. 2) is an important thoroughfare in the City of Toronto running close to Lake Ontario from the Old City of Toronto through the former City of Scarborough past municipal boundaries (see figure 14). The majority of Kingston Road’s length within the city has been designated an Avenue in the City of Toronto Official Plan. Congruent with Avenues policy, three area-specific, policy frameworks (Avenue Studies) Kingston Road have been developed for Kingston Road: the Birch Cliff Community Council Community (2009), Cliffside Community (2009), and Boundaries Guildwood GO/Highland Creek (2002). Birch Cliff Avenue Study Area Cliffside Village Study Area Cliffside Avenue Study Area

Highland Creek/Guildwood The Cliffside Village study area corresponds to GO Avenue Study Area the territory of the Cliffside Community Avenue study. This area was selected as a case for in-depth study because Figure 14: Kingston Road since the implementation of the Avenue study in 2009, and Three Study Areas there has not been significant development uptake in the area and Cliffside Village offers Source: City of Toronto open an opportunity to look closer at the challenges and obstacles to the Avenue vision. data. Located in the south-western corner of the Scarborough District, the Study Area is approximately 2 kilometres in length and includes all of the properties fronting onto Kingston Road between Danforth Avenue to Chine Drive, as shown on Figure 15. Within the study area, between Cliffside Drive and Midland Avenue, both sides of the study area are characterized by commercial plazas and storefronts. There are no commercial areas to the immediate east or west of the study area on Kingston Road and thus Cliffside Village retains the qualities of a village centre, although there are no civic buildings. Cliffside Public School is located immediately to the south of Kingston Road on El Haven Drive.

Figure 15: Cliffside Village Study Boundary Source: City of Toronto

41 5.2 History

Early History

The history of the Cliffside Village Study Area is woven with that of Kingston Road. Originally a winding trail near Lake Ontario cut out of the woods by Scarborough settlers at the beginning of the 19th century, Kingston Road was built to improve access to the Town of York (Toronto) from the lakefront settlements to the east (Bonis, 1965). By 1817, ongoing work on the road extended its reach from York to Kingston, to which it owes its name, and then on to Montréal, making long-distance land transportation possible for the first time in Upper Canada (Bonis, 1965). By 1836, efforts to “plank” Kingston Road had begun. This process involved securing wide planks of wood to the roadway, establishing a smoother and more reliable surface to travel on and increasing the popularity of Kingston Road as a travel route for coaches and sleds as well as for farmers living near Kingston Road who could now use it to bring their goods into the city (Bonis, 1965). The increasing number of travellers saw businesses spring up to accommodate them, including taverns and inns. Built in 1849, the “Halfway House”, a name the building was originally known by and is commonly called today, was formerly located in the Cliffside Village study area at the corner of Kingston Road and what is now Midland Avenue (see figure 16). The Halfway House was a rural stagecoach stop half-way between the large farming village of Dunbarton and the St-Lawrence Market in Toronto. The building served many purposes before being moved to Black Creek Pioneer Village in 1965. In the mid-19th century, a small village named Mortlake surrounded the Inn, which contained the Mortlake post office, but no structures from this early period remain in the Cliffside Village study area (Toronto, 2007).

Figure 16: The Halfway House, corner of Kingston Road & Midland Avenue, 1920. source: City of Toronto Archives

42 1930

1956

Figure 17: Cliffside Village Urban Morphology. sources: University of Toronto Map & Data Library: “Plan Showing Development of Property In and Around the City of Toronto” (Toronto: 1915). City of Toronto Archives: “Goad’s Atlas Fire Insurance Plans” (Toronto: 1956)

43 Emergence of Street Car Suburbs

Kingston Road was eventually converted to a gravel roadway and by 1898 the Toronto Railway Company had begun to operate a streetcar (Bonis, 1965). By 1905, the line was completed to West Hill, roughly nine kilometers to the east of the Cliffside Village study area and Stop 14 delivered you in front of the Halfway House at the corner of Kingston Road and Midland Avenue (Bonis, 1965). Between 1912 and 1930, residential subdivisions abutting Kingston Road developed on the north and south side of the Cliffside Village study area, although significant land remained undeveloped (see figure 17).

Rise of the Automobile

With the rapid emergence of automobile use in the early 20th century, by the 1920s Kingston Road was taken over by the Ontario Department of Public Highways and was paved (Bonis, 1965). With increasing automobile use, Kingston Road became dominated by motor vehicles and in 1937 was widened from Kennedy Road to Highland Creek. Kingston Road formed part of Highway 2, one of the principal entrances into the Old City of Toronto until the completion of Highway 401 in the mid 1960s. Highway 2 was removed from the official highway system in 1998 (Flack, 2014).

The Post-War Period

Accompanying the growing prosperity of the 1950s was an increase in vehicle ownership and annual paid vacations. Service stations, diners, motels and other tourist-related establishments flourished along long strips of highway such as Kingston Road and Lakeshore Boulevard to accomodate the growing number of travellers. Within the Cliffside Village study area was the recently demolished Andrews Motel (see figure 20). Immediately to the east of the study area, a cluster of motels remains, some of the last on Kingston Road. The post-war period brought significant transformation to the Cliffside Village study area The undeveloped land to the north and south of Kingston Road quickly filled in with new subdivisions in the early post-war period, as can be witnessed in aerial photos of the area taken shortly after the Second World War (see figures 18 and 19). By the 1950s, the Cliffside Village area had largely acquired its contemporary built form, characterized by a wide arterial road, strip plazas with large parking lots on the south side, and remnants of an earlier, traditional main street remaining on the north (see figure 21). By 1954 the streetcars stopped running along Kingston Road and were replaced by buses (Bonis, 1965).

Figure 18: Cliffside Village study Figure 19: Cliffside Village study area and surroundings c. 1949. area and surroundings c. 1954. Kingston Road highlighted in red. Kingston Road highlighted in red. source: Scarborough Archives source: Scarborough Archives

44 Figure 20: The Andrews Motel, 1955. source: BlogTO.com

Figure 21: Cliffside Fire Insurance Plan 1955. Source: Goad’s Atlas fire insurance plan, Scarborough, 1955, City of Toronto Archives.

45 The Decline of Kingston Road

A number of factors have contributed to the decline of Kingston Road since roughly the 1960s. With the completion of Highway 401 in the mid 1960s, traffic and activity along Kingston Road dried up and, as the construction of the American Interstate Highway System affected formerly significant commercial corridors in the United States, Kingston Road was impacted negatively by the completion of Highway 401. The 1977 Cliffside Community Secondary Plan Review identifies that the the Cliffside commercial strip was characterized by high vacancy rates as of the early 1970s. In The Plan Review, City staff expressed concerns that the entire strip might “deteriorate to the point of collapse” and recommended that in such an event, the area should be redeveloped to include “only multiple-family uses at maximum densities of 15 units per acre” (Scarborough, 1977: 9). Changing trends in retail also negatively impacted small businesses in Cliffside Village. Gerrard Arbour, a local business owner I spoke to in the Cliffside Village area, commented:

When I started here in 1994, there was a belt-buckle company a few doors over. E-Bay kind of took them out. There was a ‘ma and pa’ hardware store. Home Depot took them out.

The transition of the motels is the most dramatic sign of decline along Kingston Road. Originally accommodating travellers and tourists, the motels began to serve a different clientele by the end of the 20th century. The motels began to be used as semi-permanent residences and for prostitution. High vacancy rates along the commercial areas of Kingston Road also saw the illegal conversion of first-floor commercial units into residences, with front windows shuttered over with cardboard. Negative connotations associated with these new uses and users contributed to an image of decline along Kingston Road. Larger trends contributed to the decline of Scarborough more broadly, and have affected Kingston Road and the Cliffside Village area. These include the implementation of NAFTA, which saw Honeywell (a manufacturer that employed more than 2000 employees and was once located near the Cliffside Study Area on Ellesmere Road) transition to a global product mandate and subsequently move to a smaller factory North of the 401, providing barely more than 200 jobs (Shah, 2011). This loss of jobs meant a loss of income and therefore ability to pay for goods at stores, impacting local commercial areas like Kingston Road. Changes in immigration policy, labour and housing markets, the dismantling of the social safety net, and the closing of psychiatric institutions have also affected Scarborough broadly (Cowen & Parlette, 2011).

Signs of Renewal

Signs of renewal along Kingston Road and in the Cliffside Village area have appeared in recent years, largely influenced by the slow shift of real estate demand eastward along Kingston Road from the Upper Beaches into Scarborough, but also led by active community groups, local business owners, government officials, and City staff. In 1995 a group of residents formed the Kingston Road Revitalization Committee. This Committee led to a façade program in which the City would match the investment of local businesses in renovating their commercial facades (Toronto, 2009). The efforts put forth by this community group, working in collaboration with the City, also led to the development of two planning studies along the western portion of Scarborough’s Kingston Road, both guided by the Avenues policy. These studies were the Kingston Road Revitalization study, which was approved by council in 2007 (and studies the Birch Cliff segment of Kingston Road), and the Kingston Road (Cliffside Community) Avenue study that was also approved in 2007 (and studies the Cliffside segment of Kingston Road). Coinciding with infrastructure maintenance in the Birchcliff area, the City’s urban design office “piggy- backed” the construction along the road, using the opportunity to contribute funds for streetscape improvements (Toronto, 2009). This public investment led to significant improvements to the public realm in the Birch Cliff area and a marked difference in the streetscape of Birchcliff in comparison to Cliffside Village and other sections of Kingston Road. In the past five years, significant development has also occurred in the Birch Cliff area, with a number of mid-rise condos currently under construction or approved for construction in the area. This private investment has also provided further improvements to the area, including community benefits paid for by the developers that were obtained through the planning process. In the Cliffside area, roughly two kilometres to the east of the Birch Cliff area, there has been significantly less development interest but an 11-storey, 356 unit condo building is currently under construction. To make way for this new development, the Andrews Motel was demolished in 2014, and according to local residents and business owners, the prostitution and drug use visible in that section of the Cliffside Village plaza disappeared with the motel.

46 5.3 Built Environment

Kingston Road

East of Birchmount Road, the Kingston Road right-of-way widens to 36 metres and becomes divided by a centre median. The wide, arterial corridor Kingston Road dominates the Cliffside Village study area environment (see figure 22). In the study area, Kingston Road has a consistent right-of-way width of 36 metres, with 6 lanes of traffic separated by a median. It is 5 metres at its widest points and narrows to 2 metres at intersections (see figure 23). The centre median features landscaping at its widest points, with mature trees. Approaching the intersections the median features tall flagpoles with national and provincial flags, as well as concrete planters.At Midland Avenue, and just east of Cliffside Drive, the centre median features signs marking the entranceways to “Cliffside Village”. At the western edge of the study area, the centre median widens significantly as Kingston Road joins Danforth Avenue. This wider centre median features the Scarborough War Memorial, a stone monument built in 1931.

Figure 22: Pedestrian crossing Kingston Road in Cliffside Village. source: author

KINGSTON ROAD

Figure 23: Portion of

RIDGEMOOREAVENUE Kingston Road in Cliffside Village. source: Google maps.

47 Figure 24: Typical buildings North Side of Kingston Road fronting Kingston Road to the north. source: author The Cliffside Village commercial areas are distinct in character on the north and south sides of Kingston Road. On the north side of Kingston Road, between Danforth Avenue and Midland Avenue, qualities of a traditional main street characterize the area, with rows of two-storey buildings with narrow frontages and first floors designed for commercial use (see figures 24 and 25).These rows of mixed-use buildings isolated one-storey commercial structures as well as an auto-body shop and a car dealerships. Historical aerial photos suggest that many of the two-storey, mixed use buildings were erected prior to the Second World War, but with their subsequent deterioration, alteration, and redevelopment, along with infill development occurring around them, only a handful of these structures are clearly recognizable as being of pre-war construction. Many of the facades of the buildings fronting the north side exhibit signs of deterioration and poor maintenance. The retail spaces of these buildings are either occupied by businesses, but many are vacant, and many others have boarded-up windows, showing signs of residential occupation. The buildings fronting Kingston Road on the north side are largely separated from the sidewalk by a single row of parking, and generously setback from the sidewalk. Murals decorate a number of walls on the north side of the study area, all portraying historical images of the area, including the Half-Way House. Running parallel to Kingston Road to the north, immediately behind the properties fronting onto the road, is a narrow lane called Sandown Lane that serves as a service entry for the businesses. To the east of Midland Avenue on the north side of Kingston Road, a cluster of three apartment towers erected in the late 1960s sit on spacious lots.

48 KINGSTON ROAD

MIDLAND AVENUE

¯ Figure 25: Building Footprints and Property Boundaries in a Section of Cliffside Village. source: City of Toronto open data

Figure 26: Lay-by parking in Cliffside Village. source: author

49 South Side of Kingston Road:

On the south side of Kingston Road, between Cliffside Drive and Midland Avenue, the environment is characterized by large surface parking lots that separate strip plazas from Kingston Road. A number of large- format retail stores are also distributed throughout this area, as well as isolated, smaller, one-storey commercial buildings. Lots are wide and deep, characteristic of post-war arterial fabric, and the pedestrian scale is lost in the auto-dominated environment (see figures 25 and 27). This strip plaza typology was largely established in the immediate postwar years and has evolved through deterioration, alteration, redevelopment and infill. To the south of Cliffside Drive, Kingston Road on the east side features a number of early postwar, low- rise apartment buildings, along with a mid-rise chain hotel and, further down the road, an isolated apartment tower (a Toronto Community Housing building) generously set back from Kingston Road Two unique structures sit near the corner of Midland Avenue and Kingston Road. One is a one-and-a-half storey commercial building built in 1903 and known as “The Scarborough Bluffs Refreshment Room”. This site is currently included on the City of Toronto Inventory of Heritage Properties although the property has retained little of its heritage integrity. The other is St. Theresa Parish, Shrine of the Little Flower, a church likely erected in the early postwar years and exhibiting the influence of the Spanish colonial revival style. To the east of Midland Avenue, the south side of Kingston Road features single-family detached houses which were erected in the early postwar years.

Figure 27: Parking Lot of the No Frills Store source: author

50 Figure 28: 2229 Kingston 2229 Kingston Road Road Western Elevation: source: VHL Development An 11-storey, 254 unit condominium building with retail at grade is currently under construction in the study area, on the south side of Kingston Road at 2229 Kingston Road (see figure 29). This development, called “Haven on the Bluffs” by developer VHL Development, is the first mid-rise proposal that has reached the construction stage in the Cliffside Village area since the implementation of the Kingston Road (Cliffside Community Avenue) study in 2009. The Avenue study will be looked at in detail further on in this chapter. The architect for this project is TAES Architects Inc. As 2229 Kingston Road is currently under construction, the submision materials for its site plan approval, including architectural drawings, present the only opportunity to analyze the project’s built form characteristics. The building is a “u” in shape, with wings extending back into the deep site. Fronting Kingston Road will be a four-storey podium, with retail at grade, set back three metres from the property line. Rising above the base are two irregularly massed towers that are set back two metres from the fifth storey to the eleventh storey. At the rear of the building, the eleven-storey elevation steps back gradually to East Haven Drive to the east, following the 45 degree angular plane required by the Performance Standards. A two-storey underground parking garage is accessed at the rear DANFORTH of the site. The devleopment of AVENUE 2229 Kingston Road required the construction of a new public street, and the submitted drawings detail its dimensions.

KINGSTON ROAD

Figure 29: 2229 Kingston Road Context. Source: Google Maps

51 Figure 30: Cliffside Village Residential Subdivision Residential Subdivisions source: author

The subdivisions to the north and south of Kinston Road in the Cliffside Village study area were built out in two distinct periods. Between 1915 and 1930, streetcar suburb subdivions were laid out and filled in with detached houses that accreted gradually, likely by a number of builders working over a long period of time. In the early postwar years, the undeveloped areas around these earlier subdivions was subdivided and filled in with housing over a relatively short time period and included a mix of one-storey bungalows and low-rise apartments (see figure 30). To the far south of the study area, these subdivisions dramatically meet the edge of the Scarborough Bluffs, a ridge of high cliffs that are one of Toronto’s most iconic geographic features. A series of beaches and parks can be accessed at the foot of the cliffs, as well as a marina that houses “float homes”, year round dwellings built securely on top of floating concrete barges. Immediately to the east of the Cliffside Village study area are a cluster of early postwar motels, some of the last that can be found on the Kingston Road strip. Also immediately to the east of Cliffside Village is the St. Augustine’s Seminary of Toronto, a major landmark in the area, completed in 1913.

52 5.4 Demographics and Social Character

The 2011 Canadian census shows that the Birch Cliff/Cliffside neighbourhoods have a diverse mix of very low-income, middle- and high-income residents. This area is predominantly white, with the top five ethnic origins being English, Irish, Canadian, Scottish, and French. Seventy-three per cent of the Birchcliffe/Cliffside neighbourhood population were born in Canada, compared to Toronto where only 49% of the population were born in the country (Statistics Canada, 2011).

Social Character of Cliffside Village

While the Cliffside Village study area is primarily a commercial corridor, it is also the home to many residents. Residents live in the apartment buildings on the eastern and western edges of the study area, as well as in the two-storey, mixed-use buildings that are found primarily along the north side of Kingston Road. Vacant storefronts have also been converted to residences throughout the study area, often with cardboard or fabric covering their large, front windows. These residences were once illegal, but were legalized when the area was rezoned to mixed-use Residential Commercial zoning (following the adoption of the Cliffside Village Avenue study). Local residents and business owners described an increase in the presence of crime, prostitution, as well as of apparent drug addiction or mental health problems in the area since the 1970s. A long-time local resident who rents an office space in one of the strip plazas in Cliffside Village told me about the changes in the area:

It was regular working class people [in the 1970s]. My father was a machinist and most of everyone in the area lived in homes built in the 50s and 40s. There wasn’t the crime, there wasn’t the drug problems that you’re seeing now. You weren’t afraid to go out at nighttime. You didn’t see people breaking into homes, breaking into cars and its just - its changed. A lot of it has to do with drugs. The Canadian government [also] shut down institutions that used to take care of people with mental problems many many years ago and now they are either in jails or on the streets.

Despite these issues in the area, the same informant commented that the area has noticeably improved since the 1990s, noting in particular the marked diference after the Andrew’s Motel was demolished to make way for 2229 Kingston Road, the new, 11-storey condo under construction in Cliffside Village. Many local residents and business owners echoed this sentiment about the demolition of the Andrew’s Motel.

Figure 31: Converted Store-Front Residences on Kingston Road. source: author

53 5.5 Economics/Real Estate

Birch Cliff/Cliffside

A study from Re/Max Hallmark Realty Ltd. identified that the average price of a detached home in Birch Cliff and Cliffside in 2016 was $788,941, rising 8.9% from 2015 (RE/MAX Hallmark, 2016). Birch Cliff/ Cliffside led the city for percent increase in average home price between 2014-2015, with a 25.4 per cent increase from $566,567 to $724,187 (RE/MAX Hallmark, 2015). Market demand in Birch Cliff /Cliffside is largely focused on single-detatched homes near the waterfront.

Development Activity on Kingston Road

Analysis of development applications along Kingston Road shows a range of development activity (see figures 32 and 33). A market supportive of mid-rise development can be seen creeping eastward along Kingston Road, from the upper Beaches neighbourhood in Toronto & East York district, into Birch Cliff Community in Scarborough. In the last five years, numerous mid-rise projects have been proposed and are currently under construction in the Birch Cliff area of Kingston Road, immediately to the southwest of Cliffside Village. In Cliffside Village, 2229 Kingston Road is the only official development application for a mid-rise building that has occurred since the implementation of the Avenue study. A number of townhouse and stacked townhouse projects are scattered on Kingston Road further east of the study area, as well as a number of larger projects.

Retail in the Cliffside Village Strip

High vacancy rates in Cliffside Village have characterized the retail market for decades according to a local business owner: “you see so many places open up for the public in this area and they’re always gone within a year usually, I don’t know why they even bother opening”. Businesses turn over rapidly on both sides of Kingston Road in this area, and this is visible in the many vacant storefronts (see figure 34). The retail environment in Cliffside Village on the south side of Kingston Road is characterized by strip plazas, and a number of larger-format stores including a Shoppers Drug Mart and a No Frills grocery store On the north side, a traditional main street with narrow storefronts allows for a great diversity of small businesses. Some of these businesses have long been part of the community including Duckworth’s Fish & Chips which opened in 1956 at its present location. Tony’s Shoe Repair is a curiosity of the north side of the street. Run by an older man originally from Sicily, the tiny merchant space is a glimpse of an older era on the strip (see figure 35). Signs of new life in the Cliffside Village business environment are apparent. The Victorian Monkey restaurant was opened recently and has had considerable success. When I visited to speak with the owner, the Ward Councilor was inside having a drink. With its updated facade and new signage, the Victorian Monkey stands in contrast to the aging business fronts surrounding it.

54 Figure 32: Proposed Residential Units on Kingston Road, 2000-2017 A

ELLESMERE

LAWRENCE

EGLINTON

ST-CLAIR RESIDENTIAL UNITS PROPOSED ON KINGSTON ROAD, 2000-2017 KINGSTON ROAD Number of Building Storeys DANFORTH 2-32 - 3

4-114 - 11

12+12

Cliffside Village Community Council Major Streets Study Area Boundaries source: City of Toronto, Research & Information, City Planning Figure 33: Proposed Residential Units on Kingston Road, 2000-2017 B

ELLESMERE Legend Kingston Rd Development LAWRENCE Stories 2 - 3 4 - 11 EGLINTON 12

ST-CLAIR RESIDENTIAL UNITS PROPOSED ON KINGSTON ROAD, 2000-2017

KINGSTON ROAD

DANFORTH

Cliffside Village Community Council Major Streets Study Area Boundaries source:Leg Cityen ofd Toronto, Research & Information, City Planning

55 COMMUNITY_COUNCIL_WGS84 CENTRELINE Legend COMMUNITY_COUNCIL_WGS84 1 Prop_____1 1 10

100 Legend 2 Prop_____1 1 10

100 3 Prop_____1 1 10

100

COMMUNITY_COUNCIL_WGS84 CENTRELINE COMMUNITY_COUNCIL_WGS84 Figure 34: Vacant retail space in Cliffside Village. Source: author

Figure 35: Tony of Tony’s Shoe Repair. Source: author

56 5.6 Transportation Transportation Network:

From the perspective of a driver or passenger in a car, Kingston Road is a six lane highway that leads right to the core of the City. Regarding transit, the area is not as well situated. The Cliffside Village study area is directly serviced by bus line 12 - Kingston Road, which runs between Victoria Park and Kennedy metro stations, passing along Kingston Road between Victoria Park Avenue and Brimley Road. The Cliffside neighbourhood is also serviced by bus 20 - Cliffside, which runs between Main Street and Kennedy metro stations, passing immediately above the study area along Park Street, Kennedy Road and Highview Avenue between Midland Avenue and Birchmount Road. There is no dedicated Kingston Road bus service and there is a service gap on Kingston Road between Brimley Road and St Clair (see figure 36). Main Street, Victoria Park, Warden, and Kennedy metro stations are all roughly a twenty minute bus ride from the study area. The closest station, Warden Avenue, is 2.3 km to the north west and roughly a fourty minute walk from any point within the study area. Scarborough GO Station is roughly one kilometre to the north of the study area, and roughly a twenty minute walk, or 10 minute bus ride.

Figure 36: Cliffside Village Transportation Network , Cliffside VIllage study area identified by author. source: TTC

Active Transportation:

In 2013, Toronto Public Health engaged four neighbourhoods, Cliffisde, Black Creek, Annex, and North York to evaluate their needs and preferences for pedestrian and cycling infrastructure changes along with potential barriers to their implementation. According to Toronto Public Health, Cliffside community is characterized by “low rates of walking and cycling, low safety for walking and cycling and a high pedestrian priority rating” (Toronto, 2014: 6). The Toronto Public Health project (2014) put forth the following site-specific community concerns for the community of Cliffside, regarding active transportation:

• Kingston Road does not seem safe for cyclists; many cyclists use the sidewalks • many destinations cannot be reached by transit and active transportation • many streets do not have sidewalks and existing sidewalks are in very poor condition (narrow, rough surface)

57 Transit Project Assessment Study:

In 2007 the City of Toronto and the TTC carried out preliminary planning for a Transit Project Assessment Study to determine how best to improve transit service along Kingston Road between Victoria Park Avenue and Eglinton Avenue East. Only this preliminary stage was completed; it was published as the Kingston Road Transit Improvements: Environmental Assessment (Toronto, 2007). The transit solution preferred by the report was to provide Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) along the Kingston Road/Danforth Avenue corridor with connections to the Bloor-Danforth subway at Victoria Park Station and to the then-proposed Scarborough- Malvern Light Rail Transit line at Eglinton Avenue East. According to a senior transportation planner with the City of Toronto, the Kingston Road Transit Improvements, like a number of other transit projects, “came to a screeching halt” in 2010 with the election of former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, and is not currently being considered by the City in current transportation planning. Transit improvements for Kingston Road reappeared in Councillor Karen Stintz’s OneCity Transit Plan in 2012, but OneCity was not backed by the Province.

Scarborough 2016 Transit Planning Update:

The 2016 Scarborough Transit Planning Update outlines two key priorities for transit improvements in Scarborough: (a) to support the development of Scarborough Centre as a vibrant urban node; and (b) to support the development of complete communities along the Avenues and improve local accessibility (Toronto, 2016 c). Currently no new transit improvement initiatives are on the table for Kingston Road, although a number of proposed and recommended projects are in proximity to the study area. These projects include the Crosstown LRT, which will run along Kingston Road between Eglinton Avenue and Morningside Avenue, and SmartTrack, which will introduce new stations and improve services along existing GO Rail corridors.

Figure 37: Proposed Transit Improvements in Scarborough. Cliffside Study area identified by author. Source: City of Toronto, 2016. Scarborough Transit Planning Update.

58 5.7 Policies and Plans for Cliffside Village

Kingston Road Initiatives

Many planning studies and initiatives have recently been undertaken along the Kingston Road corridor. Table 2 summarizes the most significant recent and/or current policy (see table 2). Birch Cliff and Cliffside are adjacent communities at the south-western corner of Scarborough and each had Avenue-related studies implemented in 2009. In Birch Cliff, the Kingston Road Revitalization Study, and in Cliffside Village, the Kingston Road (Cliffside Community) Avenue Study. These studies offered visions and guidelines for the redevleopment of the areas, and resulted in amendments to Zoning By-Law. Since 2009, Kingston Road has been identified as an area where the ardW Councillors “would like to demonstrate that the City is leading by example, by reclaiming and beautifying the right-of-way” (Toronto, 2011). The Kingston Road Initiative identified three improvement project areas along Kingston Road, Birch Cliff from Victoria Park Avenue to Birchmount; Guildwood GO Station to east of Galloway Road; and Manse Road to Highland Creek Bridge. The initiative developed short-, medium- and long-term public realm improvements for these areas. While funds have been identified for a few of the projects, additional funding sources are required to implement the reports recommendations. Table 2: Kingston Road - Major planning initiatives

Period Planning Excercise Principal Actor Description Implementation and Impact 1995-1997 The Kingston Road City of Toronto Developed a vision for the The final phase of the study, Study stretch of Kingston Road intended to examine ways to between Brimley Road and achieve the vision, was never the CN Railway overpass in completed Guildwood 1999 Birch Cliff 2000 City of Toronto Encouraged the An Official Plan amendment and redevelopment of 12 Urban Design Guidelines were commercial properties adopted by Council northeast of Warden Avenue on Kingston Road 2002 Highland Creek City of Toronto Developed guidelines to The guideline were adopted by Village Urban Design encourage the development Council in April 2002 Guidelines of a safe, attractive and comfortable pedestrian environment 2000-2003 Kingston Road Kirkland Developed a concept plan Council amended the zoning Avenue Study Partnership and guidelines for the by-law, adopted Urban Design (Guildwood GO & Inc./City of portion of Kingston Road Guidelines and developed a Highland Creek) Toronto between the Guildwood GO Streetscape Improvement Plan station and the Highland Creek Bridge 2004 Metamorphosis: City of Addressed concerns A design charrette was held. An New Directions for Toronto/Urban regarding the declining area designation was applied for Cliffside Village. A Intelligence/ retail competitiveness of that enabled use of a Façade Strategic Business Cliffside Village the Kingston Road retail Improvement Programme (which Action Plan Revitalization strip in Cliffside Village. operated from 2005 to 2007) Committee Reccomendations included whereby the City matched funds developing an Avenue Study entered by business owners for facade improvements

59 2007 Kingston City of Toronto Assessed transit With mayoral changes in 2010, Road Transit improvement options in this project ended Improvements the Kingston Road corridor Environmental between Victoria Park Assessment Avenue and Eglinton Avenue East 2009 Kingston Road City of Toronto Developed a vision Council approved Official Revitalization Study and guidelines for Plan and zoning by-law redevelopment of amendments in 2009. Kingston Road in Birch Streetscape improvements were Cliff Community, between implemented. Devleopment Victoria Park Avenue to east uptake has occurred with a of Birchmount Road. number of mid-rise projects approved, built and under construction as of 2017. 2009 The Kingston Brook McIlroy / Developed vision for Council approved Official Plan Road (Cliffside City of Toronto redevelopment, including and zoning by-law amendments Community) Avenue permitted uses, heights, in 2009. One large mid-rise Study setbacks and massing, project has been approved and is as well as regarding under construction as of 2017. streetscape improvements. 2009/2011 Kingston Road City of Toronto Identified 3 improvement Funds identified for some Initiative project areas along Kingston projects, additional funding Road. Identified short, sources are required to medium and long-term implement others. public realm improvements. sources: Toronto (City of). 2009. Staff Report - City Initiated ‘Avenue’ Study of Kingston Road between Danforth Avenue to east of Midland Avenue (Chine Drive) – Final Report. Toronto: City of Toronto Toronto (City of) 2009 b. Cliffside Village: Kingston Road Avenue Study. Toronto: City of Toronto. Toronto (City of). 2010. Avenues and Mid-Rise Buildings Study. Toronto: City of Toronto.

Kingston Road (Cliffside Community) Avenue Study

The boundaries of the Kingston Road (Cliffside Community) Avenue Study coincide with those of the study area in this report. Brook Mcllroy Planning & Urban Design/Pace Architects (BMI) in consultation with iTRANS Consulting Inc. and Urban Marketing Collaborative (UMC) were retained by the City of Toronto to develop the Kingston Road (Cliffside Community) Avenue Study (Toronto, 2009 b). A Local Advisory Committee (LAC) comprised of area residents and business owners was established to provide input and feedback to the consultants and staff. In addition, community meetings were held with the public to advise them of the study and to receive feedback on the study’s direction (Toronto, 2009 b). According to the City of Toronto, the purpose of the study is “to identify a vision for the future development of the area, as well as develop an implementation program to achieve this vision” (Toronto, n.d: 1). The Cliffside Avenue study is a comprehensive document, containing a wide set of directives regarding the future of the area. The main features of the report are:

• zoning by-law amendments, with the Commercial-Residential (CR) Zone introduced to the majority of the area • built form regulations are identified, including building height, lot depths and setbacks. New building in the study area are recommended to have a minimum building height of three storeys, with a maximum height of eight storeys recommended on the north side of Kingston Road and maximum heights of eleven storeys recommended on the south side of Kingston Road • the Study recommends that where buildings are proposed to have a height greater than six storeys or twenty metres, the landowner will be required to enter into a Section 37 agreement with the City prior to obtaining an increase in height and density • urban design guidelines are proposed, divided into five sections: Cliffside Village Urban Design Concept Plan, Sustainable Development, Public Realm, Built Form and Vehicular Movement (Parking and Access). The Urban 60 Design Concept Plan outlines a detailed vision for the area, identifying opportunities to improve the pedestrian environment both aesthetically and functionally, as well as a great number of other recommendations and directives • Urban Marketing Collaborative (UMC) was hired as a sub-consultant to “review the current and proposed economic health of the Study Area specifically with respect to the retail demand potential as it relates to the proposed Urban Design Concept Plan”. UMC identifies a number of directives regarding economic development, including encouraging a Business Improvement Area (BIA) to develop as the primary objective (Toronto, 2009 b)

The Cliffside Avenue Study was adopted in 2009 and the recommended zoning changes were enacted. Following these zoning changes, no further action has been taken regarding the vision and recommendations of the Study directly (through streetscape improvements, etc.) One large mid-rise project has been approved and is currently under construction in 2017 (2229 Kingston Road), and City staff used the Study directives for the first time in the development review process for that development.

Figure 38: Rendering of A Redevelped Cliffside Village. Source: author

61 CHAPTER 6: ANALYSIS OF THE AVENUES POLICY IN CLIFFSIDE VILLAGE

source: Author

62 6 6.1 Introduction

The Cliffside Village case study presents an opportunity to tell a more fine-grained, detailed narrative than possible by looking at the inner suburbs broadly. Interviews with a number of informants from a wide spectrum of professional and personal experience provided the material for this research. These interviews provided a multifaceted view of the implementation of Avenue policy in the Cliffside Village study area. Informants included City of Toronto planning, urban design, transportation and economic development staff, the executive assistant to the Ward 36 Councilor, a land economist, as well as local business owners and residents. First, pertinent issues addressed in the interviews will be presented, their content organized by the following themes: (a) urban design, (b) economics/real estate and (c) governance. Following this chapter and concluding the report, Chapter 7 will discuss the key findings of the two levels of inquiry analyzed in this report and present recommendations. 6.2 Key Findings: Urban Design 2229 Kingston Road

As the only mid-rise development to reach approval in the study area since the adoption of the Cliffside Community Avenue Study in 2009, 2229 Kingston Road, currently under construction, presents the only opportunity to evaluate the implementation of the area-specific and citywideAvenue policy guidelines in the study area. City staff expressed satisfaction with the final site plan of 2229 Kingston Road. The building and the public realm detailed in the site plan were seen to be congruent with Avenue urban design policy, including citywide policy, and the local Avenue study framework. Commenting on the review process with developer VHL Development and architects (the developer changed architects during the project) a City of Toronto staff member commented, “they were willing to comply with most of the higher-level zoning requirements or recommendations from the Cliffside Study, it’s just that it took a while to figure out the exact details, the exact design.” City staff commented that further upper-storey setbacks to reduce the impact of the scale of the building could have improved the building’s design. A senior planner commented:

We will see how the building turns out: the details, the architectural expression. A lot of times that really depends on the developer and architect, we try our best to encourage them to enhance the quality but we will see how it turns out.

Planning staff noted that 2229 Kingston Road presented a unique challenge in the development review process regarding how the proposed building would potentially affect new development on the adjacent property to the west. Planning staff identified that the “sideyard condition” was not clearly addressed in policy: “in [the] Cliffside [Avenue Study] we tried to look at the issue but did not come to a clear conclusion on that.” Planning staff added that “when this application came in we had to look at that issue just for this site.” The sideyard condition is the relationship of the side yard of a property to the adjacent existing or potential built context. In the development review process planning staff were concerned that 2229 Kingston Road may inhibit the future redevelompent of the adjacent property on the west. Staff looked at how the adjacent property could be reasonably developed and concluded that if there is future development it will not likely be impacted by the proposed development currently under construction at 2229 Kingston Road.

6.3 Economics/ Real Estate: The market on Kingston Road and in the Cliffside Village Study Area

As discussed in Chapter Four, the construction costs for developers are largely stable across the city while variations in rate of return (what a developer can profit from a development) largely determine the economic feasibility of Avenue redevelopment. Informants identified a lack of demand for housing in the Cliffside Village section of Kingston Road. The economist commented:

When you look at Kingston Road, you wonder why it hasn’t evolved more. It’s not great from a transit

63 perspective, but if you’re a driver, from a car perspective getting downtown from Kingston Road is a six lane highway that goes right to the core, and housing prices in that little corridor are very inexpensive relative to the city. I always look at it from the perspective of young people trying to get into the market and people turn their nose up at the Kingston Road corridor.

A senior community planner noted:

If you examine Kingston Road and look at development applications west of Victoria Avenue, there is a lot of uptake by developers. The reason for that is because people would like to have an address west of Victoria Park [the border of Scarborough district]. They would like to say ‘I live in the Beaches’. And once you cross that line to the other side, there is that perception that Scarborough is not as elite.

The economist added: “It’s amazing how the market reacts to very subjective issues like branding, I don’t know how that changes, but you can see Kingston Road changing, and Cliffside will change that way too.” Despite these challenges, according to the economist:

There is tons of activity on the [Kingston Road] corridor. The economics are just a little marginal. People are looking for value and low land cost and Kingston road is where people are focusing on. I know brokers that are just going up and down the corridor identifying sites and trying to acquire them but understanding that development is probably five or six years away.

For the mid-rise typology to significantly emerge in the Cliffside Village area, it appears that the land value escalation will be required. The economist argued that townhouses and stacked townhouses currently “make a lot of sense” and a number of stacked townhouse applications further east of the study area are evidence of this. These projects enable developers to easily provide affordable units because they don’t carry the costs associated with mid-rise development, and the construction process is far less complicated. Market demand is also slowly creeping east from the Upper Beaches neighbourhood, as evidenced by the recent flourish of mid- rise development in the Birch Cliff neighbourhood, just to the west of Cliffside. A senior planner with the City of Toronto commented that the pace of devleopment occurring along Kingston Road in Birch Cliff and into Cliffside must be looked at in context:

All these projects have happened in the last ten years. I’ve been here nineteen years wih the City and before that nothing happened. So I wouldn’t say its happening slowly, its happening pretty fast, just not at the same rate as downtown Avenues.

The economist commented that potentially every five years, “or faster”, a project may develop in the Cliffside area. These developments would be 100 or 120 unit projects, far smaller than 2229 Kingston Road. City planning staff identified that “Cliffside is a little behind Birch Cliff”, and proposed that Birch Cliff would likely be fully built out over the following five to ten years, while Cliffside Village would require fifteen, twenty or twenty five years to redevelop significantly. Land assembly challenges in Cliffside Village

An interesting quirk of the area is the disparity in lot sizes on opposite sides of the street. Land ownership on the north side of Kingston Road in the study area is very fragmented, which means that developers must negotiate separately with several individual owners in order to assemble larger properties that could be suitable to build a mid-rise development. The challenge of consolidating properties is well known. What eventually resolves problematic consolidations will be escalating land value, making it possible for developers to match an owner’s expectation for the value of their property. The consolidation factor led many of the planning staff I spoke with who were familiar with the Cliffside Village area to comment that redevelopment would likely occur first along the south side of the street, where large properties do not require consolidation, and therefore development can go ahead far more easily. The economist commented that the south side of the study area carries its own unique challenges regarding land sale. Specifically, the south side of the street features shopping centres, or plazas, which have one owner who rents out the individual spaces as retail or office space. The owners of these plazas may generate an annual revenue that deters them from selling their property: “People own commercial shopping centers because they generate a steady income every year, like an annuity, the account that keeps on giving every year, and If they sell it, the cash flow stops and they’re out of business.” The land economist added, “the only reason those sites ever develop is if the real estate falls apart although I don’t see any signs of that, maybe

64 a block or two, but it all seems reasonably healthy to me.” Considering the future redevelopment of the area, the land economist concluded, “Frankly the north side has more chance as land value increases.” The economist’s perspective of how the area will develop clearly contradicts the planner’s; this researcher is inclined to give greater weight to the views of the economist, which are based on specialized knowledge of land development. Informants identified that without significant land-value-escalation, healthy businesses in the Cliffside Village study area would be unlikely to sell their properties for prices that developers could currently justify given the low rate of return in the area. While high vacancy rates and a challenging / difficult economic environment characterize much of Cliffside Village, a number of healthy businesses, such as the No Frills grocery store, can be found, particularly on the south side. This brings to light a dilemna that was not identified by informants. The economic health of the existing commercial environment is a potential impediment to the redevelopment process. If the City’s role is to realize the Avenues vision for the area, then it seems planning for the renewal and maintenance of the existing environment is at odds with that vision. This dilemna is addressed in the Cliffside Avenue Study, wich notes as part of its recommendations to realizing the Avenues vision for the retail environment:

Unfortunately, extensive façade improvement funds are not necessarily warranted given the emphasis on redevelopment. In the short term, there may be funds associated with small improvements such as new signage, exterior painting, window replacement, and some tuck/pointing work (Toronto, 2009 b: 68).

What is the role of the City in this regard? This discussion will be continued in detail in the conclusion by considering the City’s need to balance an obligation to implement the Cliffside Avenue Study Vision and densify the area with an obligation to meet the existing area’s needs without significant growth. From this perspective, a façade improvement program would be beneficial to the area.

2229 Kingston Road

City planning staff commented that the developer of 2229 Kingston Road, VHL Development, succeeded in selling their development by providing unusually low-cost condo units for Toronto and undercutting the market. The economist commented that VHL Development, unlike most devleopers in Toronto, don’t get their financing from charter banks, but have other sources including private investors which allow them to build economically. An informant indicated that hidden costs to end-users may also be contributing to the developer’s ability to provide such low-cost units, as was the case with another VHL Development in Scarborough, 1328 Birchmount Road (CBC, 2016). Costs included developers’ charges, lawyer’s fees, the land-transfer tax and other charges. The effect of 2229 Kingston Road on the Cliffside Village area from an economic point of view was seen to be positive. “The project will be a great addition to the street and maybe signal to the market that its okay to build here”, commented the economist, adding, “It will be great stimulus for Cliffside and a lot of that is confidence building.” The senior economic development officer noted that while one project itself may not have a significant impact, a project of the size of 2229 Kingston Road will likely bring a new anchor tenant to the neighbourhood, providing an amenity such as a food store or bank to the community. A senior urban designer with the City commented that a project the size of 2229 Kingston Road will present competition to new developments in the area, perhaps fulfilling demand in Cliffside Village for the short term.

6.4 Governance Role of the City in the redevelopment and revitalization of Cliffside Village

As an area showing the signs of years of decline, the Cliffside Village area could significantly benefit from public investment. While the City has certainly been involved in efforts to revitalize the area, as shown in Chapter Five, these efforts, including the adoption of the Cliffside Community Avenue study, have delivered little visible results to date. A City economic development officer proposed the following question during an interview, to which he admitted he had had no clear answer: “Is it going to take twenty-five, thirty years as prosperity filters east [from downtown into Scarborough on Kingston Road] or does the City have a role in expediting those improvements?” Informants offered different views of the current role of the City in the redevelopment and revitalization of Cliffside Village. “The city doesn’t really care about this area,” one local resident argued, adding, “I’ve been in this area for over fifty years and I have not seen the city do any upgrades in this area, period.” Many local business owners I spoke with stated that the City wasn’t sufficiently maintaining municipal property in the area, negatively impacting the appearance of the area. Dr. Greg Arbour, a local business owner who is highly active in the community and 65 has been a long-time proponent of a successful Kingston Road and Cliffside Village business environment stated:

They have this term NIMBY. Well this is our front yard, the front yard of this ward. Take a look at the yard, it ain’t so pretty. On a lot of good stretches, just take a drive along, you’ll see the areas, the property standards, the property maintenance, municipal standards, municipal maintenance, it’s readily observable. You look out there and you see a sign that says Cliffside Village. That’s from the 90s or even the 80s. It’s tagged, it’s falling apart.

Arbour, who was involved in the community consultation process of the Cliffside Avenue study, as well as in a number of other local initiatives, specifically takes aim at the growth-dependence of theAvenues policy: “Our municipal government is counting on the condos. That’s my term: count on condos. You have to do more than that to make a business area successful, not just wait for the condos to bring money with taxes and things. You have to invest more infrastructure, streetscaping, and other safety features to make it a better environment for businesses.” Arbour sees the current attitude of the City in the area as predominantly passive, and sees the Cliffside Avenue study as a framework without an implementation strategy. He notes that aside from the change in zoning the study led to, there have not been any other implementation measures carried out in the area despite the study recommending a number of actions. Arbour notes that the municipality is limited financially but is adamant that the City could and should take a more pro-active role in improving the Cliffside Village area. In response to suggestions that the City’s role in the revitalization and redevelopment of Cliffside Village is passive on the part of the municipal government, Gail Ross, executive assistant to Councilor Crawford, commented, “It feels less passive from the perspective of staff who are working hard to push the process forward.” Ross identified a variety of activities the councilor’s office and the City have been involved in regarding the revitalization and redevelopment of Kingston Road, including public art initiatives that produced many murals in Cliffside Village, new street furniture including bins, bicycle racks, bus shelters and benches, a “shop-local campaign” throughout the ward, as well as many other initiatives, and “behind-the-scenes” work that is not always apparent to casual observers. Regarding the next steps for Cliffside Village almost a decade since the adoption of the Cliffside Village plan by Council in 2009, Gail Ross sees the City and the Councilor’s office taking an active role by working with various stakeholders, but notes that “the City does require development partnerships.” The position of staff regarding the role of the municipal government in the redevelopment and revitalization of the Avenues was neutral in comparison to the Councilor’s office and the business owners. Regarding the City’s role in improving the Cliffside Village area, a senior economic development officer with the City of Toronto commented:

Municipalities are stretched. Property taxes, especially for larger centres, are probably inadequate to fund the services and improvements that are needed. By and large the decline [of Cliffside Village] has been because of larger factors than anybody particularly neglecting their duties in the area. So when you have decline, what are the duties? That’s a hard question. I’m sure you’ve read the press about Toronto Community Housing Corporation and the huge backlog of repairs? We’ve got people living in units where sometimes they are trying to heat them with an electric stove. It’s shocking. Why are we treating them like that? It’s partly lack of resources and partly bureaucratic inertia.

The economic development officer went on to add that the restructuring of governance in the post-amalgamation City likely also contributed to the problem by diluting the salience of local, Scarborough issues, such as the revitalization of Kingston Road. Regarding the role of the City in encouraging development, a senior urban designer underlined the importance of developing Avenue studies as a framework that expedites the development process, noting that in the Birch Cliff area, the flourish of recent mid-rise development activity followed the development of the Birch Cliff Avenue study:

From our perspective, every project takes time but our policies and guidelines were very helpful in terms of shaping the discussion and speeding up the process. Expediting the process. It offers assurance, clarity, certainty that if they are willing to come in and be generally within framework, the review process is much more straightforward.

While in Cliffside Village the Avenue Study did not result in the same amount of development activity as in Birch Cliff, the construction of 2229 Kingston Road may not have occurred without the zoning changes that resulted from the Cliffside Avenue Study. A number of City informants commented that transit and streetscape improvements could be helpful to “kick start” the Avenues, but acknowledged municipal funding issues and competing priorities as obstacles.

66 Spatial inequity resulting from growth-dependent policy:

As discussed in Chapter Four, growth-dependent policies can contribute to spatial inequities in the city of Toronto as the private sector gravitates to prosperous areas. As significant development uptake is not a feature of the Cliffside Village area, the economic devleopment officer observed that the benefits gained through redevelopment, including Section 37 community benefits, are also not available in the area.

Community:

Interviews with City community planners, local business owners and local residents identified that the community in the Cliffside Village area are largely supportive of redevelopment and intensification in the study area. Many of the residents and business owners I spoke with saw the construction of 2229 Kingston Road as a positive step towards the revitalization of the Cliffside Village commercial area:

Some people may not like them [ie., condominiums] going up, but I think it’s a good thing and I also believe that this whole plaza will be wiped out. I say we move ahead and demolish the old and bring in the fresh and the new, new people, new kids, new outlook on life, and they may bring a better reputation to the whole area.

Gail Ross, executive assistant to Council Crawford, noted, “From a community lens it [ie., Kingston Road] is a key area for revitalization given that it is the main retail street for the community. Yes they want other things done but it’s the first thing that everyone sees as they travel through the community to get to the grocery store.”

Summary:

The research shows a number of challenges, issues and dilemmas regarding the realization of the Cliffside Village vision for the densification of the area. The development review process of 2229 Kingston Road indicated that the “sideyard condition” requires further urban design policy development. The economics of the mid-rise typology, the lack of demand for new housing in this area, challenges in land consolidation and the health of existing retail were seen to inhibit the redevelompent of Cliffside Village. The Cliffside Village case study revealed distinct views of the City’s role in its redevelopment and revitalization and the following chapter will discuss this issue in detail.

67 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION

source: Author

68 7 7.1 Lessons From Cliffside Village

The Cliffside Village case study highlighted a segment of an Avenue at the edge of market demand and revealed distinct views of the City’s role in its evolution. A City passive to the market, “counting on condos”, and neglecting duties to the area. A City with insufficient finances to cover competing priorities, requiring development partnerships. An active, engaged municipality, with staff working hard for improvements in Scarborough South West. This diversity of views raises the question: What is the role of the City on an Avenue without growth? Informants discussed two related, yet distinct visions for the renewal of the Cliffside Village area. On one hand, there is a revitalized Cliffside Village, with streetscape improvements revitalizing a declining public realm, traffic-calming measures ensuring a safer pedestrian environment, improved transit service making the area more connected to the rest of the city, and a healthier business environment resulting from these improvements. This scenario does not necessarily relate to the Avenues policy and new development is not seen as necessary to realize the vision. The second vision is that which is outlined in the Cliffside Avenue Study, where mid-rise buildings line Kingston Road, bringing new, transit-supportive densities to the area, along with the improvements described in the first scenario. The important distinction between the two scenarios is simple: in the first, significant growth is not seen as necessary for area improvements to be made, while in the second, growth is a major goal and also the principal tool to realize the vision. In a scenario without growth, some of the improvements described above would be impossible to achieve in Cliffside Village. In particular, without the new density and foot traffic brought by intensification, it is not possible to create a more vibrant, pedestrian and transit-oriented area out of a low-intensity suburban corridor like Kingston Road. Without development uptake, it is also uncertain whether any significant improvements to the Cliffside Village area as a whole will be accomplished. From the observations of informants, it is clear that funding issues, competing priorities, “bureaucratic inertia” and the post-amalgamation governance structure have limited the City in its ability to directly invest in the area, despite significant activity on the part of the City in various local initiatives. The city has its thirty-one priority neighbourhoods, which have been chosen on the basis of a broad set of indicators. Cliffside Village isn’t on that list, because the local need isn’t as great, and it may not be justified to reallocate funding away from higher priorities toward Cliffside Village. Cliffside Village falls outside of the current paradigm for neighbourhood intervention in Toronto as it has not benefited from growth-dependent policy yet is not seen as an area where non-growth investment should be prioritized. This highlights a potentially problematic aspect of neighbourhood intervention in Toronto, where there is a divide between the (“pathological,” non-growth- ready) priority neighbourhoods and the (growth-ready) intensification areas. Is intensification an appropriate framework for neighbourhood improvement in Cliffside Village? For Cliffside Village, an area that is very likely to experience significant development uptake in the near future, growth- dependent policy is clearly the appropriate framework as, with time, intensification will deliver significant benefits to the area. However, intensification is not without its associated problems, including its greatest weakness, identified in the introduction: intensification relies on the market and is therefore only able to benefit an area where there is sufficient demand for new land uses. Because of this, theAvenues policy is only able to address social and physical need in a piecemeal and fragmented manner. Also, by favouring the intensification framework for neighbourhood improvement, it is possible that non-growth ideas are crowded out. Cliffside Village is evidence of this problem as an area to which significant planning and policy attention has been given but where few results can be seen since the market has not yet ‘activated’ the investment expected in the Cliffside Avenue Study. There are a number of steps towards improvement in Cliffside Village that are not dependent on growth and it is important to consider these steps as development uptake may not occur in the case of a recession, or other potential scenario. For the City to effectively engage in renewal efforts without relying on residential growth in Cliffside Village requires one or a combination of the following: (a) a return to the interventionism of the post- war years, with significant public investment in the declining inner suburbs broadly, or (b) programs and initiatives that involve public/private partnerships. Public investment is required for the renewal of declining inner suburbs, broadly speaking. Most significantly, the transit system has been shown to underserve much of the inner suburbs; transit improvements throughout the inner suburbs should be a priority. Transit improvements in a no-growth scenario could start with an increase in the frequency of bus service. Public investment in the maintenance and repair of Toronto Community Housing is also recommended as a strategy to broadly target the renewal of the inner suburbs. Part of Toronto Community Housing’s portfolio, the McClain Park Apartment tower, marks the western edge of the Cliffside study area, and a number of other community housing buildings are also in Scarborough Southwest. Public/private partnerships for the renewal of Cliffside Village could involve community economic development, where local business owners work with the City, perhaps developing a Business Improvement Area (BIA) as well as other economic development initiatives. Cliffside’s original BIA voted itself out of business in 1994 and, according to informants, would be unlikely to succeed at the present time. Greg Arbour, the

69 chiropractor I interviewed, expressed interest in a Cliffside Village BIA, but noted that at the current time, it would be challenging to find support from the rest of the Cliffside Village business community due to a perceived lack of municipal support in the maintenance and servicing of the area. The economic development officer commented:

BIAs can be successful, but in suburban areas it can be hard to make them work for a variety of reasons. Right now the attitude [of business owners in Toronto’s inner suburbs] is, ‘you’re going to fix my area by raising my taxes? How is that fair? We’re disadvantaged here, Toronto has a large tax base, why wouldn’t you use general tax revenues to do that?’

Both Gail Ross (the assistant to Councillor Crawford) and the economic development officer commented that a step forward for Cliffside Village could involve business owners forming a business association along the lines of a pilot project currently being tested out on Rogers Road in the city’s west end. A business association doesn’t require the same majority buy-in or financial commitment from the business community that a BIA would require, but the City would match the funds put forward by the association to go towards various improvements in the area, including façade renewals. The economic development officer commented, “I would encourage them to form an association”, adding, “if there is a minority who would like to have a BIA, it’s a means of convincing the doubters that it actually could be of benefit.” The same informant emphasized two objectives to improving a business area: streetscape improvements and façade renewal. With sufficient organization and interest from the Cliffside Village business community, these objectives could be met in partnership with the City. This research finds that a façade renewal program would also be appropriate for the area, regardless of theAvenue vision. Informants maintained that the façade renewal program was popular in the area and would provide for the areas current needs. The Tower Renewal Program is another example of a public/private partnership strategy to renew the suburbs. The program’s objectives are to improve Toronto’s aging concrete apartment towers and their surrounding neighbourhoods through a number of programs, including a High-Rise Retrofit Improvement Support (Hi-RIS) program that offers low-cost loans to help apartment building owners make energy-saving retrofits and upgrades to their buildings. Four aging apartment towers with hundreds of rental units are found within the Cliffside Village study area alone. Two visions for Cliffside Village were identified at the beginning of this discussion: one that did not involve growth, and one that did. Considering the growth-scenario, the realization of the Cliffside Village Avenue study vision, this research found that the City’s role is largely that of a facilitator and negotiator with the primary actor: the private sector. Still, public actions were recommended in the report, such as the reconstruction of the streetscape, changes to the right of way, improvements in street furniture, and upgrades to public transit, but funds have not been allocated and no implementation measures have been carried forward. Informants stated that public investment could encourage the redevelopment of Cliffside Village and Kingston Road through public transit improvements and streetscape improvements, but that competing priorities and limited municipal funds were limiting the City’s role in this respect. The necessity of development partnerships to realize the Avenues vision is clear, but what are the implications of the fact that the evolution of the Avenues is being guided primarily by the market? The Avenues strategy is comprehensive in its objectives and necessarily so as each element of the strategy is largely reliant on other elements. Transit-oriented suburban corridors require the density that new housing can bring for transit improvements to be economically feasible; pedestrian-activated main streets require successful retail and commercial space, successful retail space requires an urban environment conducive to pedestrians, and so on. Filion (2010), describes this inter-reliant nature of the city as “urban dynamics — the interaction between different aspects of the city” and notes that, “At the core of urban dynamics is the relationship between transportation and land use” (Filion, 2010, p. 6). In Cliffside Village, it appears that the two elements of the Avenue vision will change independently from each other, as private investment allows for. First a building like 2229 Kingston Road arrives, along with some streetscape improvements and the introduction of a new public street, all paid for by the developer. Over the following decade, perhaps a handful of smaller developments will also emerge, along with piecemeal streetscape improvements and community benefits achieved through Section 37 (which may or may not be spent within the Cliffside village strip). The new residents will hopefully rely on the limited bus services currently available in the area. These fragments of the Cliffside Community vision will emerge, but without other elements, the Avenue’s comprehensive objectives of transforming the area will not occur. Filion observes that, “Urban dynamics point to the difficulty of changing one aspect of the city while leaving its other dimensions untouched” and argues that “it thus follows that only large-scale interventions, addressing simultaneously different aspects of the urban phenomenon, have the potential to bring about a deep structural transformation of the city” (Filion, 2010, p. 6). While the Avenues are directed to grow incrementally by the Official Plan, and this piece-meal redevelopment of the suburbanAvenues is an effective use of limited funds in a planning system largely dependent on growth, this fragmented process will not easily result in the transformation of the auto-oriented post-war fabric of areas like Cliffside Village in Scarborough.

70 In summary, the role of the City in Cliffside Village was seen to be complex. The City must balance an obligation to transform the area according to the Avenue vision with an obligation to improve the existing area without significant growth. While the necessity of private/public partnership is clear, it was observed that in each of these roles, Cliffside Village would benefit significantly from public investment, and that there is a case to be made for these investments. Referring to the proposed “Rail Deck Park” (see figure 39), a project involving decking the rail corridor between Bathurst Street and Blue Jays Way downtown Toronto, a senior economic development officer with the City commented:

Its really tough to compete with a two billion dollar plan to cover the railway and create a park for condos that I’m guessing have fifty thousand new residential units in that area whereas on Kingston road there might be five hundred. But on the other hand, if you’re looking long term at city building, why would you not put something into this area? Is the money wasted? I don’t think so. I think a vibrant Scarborough would almost in some ways relieve some of the pressures downtown.

Kingston Road’s historically important role in the city waned over the late 20th century, but the corridor could play a key role in the future of the city by increasing transit use and active transportation in Scarborough, providing low-cost residential units in Toronto and relieving pressures on the inner city.

71 Figure 39: Proposed Rail-Deck Park. Source: City of Toronto. Retrieved from www1. toronto.ca, March 27 2017

72 Figure 40: Kingston Road Street Car Lines. Source: Scarborough Archives

73 7.2 Summary of Key Findings

This research investigated the Avenues policy from two perspectives: (a) the inner suburbs broadly, and (b) the Cliffside Village segment of Kingston Road, a designated Avenue in Scarborough. The realization of the vision for the Avenues in the inner suburbs was seen to be an important objective for the City. Land along these arterial corridors is generally underutilized, with large parking lots and vacant space a common feature. The Avenues policy is presented as a strategy to transform the post-war corridors themselves through streetscape and transit improvements, new housing and retail; to transform the surrounding neighbourhoods by encouraging walking and transit-use, contributing to the Official Plan goal of “reducing our reliance on the automobile” (Toronto, 2010, 2-16); and to play an important role in the Toronto region by providing new housing opportunities and alleviating the pressures associated with growth in Toronto’s inner city, including congestion and housing affordability. A number of challenges and obstacles to the realization of the vision for the suburban Avenues were identified in this research:

• as wide, busy arterial roads, the suburban Avenues require rethinking regarding their use by multiple users, including pedestrians, automobiles, transit and cyclists, and achieving changes to the road such as traffic- calming measures present complex procedural challenges to City staff • the dimensions and the scale of the suburban Avenues present challenge to efforts to establish a comfortable pedestrian realm • the large and deep lots that commonly front the inner suburban Avenues produce irregular building shapes and introduce questions to planning and urban design staff that do not have clear policy directives • existing retail and fragmented land ownership can inhibit land assembly • new retail units are often unsuccessful on the developing inner suburban corridors • costs involved with building the mid-rise typology can prevent or inhibit mid-rise projects • along many segments of the suburban Avenues, market demand for housing is weak • the City is limited in its ability to invest in the Avenues as there are competing priorities and limited funds • the local community in the inner suburbs often do not support new development out of concern for the effect the development may have on their environments, including increasing congestion • the piecemeal, fragmented development of the Avenues does not significantly transform post-war, auto- dependent areas; the literature suggests land use must be intensified simultaneously with improvements to public transit

7.3 Recommendations

What are steps forward to address the presented challenges and obstacles to the Avenue policy vision for the suburban Avenues? The following section will present the recommendations for both the inner suburban Avenues broadly and Cliffside VIllage specifically. Regarding the inner suburban Avenues broadly, because of the varied and comprehensive nature of the obstacles, recommendations are organized under the themes urban design, economics/ real estate, transportation and governance. These themes correpond with the themes used in Chapters Four and Six and relate to the nature of the problem/issue/ being considered. For Cliffside VIllage, only one recommendation is made and therefore themes are not used. Policy Recommendations for the Inner Suburban Avenues Urban Design

City of Toronto planning and urban design staff indicated that the inner suburban Avenues present many unique urban design challenges distinct from the inner city. Some of these challenges are addressed in the original Mid-Rise Performance Standards (2010), and others have been addressed in the 2015 addendum to the Mid- Rise Performance Standards, or have been identified as requiring further analysis. The Mid-Rise Performance Standards monitoring reports have provided an extensive recent review of the policy and ongoing monitoring will continue to improve the policy. City staff identified that the issue of the sideyard condition as a challenge during the development review process and this highlights unclear directives in the Mid-Rise Performance Standards. The Mid-Rise Performance Standards Monitoring has identified that deep lots, frequently found along the inner suburbanAvenues, carry a

74 number of urban design challenges. The development currently under construction at 2229 Kingston Road highlighted the need for further policy directives regarding the sideyard setback. The Performance Standards Monitor- ing identifies that “the Performance Standards do not adequately mitigate height and density impacts for sites with deep lots; more guidelines are needed (ie. building massing and height transition, front and sideyard setback transition, etc.)” The Monitoring report also identifies that “irregularly shaped building configurations (often resembling ‘T’,’U’ and ‘E’ formations)” are common to these sites and that “more guidelines are needed on appropriate separation distances between wings and appropriate sideyard property line setbacks” (Toronto, 2015). 2229 Kingston Road is an irregular ‘U’ shaped building. Improved sideyard setback guidelines in these contexts will require a dedicated study outside of the scope of this research and it is recommended that this study be carried out. Economics/ Real Estate

Costs involved in building the mid-rise typology were seen to present a number of challenges. A 2015 report co-authored by the Pembina Institute titled “Make Way for Mid-Rise” states: “from a developer’s perspective, the most financially attractive options are either to build high-rise developments, where the cost of underground parking can be distributed over a larger number of units, or to build low-rise housing where land is cheaper and surface parking can be provided” (Pembina, 2015, p.7). The Make Way for Mid-Rise report also recommends a number of steps forward to make mid-rise development more economically viable:

• As wood frame construction is far cheaper than concrete, the development of wood-framed mid-rise buildings presents an opportunity for developers. To allow for wood-framed mid-rise development, the building code will need to be revised to allow for taller wood framed construction. • Parking requirements should be eliminated, reducing the significant costs of providing parking space.As policy directs that development on the Avenues is to be transit-oriented, developers should not be required to provide a minimum number of parking spaces but should be allowed to provide the amount of parking that they see fit. • A development permit system (DPS) could be introduced to the Avenues to re-zone entire areas for appropriate mid-rise density and physical character. This would allow for developments that meet criteria to move ahead without the costly and time-consuming planning approval process for each permit and allow the development review process to focus on urban design.

This research also showed that a challenge to realizing the Avenues vision is the low success rate of retail in new development. One way this challenge is addressed is through citywide as well as local Avenue policy directives: through the Performance Standards and the Avenue studies. A retail vision should be developed according to the specificities of a locality, although general principles applicable to all Avenues can also be applied. The Performance Standards and Addendum offer a number of directives that guide the design of retail space, including a minimum ground floor height and directives for multiple entrances and multiple retail units in a building. Long blocks are also generally encouraged to be broken up and this increases the number of access points to retail to the surrounding neighbourhood. Local Avenue studies frequently structure the location of mandatory retail at grade within a study area into nodes to encourage succesful commercial space. Feedback identifed as contributing to the recent Performance Standards Addendum included guidance that in some areas smaller retail units should be encouraged (Toronto, 2016). A senior urban designer confirmed that the regulation of floorplate dimensions is a possible step from from a built-form regulation perspective, allowing planning staff to prevent large-format retail by regulating floorplate size. This requires a delicate balance, as anchor tenants are important for a building’s owner and also beneficial to the community and the vibrancy of a pedestrian-oriented retail environment. Further policy development regarding the regulation of retail space on the Avenues is required. Achieving the retail vision for the suburban Avenues also requires more than regulations. On the economic development side, the Avenues may have many different local economic development initiatives occurring along different segments, and ongoing city-wide programs are available including Business Improvement Areas (BIA). BIAs are particularly important along the Avenues to establish a retail vision and communicate this vision to interested stakeholders including residents and property owners. The Cliffside Village case study showed that BIAs can be difficult in the inner suburbs and presented the alternative of a BusinessAssociation as an interim step towards a BIA. In an economically marginal (but potentially improving) area like Cliffside Village, the initial developments are going to be fairly uncertain, and these are the developments where mandatory retail is also going to struggle the most, because there isn’t yet the pedestrian traffic and neighbouring population to support the retail. How can these “first movers” be accomodated regarding retail requirements? This issue requires further study and policy development.

75 Transportation

The Avenues vision sees the arterial corridors transformed to areas that are safe and attractive for pedestrians and cyclists, with new transit-oriented population densities. While narrowing the right-of-way and/ or introducing traffic-calming measures would be would be ideal to achieve a higher-quality and safer pedestrian realm on the Avenues, these objectives present often complex procedural challenges to City staff. City of Toronto planning and urban design informants observed that in some areas on the inner suburban Avenues, traffic calming and road diets are being implemented and that the recent introduction of the City of Toronto Complete Streets Guidelines (2007) is a positive sign post forward regarding issues of shared use along the arterials. The Complete Streets Guidelines establishes a typology of streets as well as design objectives for each type. The Avenues are classified as the “Avenue & Neighbourhood Main Street” type and among the design objectives for the Avenue & Neighourhood Main Street type is a directive to “prioritize safe movement of pedestrians, cyclists and surface transit and design for moderate motor vehicle travel speeds” (Toronto, 2017, p.29). The efficacy of these guidelines in “taming” the busy suburban Avenues is unknown as they were only recently implemented in February 2017, but the Complete Streets Guidelines represent a significant recent investment on the part of the City to address issues regarding accomodating for multiple uses of a street. The Guidelines should be monitored to assess their achievements. As we have seen, the majority of the inner suburban populations rely significantly on automobiles, and many are also under-served by the public transit network. Significant transit improvements are required to address those issues of “transit equity” put forward by Hectel et al (2016), and to offer services that can overcome the dominance of automobile use in the inner suburbs. While the City’s transportation policy directs for improvements to services along the Avenues, decisions regarding transit improvements are complex and political, and there are many Avenues not currently on the table for major transit improvements. There is a clear case to be made for introducing transit improvements on all of the Avenues although informants identified this is not feasible due to constrained funding and competing priorities. In this sense, the decentralized nature of the Avenues can be seen to pose certain challenges compared to nodes, in that investment cannot easily be focused on their entirety. Filion observes that the transformation of post-war fabric towards a vision of a recentralized and less automobile- reliant suburban fabric requires co-ordinated interventions to overcome the “deep entrenchment of the early post- war model” (Filion, 2012: 16). Land use must be intensified simultaneously with improvements to public transit to “initiate a mutulaly reinforcing interrelation” (ibid: 16). At the very least, upgraded bus services could be achieved fairly cheaply on the Avenues and comprehensive transit improvements should be a priority in the overall Avenues policy strategy.

Governance

City staff commented that the communities of the inner suburbs can often resist new developments with concern for the transformational effect they may have on their environments. Filion (2010), observes that suburban households “have an interest in low-density urban forms, motivated by a preference for single-family homes, social segregation, tranquillity and the aesthetics of the suburban subdivision”, adding that, “Fear of the unknown and of its possible impact on home values represent an impetus for NIMBY- type reactions against departures from the dispersed pattern (Filion, 2010, p. 6). The location and form that the Avenues take are shaped by this political reality: intensification is to occur away from the homes of the general voting public, along the arterial corridors, and is to take a modestly scaled built form that is carefully guided to respect adjacent Neighbourhoods. The implementation of a development permit system (DPS), discussed under the “economic/real estate” theme, would be useful to reduce community friction over intensification projects. A DPS would see large areas of the Avenues re-zoned, allowing development that meets criteria to move ahead without going through the planning approval process. If a DPS were employed, community participation would be extensive during the development of the DPS but after re-zoning had been established individual projects would not require community meetings. The Cliffside Village case study highlighted a segment of an Avenue at the edge of market demand. Distinct views of the City’s role in Cliffside emerged. A City passive to the market, “counting on condos”, and neglecting duties to the area. A City with insufficient finances to cover competing priorities, requiring development partnerships. An active, engaged municipality, with staff working hard for improvements in Scarborough south west. What is the role of the City on an Avenue without growth? This research found that the City must balance obligations to realize the Avenue vision with obligations to meet the existing area’s needs. As decline on the inner suburban Avenues is far from exclusive to the Cliffside Village segment of Kingston Road, the vision for the suburban Avenues broadly must also be balanced with obligations to meet the existing area needs. Public investment into the renewal of the declining inner suburbs broadly should be pursued. The transit system has been shown to underserve much of the inner suburbs and the realization of major transit improvements throughout the

76 inner suburbs should be a priority. Public investment into the maintenance of Toronto Community Housing is also recommended as a strategy to broadly target the renewal of the inner suburbs. Recommendations for Cliffside Village

As noted previously in the recommendations for the inner suburban Avenues broadly, significant transit improvements are required to address those issues of “transit equity” put forward by Hectel et al (2016), and to offer services that can overcome the dominance of automobile use in the inner suburbs. This report recommends that transit improvements need to be brought back to the table for Kingston Road, and a firm timeline for their implementation needs to be established if the Avenue vision is to be realized on Kingston Road. A Bus-Rapid- Transit (BRT) line was suggested by a number of informants as being the most viable option for the Kingston Road corridor as a BRT can offer relatively inexpensive transit improvements and in the future be converted to Light- Rapid-transit (LRT) as the Avenue develops further and ridership can justify the expense. To plan for Cliffside Village without growth it is recommended streetscape improvements and facade renewal should be priorities for the area. To achieve these objectives a Business Association should be formed with interested Cliffside Village owners as a step towards a BIA.

Opportunities

The geography we recognize today as Toronto’s inner suburbs has evolved from farmfields, to early post-war suburbs, and it is now urbanizing, guided by Avenue policy. The inner suburban Avenues could play an important role in the future of Toronto, by increasing transit use and active transportation in the inner suburbs, providing new housing opportunities, and alleviating the pressures associated with growth in the inner city, including congestion and housing affordability. While significant challenges, issues and dilemmas were shown in the research, there are solutions.

77 List of Interviews:

Anonymous. (January 2017). Land Economist, City of Toronto.

Anonymous. (January 2017). Economic Development Officer, Scarborough District.

Anonymous. (January 2017). Senior Planner, Etobicoke York District.

Anonymous. (January 2017). Senior Planner, Scarborough District (A).

Anonymous. (January 2017). Senior Planner, Scarborough District (B).

Anonymous. (January 2017). Planner, Scarborough District.

Anonymous. (January 2017). Local business owner, Cliffside Village, Scarborough (A).

Anonymous. (January 2017). Local business owner, Cliffside Village, Scarborough (B).

Anonymous. (January 2017). Local business owner, Cliffside Village, Scarborough (C).

Anonymous. (January 2017). Local resident, Cliffside Village, Scarborough (A).

Anonymous. (January 2017). Local resident, Cliffside Village, Scarborough (B).

Anonymous. (January 2017). Local resident, Cliffside Village, Scarborough (C).

Gail Ross. (January 2017). Executive Assistant to Councillor Crawford, Ward 36, Scarborough District, City of Toronto.

Greg Arbour. (January 2017). Chiropractor, Cliffside Village, Scarborough.

Helene Iardas. (January 2017). Senior Planner, Urban Design, North York District, City of Toronto.

Lorna Day. (January 2017). Director of Urban Design, City of Toronto.

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