Our public spaces are cherished and need to remain open to various public uses and free from corporate influence. Yonge and Dundas Square is a perfect example of turning a great opportunity for the enrichment of the public into a literal corporate billboard, dozens of them in fact. What a garish and uninspired use of public space. We must preserve our public realm and use it to give residents a sense of space and history, not just to gather advertising dollars or enrich developers.
Accessibility
Making as much space as possible fully accessible cannot come fast enough, especially on the TTC. There are complications in our ward, like the split sidewalk on the north side of Queen St between Hammersmith and Glen Manor, but we need to get creative and find more solutions.
Urban Design Guidelines and Heritage Conservation
We are losing our heritage far too quickly in this city, most of it being gobbled up by developers. There are so many older buildings with details the likes of which we will never see again, because it would eat too much into developers’ profits to create that kind of building façade.
The condo conversion of Bellefair United Church on Queen shows it is possible to maintain the heritage element, we need more innovations and preservation like that. The loss of the beautiful old house on the northwest corner of Main and Kingston is a shame. We are likely to lose even more older architecture on Kingston Rd when 955 gets redeveloped.
Every neighbourhood should have urban design guidelines, developed with the community, to rein in developers and give the community peace of mind. Of course, the province has the power to sweep away urban design guidelines, but that does not mean they should not exist. They really should be inviolable, and not a hurdle to bypass as happened at the Shell Station (Heartwood) and is going to happen at 1631 Queen St. I speak at length here about the Heartwood condo violating the urban design guidelines, the irony being the section they violated is still in the guidelines.
A great example that’s not in our ward but right next door, the soy sauce factory at Queen and Leslie. I would rather first repurpose this building before building yet more units, and
I am very much in favour of creating new heritage conservation districts to protect our neighbourhoods, from main streets to side streets. As stated elsewhere, our development policy is incompatible with mitigating climate change, every addition of density strains our services and infrastructure and makes our city less livable and our food security worse, and we are losing our history and character with every drab cube-like condo erected and every beautiful historical building demolished.
Public Art
Anyone following my activities knows what a proponent of public art I am. I’ve run three different public art Jane’s Walks in the area, I chose the artist on one of our traffic signal boxes (Queen and Beech), with the BIA I devised and executed the “What do you love about the Beach?” painting on the construction hoarding of the Remax, and I spearheaded and even designed some of the tree planter paintings on Queen St in the Beach.
StreetART Toronto is an amazing initiative, and it needs to be expanded. Every empty grey wall or blank brick alleyway should become a gallery for the public to enjoy. Not only does it discourage graffiti, it beautifies the area and becomes a tourist attraction.
Putting public art on construction hoarding should be mandatory, with the requirement to use local artists and be entirely at the expense of the developer. Construction is enough of a drain on an area, it should not also mean staring at empty plywood walls for a year or more.
And when developers are required to add some public art to a new development, it should go to a vote by local residents. Too many developers have chosen the most drab and uninspired metal monstrosities, one might even say utilitarian, pieces of public art to put in the middle of their courtyards. We cannot leave our public realm in the hands of the same developers surrounding us with drab condos.
