I attended the community “consultation” for 143-147 Main St on Feb 12th. It was the usual: developers and planners present and justify their plans, making overreaching and greatly impactful applications seem reasonable and fair. It is abundantly clear the goal is to densify every major intersection in Toronto, and overdensify anything remotely close to a major transit area. Farther below are my comments and questions at the meeting, but here’s the main takeaways:

• Regarding tenant parking, the idea (which is the idea for the majority of new builds) is that renters in new builds simply won’t also be car owners. There are currently parking spots for some of the 7 existing units, but the 4 spots in the new building will be entirely for temporary parking. And Councillor Bradford has made it clear time and again no new street permits will be issued. Meaning existing tenants wanting to move back into the new building will have to sell their cars or find somewhere to store them.
• having a minimum of heritage-like details is good enough, reaching the level of aesthetic detail of the original building is not required, and only the first two floors (matching the existing building) need to have anything resembling heritage details, the rest of the building can be fully modern
• the immense size and lack of setbacks compared to the rest of the area doesn’t matter, as this is meant to be the first development to set a precedent to justify building up the entire intersection anywhere from 2-6 times the height of existing buildings
• rents on existing units will be somewhat maintained for ten years (they never specifically answered my question on the 2-bedroom units that will be replaced with a 2-bedroom + den and a 3-bedroom), but the rest will be market rent. When I asked that considering market rent is always changing and is currently falling if there is a minimum rent to make this a viable business case they could not answer, stating ultimately that is up to the owner.
• The massive empty wall on the north side, that will tower over the area for who knows how long, the developer considers a bunch of staggered simple grey panels to be aesthetically pleasing and interesting enough for people to stare at.
• there was a written question in the chat regarding the closest school Kimberly Junior Public School being at capacity but they never answered that one

In case anyone wants to know what evidence fuels my opposition to increased density, you will find a comprehensive list with supporting links here:

More Density, More Problems

Here is my full question and comments:

Hello, my name is Adam Smith, resident of Beaches East York. Thanks for the presentation, I have some quick comments, and then a few simple questions.

It’s great that you guys somewhat maintain details on the first two floors that mimic the heritage of the original building, although the curved row of bricks above the existing second floor windows and the multicoloured brickwork would be nicer, but then it stops there. What you describe as a “sleek and minimalist aesthetic” to me is just another boring boxing bland stack of cubes like 90% of the new builds out there. You call it an aesthetic but it just seems like a cost cutting measure, as fine details are expensive.

There is no set back on the front of the building, so it will appear to tower over all the surrounding buildings. In particular the south and north faces create a massive wall dominating the landscape. As there is no guarantee the other developments directly to the north will ever actually happen, if this gets built alone it will stick out like a sore thumb for the foreseeable future, something we’ve seen in a few developments in the area.

Generally I feel it’s too big for this site and doesn’t integrate with the existing streetscape, and I would like to see the heritage aesthetics continued on the entire building.

I know you asked us to refrain from question about existing tenants, but it’s not clear if that meeting will be open to the general public and I only have one question about that. I’ve read the housing issues report, it says “Rents for replacement units to be the rent at first occupancy” but does that mean the 7 replacement units are going to be at the same rent as the existing units, especially considering one of the 2-bedroom units will now have a den and one of the replacements is going from a 2 bedroom to a 3 bedroom?

Do we know what will the rent be on the remaining units? And please don’t say market rent, because that is not static and is constantly evolving and happens to be falling right now. To justify the business case for building this development at some point there was a calculation of what the rents must be to support the desired revenues of the property owner, and I would like to know what the initial asking rent will be, or is that something only the property owner knows?

Lastly, the north face of the building, it’s not clear to me what those details are, are they panels on the side? The Lakehouse condos on Queen St left a massive empty brick wall on the streetscape for over a decade now. As you stated this building is the only one planned at the moment, if this building goes up before any buildings directly to the north of the site are there any plans to put something on this massive empty wall? For example a green wall, or some kind of public art?

Thank you for your time.

Adam Smith, 21st Century