Residents Get Engaged

Volume 11, No. 20

By NRU Staff

Construction on the tower at 1 Bedford Avenue is now underway, but the site still manages to raise the ire of many annex residents who opposed the original plan to replace the low-rise buildings along Bloor Street West--including the former studios of Toronto architect John Lyle--with condominium towers. Making the leap from a three storey structure to a 32-storey tower did not sit well with many in the outspoken and well organized Annex community who fear development encroaching on their stable residential neighbourhoods abutting Bloor Street.

Many veterans of the Annex's development battles were among the 150 people in attendance at last week's kick-off forum for the Bloor Visioning Study. The study is designed to get the city to create a comprehensive vision for Bloor Street, between Avenue Road and Bathurst Street, and to avoid struggles of planning the corridor one application at a time.

"Getting out ahead of the game is actually less work in the end for planners and provides certainty for everyone as to the intended future of the corridor," said Jennifer Keesmaat, partner at Toronto planning firm Office for Urbanism that is leading the consulting team for the study.

The study is designed to get the community engaged in a discussion on how "responsible intensification" can be achieved along the corridor, Keesmaat told NRU following the meeting. Although the meeting affirmed that many res-idents are concerned that intensification will threaten the viability of their residential neighbourhoods in the Annex.

Residents helped identify existing uses and expectations for the corridor as well as hotspots of contention and areas of consensus. How bicycles function in the corridor was identified as a key issue by many, highlighting the need to include cyclists in the study process. While the corridor itself is not a bicycle route, many bicycle routes feed into it and have been a source of conflict with pedestrians and motorists.

"This is a great example of a democratic process," said Keesmaat who was thrilled with the level of feedback and the range of opinions that were expressed.

"What was really reinforced was the importance of the process, and doing it right to ensure that the involvement is significant," said Keesmaat.

The corridor in question is a challenging one that tran¬sitions from a predominantly main-street character between Bathurst and Spadina where development rarely exceeds the five-storey zoning permission, to more intense development and institutional uses approaching Avenue Road.

The next forum will take place June 22 and 23 to give residents an opportunity to discuss the guiding principles of the study and the design of the corridor. The study is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

The study team consists of Keesmaat, Harold Madi, Mike Hudson and Annely Zonena (Office for Urbanism), Jim Gough (Marshall Macklin Monaghan), Michael Spaziani (Michael Sapziani Architects) and Scott Chandler (Cushman Wakefield LePage). Barry Brooks is the planner for the City of Toronto.

© 2007 NRU Publishing Inc.