OSSINGTON AVENUE AREA STUDY COMMENTARY AND *** 103-111 Ossington Avenue PLANNING OPINION TORONTO'S GROWTH IMPERATIVE The City of Toronto is forecast to have approximately 3.08 million residents by 2031 – representing a growth in population of approximately 500,000 over the next 20 years. [AVENUES & MID-RISE BUILDINGS STUDY: Introduction] Toronto labelled its 21st century urban ambition, its Official Plan, an Intensification Strategy... – Intensification is about increasing magnitudes. Meanwhile, cities around the globe labelled their comparable efforts as Consolidation Strategies... – Consolidation is about how things fit together. Toronto launched its Official Plan without an accompanying Zoning By-law – an implement intended to inform development with articulating metrics. As a result, the existing in-force Zoning was dismissed as archaic, though little or no change was anticipated throughout the majority of the city... – “the planned context typically reinforces the existing context”. [OP: 3.1.2 BUILT FORM] The development industry embraced intensification as an invitation to open the bidding. The notion of an intensification imperative arose, manifest in spiralling and spreading height and density increases... – in effect: urban sprawl. * A perfect storm had arisen, fuelled by intensification without metrics, amplified by assertions of a growth imperative, resulting in proposals such as the 103-111 Ossington Avenue proposal...begging the question of veracity, as to whether this is a fitting solution. ||| OSSINGTON AVENUE IS NOT AN AVENUE, NOT AN AREA TARGETED FOR GROWTH Policy 2. Growth will be directed to the Centres, Avenues, Employment Districts and the Downtown [OP: 2.2 STRUCTURING GROWTH IN THE CITY] Avenues are expected to deliver 50% of Toronto's growth. [AVENUES & MID-RISE BUILDINGS STUDY: Introduction] *** Ossington Avenue is not designated an Avenue. There is no doubt, Toronto will meet its intensification target within the prescribed interval, without resorting to any extraordinary efforts. – One has only to traverse the Bloor-Danforth Avenues structure with its existing subway backbone, to appreciate the vast capacity of Avenues to accommodate intensification. – Another example is the Yonge and Eglinton Growth Centre, where a spiralling spread of tall buildings is now projected to increase the area's population by 20,000 in 20 years. *** There is no need for Ossington Avenue to serve any intensification requirement. Furthermore, Ossington Avenue is only a small narrow strip of less than 1000m of Mixed Use frontages. – Even if Ossington Avenue were required to intensification... the effort would be for nought. – Even if in the impossible event that all of Ossington Avenue were intensified to the extent of 103-111 Ossington Avenue, the resultant population increase would deliver only 0.5% of Toronto's overall objective. – A more realistic projection, based on possible-potential growth, is a figure of less than 0.1%. Hardly worth the imposition! Ossington Avenue's intensification is simply for profit. ||| THE AVENUES AND MID-RISE BUILDING STUDY DOES NOT APPLY TO OSSINGTON AVENUE The recommendations of the Avenues & Mid-Rise Buildings Study are intended only to be applied to: “segments of the Avenues that are designated in the Official Plan as Mixed-Use Areas, Employment Areas, Institutional Areas and Regeneration Areas...” [AVENUES & MID-RISE BUILDINGS STUDY: 2.1 Where the Recommendations Apply] The Avenues and Mid-Rise Building Study, (hereon referred to as the 'Avenues Guideline'), clearly states in its Introduction: that it is only intended to be applied to Mixed-Use Areas within Avenues. *** It is inappropriate to apply the Avenues Guideline to the design and to the planning justification of 103-111 Ossington Avenue. Simply put: the Avenues Guideline should be dismissed from the assessment of this proposal. Unfortunately, at this time there is no equivalent Non-Avenue and/or Low-Rise Building Study that might inform development initiatives. There is no good reason, even in the absence of an appropriate set of guidelines, to take up 'a wrong-set of planning measures'. The inappropriateness of borrowing guidelines, and applying them where they are not intended is evident in the evolution of Toronto's Tall Building Guidelines. – A set of Tall Building Guidelines was adopted in 2006, whose preparation had focused on the North York 'new city' urban context noted for its large areas, virtual greenfields. – The 2006 Guidelines were applied to tall building in other contexts including the downtown with its 'old city' urban context noted for its fine grain established road network and streetwall built form. It was apparent that the Guidelines were not transferable, being inadequate and inappropriate. – This resulted in the production of the Downtown Tall Buildings Design Guidelines, adopted in July 2012. – It was realised the Downtown measures were not universally applicable, to for instance the Yonge Eglinton Growth Centre with its 'middle city' urban context noted for its long neighbourhood streetscapes with residential setbacks, requiring different solutions. – As a result, Council requested the development of a City-wide Tall Building Design Guideline. This initiative is currently in progress. This explanation clearly demonstrates that planning measures need to fit-the-purpose. *** It would be better to declare 103-111 Ossington Avenue premature. No doubt this would kindle the production of an appropriate planning guideline, Ahem! ||| OSSINGTON'S ROOTS Policy 10. Lost historical sites should be commemorated whenever a new private development or public work is undertaken in the vicinity... [OP: 3.1.5 HERITAGE RESOURCES] It would be remiss to neglect Ossington Avenue's remarkable history. – It is one of Toronto's oldest streets, prominently noted on maps dating back 200 years. – What later became known as Ossington Avenue was once an integral part of the Dundas Road, the signal-road connecting to destinations-west in Upper Canada. – At first it was a 'desire-path' tracing a native route circumventing the Humber Valley impasse, later it adapted to the grid, granted with a still evident twist. – By 1850 Ossington Avenue had tributary streets and building clusters at Queen Street, and along the west side at Argyle Street, and again at Foxley Place. – By 1900 Dundas Street no longer bend south to join Queen Street, but instead crossed the Garrison Creek. By 1915 it was a principal streetcar route in Toronto's matrix. As transit ridership bypassed, so began Ossington Avenue's decline in stature. – Its significance lingered into the mid-1900's as evident in the 1945 transit plan for an underground tramway, a subway, along Queen Street surfacing at Ossington Avenue. (Remarkably similar to today's Eglinton LRT, streetcars surfaced at Ossington Avenue to run above ground west along BOTH Queen Street and Dundas Street.) – Ever since, Ossington Avenue has been a local affair, with its Mixed-Use designation more a reflection of its prior enterprise. – The inclusion of light industrial uses was both a reflection of Ossington Avenue's roots, and likewise to conveniently augmenting the locality's diminished prominence. In conclusion... Ossington Avenue's heritage should be “commemorated whenever a new private development or public work is undertaken in the vicinity”. It would reinforce the locality's raison d'être as a unique city-wide destination. (further historical information appended) *** 103-111 Ossington Avenue does not commemorate the locality's history. ||| CONTEXTS The existing context of any given area refers to what is there now. The planned context refers to what is intended in the future. [OP: 3.1.2 BUILT FORM; Sidebar 3-7] STUDY AREA EXISTING CONTEXT Ossington Avenue is a fading Mixed Use Area in need of consolidation rather than intensification. Ossington Avenue is best understood viewed from its mid-point at the Argyle Street intersection. – From this vantage the locality displays the characteristics of a traditional village encompassed by residential developments, progressively more extensive and orderly in the broader circumference. – Ossington Avenue proper has the features of a traditional village core... a main street comprised of retail establishments, workplace enterprises and residual residential components. – The village's configuration carries through into its scale, being principally composed of two and three storey structures. – Along with industrial structures, there are purpose-built retail shops with residences on top. These are intermixed with house-form structures, most of which accommodate retail at grade. – In close proximity to Ossington Avenue is its traditional frame area, consisting of lanes and streets supporting an eclectic mixture of residential, commercial and community facilities of varying vintages, including two junior schools, with further east the expanse of Trinity Bellwoods Park. – The framework of lanes is predominantly under-sized, reflective of their early establishment, particularly in the southeast and northwest sectors which are vestiges of mid-19th century village decisions. – Whereas a typical village main street would taper away into residential and industrial precincts, Ossington Avenue's main street abruptly intersects Queen Street and Dundas Street with their pronounced change ups into significant thoroughfares. – Queen and Dundas Streets are Avenues, being overwritten by intensification. *** 103-111 Ossington Avenue does not “fit”, “respect” nor “improve” its