Scarborough Centre Review, Scarborough City Centre

(City Council on August 1, 2 and 3, 2000, adopted this Clause, without amendment.)

The Planning and Transportation Committee recommends the adoption of the following report (June 22, 2000) from the Commissioner, Urban Development Services:

Purpose:

To outline the issues to be addressed in the review of the Scarborough City Centre Secondary Plan, and the timing of the review.

Financial Implications and Impact Statement:

There are no financial implications resulting from the adoption of this report.

Recommendations:

It is recommended that:

(1) Staff continue with the Scarborough Centre Review and bring forward a Proposals Report to Planning and Transportation Committee in early 2001.

(2) Staff continue to process development applications concurrently with this review, within the context of the emerging directions of this review and the emerging City-wide policy framework.

Background:

The Scarborough Centre is one of the major centres in the City and consequently its future growth within the urban structure is of city-wide significance. There is an opportunity to accommodate significant growth; however, current trends suggest that the policies guiding development in this area need to be reviewed to set the stage for this centre to achieve its potential. There is a clear mismatch between the existing policies of the Plan and the direction the market wants to take. The Scarborough City Centre Secondary Plan envisions a high density mixed use centre, providing housing, but also providing employment, particularly office employment. Development applications are overwhelmingly requesting only residential development and applicants are willing to forfeit any significant commercial permission they may have in order to achieve higher residential densities. These trends are not unique to the Scarborough Centre. Similar trends have affected the Centre in recent years, and a review is currently underway in the Kipling Islington Centre as a result of similar market forces. The City must decide what we want this centre to be in the context of the broader urban structure, and what has to be done to make it a reality. Comments:

Context

The Scarborough Centre is located south of Highway 401. It extends west of and east of McCowan Road, with the southern boundary being Ellesmere Road. The area is shown on Figures 1 and 2. There are 2 highway interchanges and 2 Rapid Transit (RT) Stations in the centre. The Scarborough Rapid Transit line connects to the Bloor/Danforth Subway at .

To the east and the west of the centre are healthy employment areas, with a mix of industrial, retail and office uses. There are major industries, such as Dad’s Cookies and A. G. Simpson metal stamping plant (Photo 1) around the centre and new industrial buildings are being built. The and Woburn residential communities are south of Ellesmere Road (Photo 2).

The Existing Official Plan Policies

Metroplan designates the Scarborough Centre as a Major Centre, comprising “a mix of uses with a concentration of employment activities, residential uses and other compatible uses in a compact, high density, urban form serviced by high capacity transit.” The plan envisions the extension of the Sheppard Subway to this centre.

Since the late 1950’s, Scarborough’s Official Plan has recognized and made reference to developing an institutional and cultural centre. The Scarborough City Centre Secondary Plan was adopted in 1982. In the early 1990’s, the City Centre was expanded to the east to include lands north of Progress Avenue, east of Bellamy Road. The Secondary Plan promotes this area as the governmental, cultural, business, retail and transportation focus for Scarborough and the eastern Metropolitan area. A future RT station is shown at Brimley Road, and it is envisioned that the RT line will extend east of the McCowan station.

The Secondary Plan has a general designation of “City Centre Uses”. This designation includes all land uses appropriate to form a business, cultural, social, recreational, and governmental regional centre. The designation provides for major open space uses, residential uses, civic uses, town square uses, retail uses, office uses and recreational uses. Individual sites may be zoned for specific uses, but the general intent of the designation is to provide flexibility. The plan then specifies maximum permitted densities. The residential density is expressed as a maximum number of units per hectare. The density of the other permitted “City Centre Uses” is based on permitted floor area.

Some of the key principles of the Secondary Plan are:

- encourage a diverse mix of uses and provide flexibility on individual sites; - require that residential floor space in the centre not exceed the office floor space; - encourage enough office space to accommodate at least 40,000 office jobs; - promote transit use and provide a “City Centre oriented” system of transit facilities; - minimize the traffic and visual impacts of development on the low density residential area to the south; - create a definable place. The quality of built form and the natural environment should be the focus of what you see, not streets and parking; - build a multi-use downtown core that is comfortable for pedestrians; and - preserve and regenerate the existing wood lots.

This plan has been a useful tool in helping to develop a vibrant and active centre. There have been a number of successes over the last 20 years, including the regeneration of Highland Creek (Photo 3), securing the woodlots in public ownership (Photo 4) and the enhancement of (Photo 5). Significant investment has taken place in the Centre, resulting in such key projects as the Consillium office complex (Photo 6), the Tridel and Lee residential developments (Photo 7), the shopping mall (Photo 8), the Bell Canada office building (Photo 9), the Federal government building (Photo 10) and YMCA (Photo 11). In terms of zoned potential a balance has been achieved between the amount of office floor space and residential floor space; and we are seeing the beginnings of a recognizable skyline. There is still great potential, but we must now re-evaluate the role of this centre in the new City of .

Emerging Directions

The City of Toronto is preparing a new Official Plan. We have heard from business, community leaders and city residents, and there is agreement that the new plan must not only speak to the kind of city we want, it must provide the direction and the tools to get us there. We must reinvest and promote reinvestment in our city, and enhance the quality of life for existing and future residents and workers.

We have the opportunity to capture new employment and residential growth within our boundaries. The City of Toronto is forecast to grow by about 540,000 people and just over 540,000 jobs by 2031. This could mean approximately 200,000 new households will be added to the City. There are lots of opportunities in the City to accommodate growth in a way that supports public transit, utilizes and builds on existing infrastructure and leads to a more compact urban form (Photo 12). The desire is to achieve sustainable development within the existing urban envelope in order to provide a variety of housing types for residents with different needs and to also provide locations for jobs.

The Scarborough Centre, North York Centre and Bloor/Kipling/Islington Centre are all designated for higher density mixed use development (the location of these centres is shown on the attached figure 1). There has been substantial investment in infrastructure to accommodate planned development, but these centres have experienced different rates of growth. There is tremendous opportunity for these centres to attract more jobs, house more people and provide more amenities for City residents and visitors. The time is right to seize the opportunity.

These centres are areas where the City would like to help initiate major reinvestment, and develop a new array of creative tools to kick-start and facilitate change. The review of the Scarborough Centre will develop the Official Plan policies for this centre and evaluate the actions needed to stimulate new development.

Issues in the Scarborough Centre

Although there are some compact, high density residential and employment developments in the Scarborough Centre, there remain undeveloped greenfields right next to rapid transit stations and next to the 401 interchanges (Photo 13). These are prime sites for development, and yet nothing has happened.

The active applications in the centre are for residential development, not office development. There are approximately 2,200 existing residential units in this centre. Another 550 units are under construction, with as-of-right permission for approximately 3,500 more units. The City is currently reviewing applications for approximately 2,480 additional residential units. Scarborough Community Council will be considering Official Plan and Zoning By-law amendments at its July 18th meeting which, if approved, will add as-of-right permission for about 1,360 more units. These applicants want to increase the residential permission on their site, and remove the substantial commercial permission. The only commercial permission that would remain would be incidental to the residential uses.

Only one major 32,515 square metre (350,000 square feet) office building was constructed in the 1990’s compared to 6 major office buildings, totally over 130,060 square metres (1,400,000 square feet), built in the 1980’s. The most recent non-residential development was the addition of more retail space and movie cinemas to the Scarborough Town Centre Mall. By 1998 there were approximately 10,500 service, retail and office jobs in the centre. The Secondary Plan specifies that the amount of residential floor space should not exceed the amount of office floor space. This has been interpreted to mean that the zoned residential floor space should not exceed the zoned office floor space. There is currently 923,000 square metres (9,935,415 square feet) of zoned office space, compared to 558,900 square metres (6,016,145 square feet) of zoned residential space. Current applications are requesting more residential density, while removing existing office density. If approval of all these applications proceeds, the amount of residential floor space will soon exceed office floor space and this clearly is not the intent of the existing Official Plan policies. Given the attributes of this location, and the emerging directions through the Official Plan work, it is still appropriate to strive for a mixed-use community here, but we have to re-examine the policies and the tools to help us achieve this. Also, in light of the new City of Toronto’s emerging policy environment, policies that address development in the area will need to respond to emerging City-wide policies dealing with the issue of housing affordability, contributions to the Capital Revolving Fund for Affordable Housing and where appropriate, the use of Section 37 of the Planning Act as a mechanism for securing public benefits for the area.

The review of the Scarborough City Centre Plan will address the following issues: - function of this planned centre in the context of the new amalgamated city; - enhancement of the government focus; - appropriate mix of uses; - provision of a variety in housing form and tenure; - feasibility of attracting employment, particularly office development; - social infrastructure needed to support residential development and create a residential community, including, but not limited to, parkland, schools, community amenities; - transportation infrastructure needed to support the new vision, with emphasis on environmental sustainability; - density levels and their consistent application; - current ownership patterns and their affect on development; - enhancement and efficient use of existing infrastructure; - appropriate boundaries of the centre and linkages with surrounding areas; - urban design issues including, future street patterns, creating a comfortable pedestrian environment, desired building forms, signage and addressing safety issues; - open space and the environment; - financing of future infrastructure needs; - public/private partnerships, including the possibility of consolidated parking strategies; and - the equitable application of planning tools.

Products and Timing In consultation with various stakeholders, including the City Centre Advisory Committee (the committee includes local Councillors, past and present area community association presidents, area business representatives and city staff), a new secondary plan will be developed, along with an implementation strategy. The implementation strategy will include recommendations on the use of tools to help achieve the vision for this centre. When the vision has been established, and the requirements to achieve that vision are known, it may be possible to implement the vision through zoning. In consultation with the local councillors, a community consultation process will be formulated and undertaken over the next several months. There will be community meetings with local residents and businesses, possibly a charette, a newsletter and a survey requesting input from various stakeholders.

A Proposals Report will be presented to Planning and Transportation Committee early in 2001, with the intent of holding the Public Meeting to consider the new Secondary Plan, in the first half of 2001. There are currently six active applications in the Scarborough Centre. All but one are for residential development. The City will continue to process development applications in the Scarborough Centre concurrently with this review. By continuing to review and process development applications the momentum of reinvestment is maintained, we optimize the use of existing infrastructure, including transit, and we continue to weave more urban fabric throughout the area. Applications will be evaluated within the context of the emerging directions from this review and the emerging City-wide policy framework Conclusions:

Given the City-wide significance of this centre and the emerging directions of the new Official Plan, it is timely to revisit the function of the Scarborough Centre, in order to capture the opportunities presented by the expected growth in the GTA in the 21st century. These opportunities will allow us to move forward and further build a vibrant mixed-use centre.

Contact: Gwen McIntosh, Principal Planner Joe Nanos, Senior Planner Policy & Research, East District Community Planning, East District Telephone: (416) 396-4203 Telephone: (416) 396-7037 Fax: (416) 396-4265 Fax: (416) 396-4265 E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Insert Table/Map No. 1 Area maps and photos Insert Table/Map No. 2 Area maps and photos Insert Table/Map No. 3 Area maps and photos Insert Table/Map No. 4 Area maps and photos Insert Table/Map No. 5 Area maps and photos Insert Table/Map No. 6 Area maps and photos