10-05-2017, 12:40 PM
Part of the beautiful thing about development is nobody gets kicked out of their place, nobody has to leave. The problem is how many rights we deem appropriate to give to current people living in places. In Toronto, at an OMB case, a woman argued against a development because it would shade her eggplants for an hour each day. So she argued that homes for dozens of families were less important than an extra hour of sun for her eggplants. That's an extreme example.
In this case, there is exactly one property that is adjacent to the development which, at its rear yard, could see a building higher than the current neighbourhood roof lines. Not from anyone else's sidewalk across the street would you see a roof line any different than current norms. That's a heck of a lot of bending backwards, and how rare is it to get a site where you can actually propose missing middle housing without subjecting people to the horror of something different than they currently see, let alone within a few minutes' walk from an LRT station? When I first saw this proposal, I thought that it was too UNambitious of all things.
But no, I don't believe that in the hearts of our cities anyone has a right to stop things that they can see for little other reason. In the suburbs, buried away from main corridors, that's different, but I don't believe that someone should be able to move to the core, the densest part of our region, the part that should be changing the most and hosting the most of everything, and tell it to stop. Less so do I believe that it is a good idea to shape development which won't be finished for 5-10 years based on the wants of people who have lived in the area for a long time; the longer your memory, the farther it is from what today is about, and the longer your memory, the fewer years you have left to shape the world. I remember some of the most vehement opponents of LRT actually passing away before the first hole had been dug; should we shape our cities to conform to the memories of those who have passed away? Or to those, like me, who have 50-70 years left to give back to, live in, and help these communities thrive?
In this case, there is exactly one property that is adjacent to the development which, at its rear yard, could see a building higher than the current neighbourhood roof lines. Not from anyone else's sidewalk across the street would you see a roof line any different than current norms. That's a heck of a lot of bending backwards, and how rare is it to get a site where you can actually propose missing middle housing without subjecting people to the horror of something different than they currently see, let alone within a few minutes' walk from an LRT station? When I first saw this proposal, I thought that it was too UNambitious of all things.
But no, I don't believe that in the hearts of our cities anyone has a right to stop things that they can see for little other reason. In the suburbs, buried away from main corridors, that's different, but I don't believe that someone should be able to move to the core, the densest part of our region, the part that should be changing the most and hosting the most of everything, and tell it to stop. Less so do I believe that it is a good idea to shape development which won't be finished for 5-10 years based on the wants of people who have lived in the area for a long time; the longer your memory, the farther it is from what today is about, and the longer your memory, the fewer years you have left to shape the world. I remember some of the most vehement opponents of LRT actually passing away before the first hole had been dug; should we shape our cities to conform to the memories of those who have passed away? Or to those, like me, who have 50-70 years left to give back to, live in, and help these communities thrive?