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news

Toronto Going Condo Crazy or Just Plain Crazy

By Ron Nurwisah, Boy Reporter

2006_1_10tolife.jpgYoung urbanites who want to own property have two choices. The first is to scour Toronto neighbourhoods for neglected houses that may prove to be financial albatrosses in need of repairs and renovations. The second choice is the condo. Or at least that’s what Toronto Life would have you believe.
February’s issue (not online yet) touts the rise of the Condo Generation, 20 and 30-somethings that have decided to buy condos as starter homes, choosing 700 sq feet several stories up to a roach infested, barely standing house. The editors also engage in a little real-estate boosterism about how Toronto’s condo boom can only go upward. (“Why the condo market is crashproof” touts the cover)
Torontoist is a little more guarded about condos. For one, we’re glad that people are choosing to live downtown instead of making the choice to fuel yet another subdivision development out in the 905 and add to the gridlock on the 400-series of highways. But we’re worried when condo developers choose to sell buildings that don’t take neighbourhood considerations into account; buildings that are too tall, severely impact traffic flows and change the very character of neighbourhoods themselves.
Dale Duncan, in the first of a series of articles on Toronto’s future in eye Weekly, writes about the careful dance between developers, the city and resident’s groups. Hopefully with the Ontario Municipal Board reined in a little and resident’s associations not lying down when developers come to their ‘hood (witness the seemingly one-sided fight between the ROM towers and the Annex Resident’s Association), Torontoist won’t just see lots of condos that tower over their new neighbours but buildings that’ll actually add to their areas and the city as a whole.

Comments

  • Nadine

    Regarding the ROM Condo… If the South-West corner of University and Bloor isn’t a fine place for a condo tower, then I don’t know what is. I mean, come on. Neighbourhood associations and Toronto’s citizens alike need to realize that there are only a few places in this city that are even suitable for vertical expansion. It’s University and Bloor! Give me a freakin’ break!

  • http://www.andrewspicer.com/ Andrew Spicer

    It wasn’t going to be at “the South-West corner of University and Bloor”. It was going to be on Queen’s Park, in the midst of low-rise museum, university, and government buildings. Not really a suitable place for people to be living, or for a tower.

  • sadman

    Well, anyway, I think we can all agree we should cluster those babies in areas where there are existing high-rises, no?
    How do we stop the 26-story monstrosities planned for the area on the south side of Queen across from the Drake where the zoning is for 5-story? How? HOW? H-O-W !?

  • http://brokenengine.blogspot.com brokenengine

    Car bomb?
    Oops, I think CSIS is at my door…

  • Misha Glouberman

    sadman: If you haven’t already: Check out Active18, a recently-formed group that’s workging to bring more public input into the develpoments you mention.
    http://active18.org/

  • gary

    Historically, one of the surest signs that a bubble is about to burst is when everyone everywhere agrees that it will not.

  • http://torontolife.com/magazine/index.cfm?listing_id=104 mw

    http://torontolife.com/
    magazine/index.cfm?listing_id=104

  • http://www.thabstracttruth.blogspot.com abstract truth

    unfortunately 20- and 30-somethings are having to pay upwards of about 225,000 for 700 square feet of living space. add to that the perils of the ‘phantom mortgage’, attractively low maintenance which suddenly skyrocket, and a host of other often-unresearched pitfalls, and suddenly condo living suddenly doesn’t seem so amazing. i’d love to see more affordable townhomes, which are good for leaving sky space open. of course, these are not nearly as profitable as condos, as it is ‘better’ for developers to build up rather than out.

  • Sidd Pitt

    Compared to other cities of similar and larger sizes the population density in downtown and midtown Toronto is low, partly because we are lucky enough to have Jane Jacobs as a resident and moreso because as a growing city the majority of the growth in residential housing delegated to the suburban fringe, adding to the bigger problem which is sprawl devouring green land.
    To get more people living downtown higher density housing is required. Condos are a reasonable solution as long as they are regulated by bylaws that require that the ground floor is commercial and they do not rain fire on the rest of the neighbourhood, that they don’t cast rude-shaped shadows across the rest of the neighbourhood in the evening etc., etc. . As long as there is reasonable consideration put into the design and placement of condos they are a decent solution for housing people in Toronto.
    Granted, wherever larger condo units get built they can’t help but change the landscape and community dynamic. For instance the area around the Drake will never be the same if those builings go up. However, that area was never the same the moment the Drake was refurbished and what The Drake changed wasn’t what it was seventy years ago when Parkdale and area was considered on par with Rosedale. Queen W. and Parkdale are going to change even more once the redevelopment of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health grounds at Ossington get underway Front Street is extended West, giving greater accessibility to that whole pocket of the city. Certainly those factors played into city council’s willingness to grant permits for new high density construction in that area.
    As somewhat of an aside, laneway housing is a nice idea but tricky in practice because you’d have to have a lot of property owners wanting to sell the back half of their property to make it a viable alternative to condos as far as available units. Also the nature of laneways makes building in them difficult because a lot of them won’t readily fit things like concrete trucks and because utilities often come in from the street side of lots.

  • Walt

    The population density in most of Toronto is fairly low and can be increased substantially without destroying neighbourhoods. How to do this will vary by location. High-rise condos are completely appropriate in the downtown core. Bring on more of them! They are not-so-appropriate in many other places, including funky Parkdale. Adaptive reuse of existing buildings (Candy Factory, factories along Hanna and Liberty, etc.), along with new mid-rise will bring many more residents to this area while respecting its established character. Yes, change will occur, but it can be managed. Mindless building of high-rises all over the place is as damaging as NIMBYs who would like to freeze-frame their world and keep everything as it is today.

  • jason

    The TL story is online now. You can read it in its entirety here:
    http://www.torontolife.com/magazine/index.cfm?listing_id=104

  • Gilles

    Does anyone know of developers that are intentionally building more reasonable condos developments ? Ones without complete fitness centres or olympic-class swimming pools, and preferably with some kind of green space ?