In many Canadian cities, a 19-storey apartment building would be the tallest thing on the skyline, but here in Toronto, things are very different.
A relatively tall apartment building at Don Mills and Bayview is on the chopping block, with owner Compten Management seeking to tear down the tower at 2600 Don Mills Road and replace it with a huge new complex with four rental towers that would be more than double the height of what exists today.
An application submitted with City planners spells the possible end of the current rental building, seeking to level the site and its 226 homes to build a group of towers that would rise as tall as 47 storeys.
Goldberg Group
An earlier plan for the site sought to preserve the tower and infill green space on surrounding lands with new density. That 2017 plan called for a 39-storey tower to be constructed adjacent to the retained apartment building, which led to a settlement plan with the City three years later for a scaled-back 33-storey tower.
Google Street View
However, changes to planning policies, including the promotion of density at what the province calls “Major Transit Station Areas” around transit stations, have led to a rethink of the plan that supersizes the proposal.
The current plan wipes the earlier planning context from the slate and is asking for a much larger build-out than what was proposed years earlier.
Towers of 47, 42, 42, and 42 storeys, with designs from BDP Quadrangle, would be more than double the height of the existing building, and would bring a significant boost in density to the TTC’s largely underutilized Line 4 – Sheppard subway.
A total of 1,814 units are proposed across the two towers, and the project team has worked out a way to ensure that existing rentals would not be displaced during demolition and construction.
The plan includes 226 rental replacement units in accordance with the City’s rental housing demolition policies. These suites would be constructed within the 42-storey tower at the southwest side of the site before the existing tower is taken down.
Demolition of the current tower would only begin once residents of the building are able to move into their new digs in replacement units within this first phase tower.
In most apartment redevelopment projects, residents are displaced in the interim while a replacement building is constructed, though this strategy will allow current residents to simply pack up and relocate one door over.
With Bayview station on Line 4 just outside their door, the majority of residents will not need to rely on cars to get around the city, and only 517 parking spaces are proposed for the over 1,800 units. In addition to the relatively small parking component, the plan includes over 1,360 bicycle parking spots.
The construction of a huge complex would undoubtedly cause a stir in the local community, though area residents will get something back out of the project through a planned onsite public park occupying over 1,000 square metres, or approximately 10 per cent of the total site area.
