Tower-in-the-park style housing was built in abundance across the Toronto landscape during the mid-20th century, moving people into efficient high-rise suites while surrounding the towers with vast green lawns. The practice has since fallen out of favour as the vast green spaces were seldom used by residents, did not function as parkland for the community, while they managed to separate livelier parts of the city with long walks that few pedestrians wanted to make.
Aerial south view, 250 Davenport Road, image retrieved from Apple Maps
Some of Toronto's tower-in-the-park buildings are owned by Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC), and it is well known that the public affordable housing agency now has a substantial backlog of work to repair some of its aging building stock. To fund some of that work, TCHC has been considering the land that their buildings lie on, and seeing where the sale of some of the land will heal the local planning issues. At 250 Davenport Road, seen in the south-facing aerial view above with a tower on the left and a vast swath of lawn on the right, the TCHC has identified a 1968-built 25-storey apartment tower with 449 affordable rental units as a property suited for intensification.
Aerial south view, 250 Davenport Road, image courtesy of Diamond Corp/Metropia
Developers Diamond Corp and Metropia will add a TACT Architecture-designed 28-storey, 94.25-metre tower with 315 residential units plus six integrated towns at the base, and 39 back-to-back townhomes on the west side of the site. 11 existing affordable housing townhouse units fronting onto Pears Avenue will be torn down to make way for a new three-storey residential building. The existing towns, which sit above the site's below-grade parking garage, will be fully replaced by new-built homes for TCHC residents in a new townhouse block on the east side of the existing building.
250 Davenport Road, image courtesy of Diamond Corp/Metropia
An initial concept was met with some resistance from residents of the existing apartment tower and representatives of the Annex Residents Association. A number of concerns were raised during pre-application community consultation meetings over the past year, including issues related to the loss of green space, tower separation, new building height, parking availability, improvements to the existing apartment building, relocation of existing townhouse units, wind conditions, shadow impact and views.
View along Pears Ave, image courtesy of Diamond Corp/Metropia
The developers have addressed the concerns in a revised proposal that shifts the new tower to the western end of the site, and modifies the existing parking garage to allow greening of the existing surface parking lot. Local residents will be given the opportunity to learn more about the proposal at a follow-up community consultation being planned for the first quarter of 2016. A Final Report by Toronto's Planning Department is expected to follow in the third quarter of 2016.
View along Davenport Ave, image courtesy of Diamond Corp/Metropia
Additional information and renderings can be found in our dataBase file for the project, linked below. Want to get involved in the discussion? Check out the associated Forum threads, or leave a comment using the space provided at the bottom of this page.