Hello! I've teamed up with Raymond Biesinger on a new book, 305 Lost Buildings of Canada, that tells brief stories about the death and life of our cities. Available now
@goose_lane
for preorder:
The Ontario Science Centre (Raymond Moriyama, 1969) is a masterpiece and a deeply important building. The Doug Ford government is going to abandon and demolish it. That’s shameful.
Ontario has now passed its Bill 23 on housing and go. In time the most destructive element will be the removal of tenant protections. Allowing apartment buildings to become teardowns - with no compensation for existing tenants - is a disaster.
This is rightly being dunked on.
- 3700-square-foot house for two people
- plus a full basement!
- suburban, i.e. they drive everywhere
-“environmentalists”
Over the last 20 years this city has just become one giant mass of malignant, rectangular-shaped tumours
Look what they tore down to build this featureless garbage, man.
New push on Ontario Place today from
@ThermeCanada
. PR headline is “more free park space.” But this space is privately managed, and some is on rooftops. That’s not a park.
It’s still a private attraction that destroys the entire existing island and has no place on this site
Toronto: Proposal for a four-storey apartment building, 100m from a subway entrance on an arterial road, and the neighbours are furious. “Tower,” “neighbourhood character,” etc. 50 years of NIMBY local politics need to be undone.
Paul Rudolph’s extraordinary Niagara Falls Public Library, 1974: one of the most fantastical of Brutalist buildings, troubled but very much still alive.
John Tory’s legacy is cemented today: the full rebuild of the Gardiner Expressway and senseless destruction at Ontario Place.
Billions of public dollars spent to make Toronto worse
This deal represents an extremely important first step in recognizing Toronto's unique status among cities in Ontario and Canada and beginning to address some of the challenges that go with that. My congratulations to Premier
@fordnation
and Mayor
@oliviachow
.
Wearing high visibility clothing or reflective gear is a key part of keeping everyone safe, including pedestrians, construction workers, cyclists, police officers and crossing guards. Let's make
@VisionZeroTO
work.
#Toronto
#TOpoli
“Good urban design” in downtown Toronto. The continuous glazing and too-high ceiling are city policy all the way. The result is going to be unloved and commercially unsuccessful.
Much of Central Toronto is losing people. This is one reason why. Six apartments -> one mansion. No planning permission needed, no penalty for evicting the tenants.
#toronto
This one size fits all Toronto centric approach won’t solve home ownership issues in other communities… What it will do is destroy communities across this province turning us all into a sea of sameness tower after tower, in town after town…
Some people in Toronto expect to be able to drive quickly across downtown in rush hour. I have bad news for them: this is never going to be possible again. Ever.
Even tho there's
@Canucks
hockey tonight there are a lot of people in Kits Neighbourhood House concerned about impacts of the Broadway Plan on Kits and surrounding neighbourhood. I'm here as a speaker b/c notwithstanding the hsg crisis, a tenfold increase in density is wrong! :(
The Ontario gov't has put out its business case for moving the Ontario Science Centre. It is blatantly dishonest. This will save $596-million over 50 years - if you wreck the existing heritage building, and don't count costs of the $500-million garage or renovations.
In Toronto, a very fine 15-storey building by Canada’s most important 20c architecture firm (Parkin, 1972) is now a teardown. As a waste of emissions and destruction of quality architecture, this is obscene.
We believe no neighborhood should be exempt from change, but no neighborhood should be subjected to radical change. Incremental development is a major key to building better places.
Rob Ford was not a good mayor. He was a very poor leader who - just through his policy choices and political rhetoric - did huge damage to Toronto.
This should not be controversial.
I love Toronto, but it neglects its public spaces and hates pedestrians. Newly repaired guardrail keeps cars from falling down the hill - but not from crushing passersby.
Toronto is choosing not to build thousands of potential homes on public land for purely aesthetic reasons - because towers will “overwhelm” the views. Dangerous nonsense.
While millions of people have moved to the Greater Toronto Area, many parts of the 416 are actually losing population — even if they feel more crowded, writes
@mattgurney
#topoli
#onpoli
The Ontario Place bill. Enviro, planning, heritage, even noise regulations explicitly do not apply. Ford is blowing up every normal process and procedure for a waterpark
It’s deeply disappointing to see the
@TorontoStar
put forward NIMBY complaints - many of them false - from some of the richest neighbourhoods in the country.
Bad news. One of the best 19c buildings in Toronto - 149 College, by Old City Hall architect E.J. Lennox, 1894 - is now a potential development site.
This means this structure could be reduced to a facade.
So many things in our society and city that need to change, and we’re led by people who want to destroy the best architectural expressions of social democracy.
I kid about heritage, but there’s a real problem here. Toronto claims to value its retail main streets, but is pushing development onto them. Houses are untouchable. Landmark dive bars are expendable.
Toronto Council voted to join the club today eliminating parking minimums, one of the largest cities in North America to do so - Parking Mandates Map via
@Parking_Reform
Former cabinet minister speaks on Ontario Place. “A competitive process” entirely in secret, then the winners get a $500-million handout when it’s done.
@BonnieforLeader
@OntarioPlace
First, it was a competitive process. Second, the process was lead by bureaucrats at Heritage and Infrastructure Ontario. Third, thanks for letting us know you would continue to let Ontario Place and Ontario Science Centre rot.
Toronto's traffic congestion is already ridiculous. What we need is to finish the Gardiner rebuild - not have another dozen rounds of consultation, debate, and delay.
1/2
Toronto is growing. We need new ways to house more folks in all our neighbourhoods with services like schools, parks and transit.
Part of that's allowing more "missing middle" housing on residential major streets.
Consultations are open until Dec. 14:
“22 minutes when people are scared in their homes from somebody who has broken into their home is not what Torontonians expect or deserve” says
@TPSMyronDemkiw
as he discusses police response times and hiring needs with
@CBCToronto
#SupportYourTPS
Therme was a top contender to help redevelop Ontario Place even before our government was elected in 2018. The NDP need to stop playing politics: it’s time to rebuild Ontario Place for future generations.
Early take on the Toronto “New Deal”: Under the circumstances it’s a remarkable deal for the city. But these concessions on Ontario Place and the Gardiner will haunt the city for generations to come.
The West Island of Ontario Place is slated to be destroyed. Minister
@KingaSurmaMPP
email promises “the removal of a significant amount of trees and vegetation.”
Decisive moment for a beautiful, beloved and historic place. Mayor
@oliviachow
’s last chance to intervene is now.
The idea that neighborhoods should be walkable is lovely. The idea that idiot tyrannical bureaucrats can decide by fiat where you're "allowed" to drive is perhaps the worst imaginable perversion of that idea--and, make no mistake, it's part of a well-documented plan.