Last year I led my first Jane's Walk, "Yonge and Eglinton is for People." The rough theme was about the planned divide East vs West of Yonge St, how we are (and aren't) growing, and what it means for how we think about our neighbours.
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Despite talk about provincial interference, the City's Yonge-Eglinton Secondary Plan always put the growth into existing Apartment Neighbourhood (with resulting demolitions) and along Avenues (later heritage-listed), while low-rise Neighbourhood was largely unchanged. That's still the case.
Black lines are political boundaries carving up high-density areas into three ridings or wards (Toronto-St Pauls, Eglinton-Lawrence, Don Valley West). The land use pattern mimics many demographic patterns. But enough about boring zoning. Let's walk!
On the SW corner of Yonge and Eglinton is a 9.2 acre TTC-owned site with three office towers, a large bus depot and LRT construction staging area. When (say *when* with confidence) the LRT is finished, the City and Oxford Properties (OMERS) plan to redevelop it into park & housing, some affrodable.
One block North: Northern District Library + Stanley Knowles Co-op on top. TPL's website has a great history, including the fact that the City thought land for a 24-storey office building fronting on Yonge was prohibitively expensive in 1971! https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/northerndistrict/
Instead, the City did land assembly in the nearby low-rise residential street until they had a big enough site. But neighbouring residents objected to a 24-storey office building because of fears about increased traffic. Eventually, 12.5 storeys of co-op housing on the library was negotiated instead
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