ARA holds annual general meeting
By Geremy Bordonaro
Development dominated the Annex Residents’ Association (ARA) annual general meeting on April 27.
The area has seen an increase in developments over the last few years, most notably the Westbank Projects Corp.’s Mirvish Village development, and that coloured every topic of discussion, from bike lanes to community housing. Read more
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The Toronto and East York Community Council unanimously endorsed a planning staff recommendation to approve Westbank Projects Corp.’s application to redevelop the southwest corner of Bloor and Bathurst streets on April 4. It’s a significant milestone that comes after three years of community consultations and collaborative work between the Vancouver-based developer, planning staff, and community representatives. Read more
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Not just buildings
By Joe Cressy
If you’ve ever made your way to a development meeting in Ward 20, you’ve heard me talk about the need to build community as we grow and change. With almost one quarter of all proposed development in the entire city occurring in our ward, we’d be leading ourselves astray without this focus. This has been my primary focus in the review of the Mirvish Village redevelopment proposal, which continues to evolve after three iterations. Read more
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Toronto for Everyone celebrates Honest Ed’s
By Geremy Bordonaro
For 68 years, Honest Ed’s welcomed all those who came to its doors. While the store made its last sale on the final day of 2016, it will play host to a grand wake before it closes its doors one last time. And organizers hope the celebration will be a tribute to the spirit of inclusivity that they say was a hallmark of the discount emporium. Read more
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On Nov. 25 the Bloor Annex Business Improvement Area (whose chair also publishes this newspaper) showcased its street revitalization plans at Markham House in Mirvish Village. The plans — expected to be implemented in 2018 — include converting public rights-of-way along Bloor Street into parkettes and a renewed tree inventory on the north side of the street. Read more
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Mirvish Village’s internationally-known comics and graphic novel retailer The Beguiling has already begun moving to its new location at 319 College St. Its sister store, Little Island Comics on Bathurst Street, will be closed. The store’s Peter Birkemoe says he expects to open the new location just before Christmas, and be fully operational by January. Read more
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Community meeting scheduled for June 13
PHOTO COURTESY WESTBANK PROJECTS CORP./Henriquez Partners Architects: A new on-site park is part of Westbank’s revised rezoning application. Still at the conceptual stage, it will include a dog run, water feature, and urban agriculture.
By Annemarie Brissenden Read more
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Galleries & Studios Hop returns to Markham Street April 23 and 24
Landscape artist Jill Boschulte, who works from small planes, creates monoprints, water-coloured pencil drawings, and collages. Her Furrows (above) will feature at Art Zone during the Hop.
COURTESY ART ZONE
By Annemarie Brissenden Read more
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Our third survey of development projects in our coverage area highlights projects that interest us, trends that appall us, and elements that enthrall us. We favour innovative projects that connect with a neighbourhood’s built form, reflect community consultation, and meet the objectives of the City of Toronto’s Official Plan. We take a dim view of developers that do an end run around the process and appeal directly to the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB), which demonstrates little respect for the city’s urban planning guidelines. And, we — once again — make an argument for razing the OMB. Please click on the image below to enlarge. Read more
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Mirvish Villagers stress link between affordability and character
By Annemarie Brissenden
Mirvish Villagers accustomed to battling real estate developers greeted an unexpected overture from Westbank Projects Corp. on April 30 at the Randolph Academy with polite skepticism. It was one of a series of introductory meetings hosted by the company, which last fall purchased a 3.47-acre site that includes Honest Ed’s and Mirvish Village.
“We do things differently,” said Ian Duke of Westbank to the approximately 60 people in attendance. “We don’t see ourselves as a developer, we see ourselves as city builders.”
Duke explained that Westbank currently doesn’t have a plan for the site, and hasn’t even hired an architecture firm. The sole dictate at this point is that the future site will be a mixed-use development of some sort, and it is unlikely that it would be a hotel.
Westbank’s goal for the meeting, then, was to introduce its representatives to the community and gain an understanding of what makes Mirvish Village special to those who live and work in the area.
Duke opened the discussion by presenting Westbank’s guiding ideas for creating what it terms a “community vision” for the site. The nine points included mixed use, sharing economy (for example, co-op daycare, car share, farmers’ market), heritage, community space, and urban mobility.
In response, those attending the meeting asked practical questions, suggested some guiding principles of their own, and shared their misgivings about developers in general.
On the practical side, business owners wanted to know when work would begin on the project (not until 2017 at the earliest) and how long it would take to complete (as long as two to three years).
With regard to suggested guiding principles, chief among them was affordability.
One speaker said “low rents provide an opportunity for certain kinds of businesses and artists [to] exist here.”
Another speaker related that Mirvish Village was thought to be the legacy of Ed Mirvish’s wife, Anne Mirvish, who had wanted to create a space for artists.
“Rent control is a boon to us. Moving 100 metres—rent would be four times what we pay,” added a third.
Duke admitted that affordability is “going to be one of our biggest challenges. We’ll obviously need to apply a lot of creativity to that.”
The participants kept returning to affordability, arguing that it is inextricably linked to something else they hold dear: Mirvish Village’s heritage and character.
“People come here because it’s not the same, because it’s different,” said one business owner.
“That will be a yardstick we apply to the final project,” answered Duke.
While the participants were cautiously optimistic about Westbank’s approach, they did express some cynicism about developers in general.
As one speaker commented, “It may not be like this in Vancouver, but in Toronto, developers don’t have a good reputation,” adding, “To what degree are you going to deliver on this excellent list?”
“We want to find out what things really hit the mark with people. What are must-haves, what resonates, what doesn’t,” said Duke. “One hundred people will have 100 different ideas. We want to distill a hierarchy of what’s important to get out of the process.”
“Just know that a lot of people will be watching that list,” responded a participant.
In addition to the Randolph Academy meeting, Westbank’s representatives met with four business improvement associations (BIAs) and four residents’ associations. The groups they spoke to included the Bloor-Annex BIA, the Harbord Street BIA, and the Palmerston Area and Seaton Village residents’ associations. It also held a similar introductory session with 45 members of the Centre for Social Innovation Annex on Bathurst Street, and is exploring how best to communicate with local residents and business owners, be it through a project website, twitter, or even a community kiosk.
Duke said Westbank anticipates presenting the results of these meetings at an open house in June, when there will be another opportunity to discuss the guiding ideas and get input from the community. He expects the company to hire an architectural firm in late summer or early fall and to present the first iteration of the plan for the area in December or January.
But he stresses that the timeline is a preliminary one, and Westbank could easily fall behind.
“We would rather do things right than quickly,” Duke said.
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- The popular graphic novels make use of many Annex locations. Image courtesy Oni Press.
By Tim Legault
As Bryan Lee O’Malley, creator of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels, sat signing a stack of his sixth and final volume in the series (Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour) in preparation for the book’s launch party, he recalled Publishers Weekly’s review of his first volume six years ago. Read more
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