Welcome to ABCRA’s summer 2023 newsletter. In this edition, we share with you news from our neighbourhood and upcoming community events, including ABCRA’s 65th Anniversary celebrations in Ramsden Park on Sunday, June 25.
Ontario Place for All has released “A Better Idea,” a proposal for a new way to approach the revitalization of Ontario Place. Given the recent addition of the Science Centre to the site, the new proposal leverages the Ontario Line at both ends, connecting the natural features of the Don River Valley and Lake Ontario, while revitalizing Ontario Place, enhancing and expanding the mandate of the Science Centre, while building affordable housing.
Each Planning Report dealing with various building initiatives identifies the importance to preserve the neighbourhood tree canopy, yet the actual action to do so becomes weaker and weaker.
In the coming months, you’ll be seeing and hearing more about what’s called a “secondary plan” that will guide development in our neighbourhood for the next 25 years. You have a right, and hopefully a desire, to participate in advocating for the kind of community that you want to see. That’s why this communication is the first of three or four we’ll be sending to explain the various elements of the plan.
Paris, after a flirtation with tall buildings that has led to two or three controversial projects scattered about the edge of its centre, last week reimposed old rules that ban buildings above 37 metres (121ft).
A rare climbdown by Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives — on an ill-fated housing plan for prime agricultural land — left Housing Minister Steve Clark bruised and critics saying a government with MPPs across rural Ontario is “clueless” on a key farm issue.
ABCRA co-chaired the FoNTRA Garden Suite working group to review the proposal and recommended improvements to the proposed bylaw. The Garden Suites Working Group with a number of ABCRA board members was actively involved in consultations with City Planning staff while developing recommendations.
Bringing Laneway Suites to Toronto and East York District and Laneway Suites – A New Housing Typology for Toronto by Lanescape Evergreen was considered at the June 2017 Toronto and East York Community Council (TEYCC). ABCRA and other RAs expressed concerns about the specifics of the proposal and scope of consultation.
City of Toronto Heritage Planning utilizes Cultural Heritage Resource Assessments (CHRAs) to document and analyze an area’s history and ensure that properties of potential cultural heritage value or interest are appropriately identified, understood and conserved. Read our submission to the City, providing input and recommendations for the CHRA field study of the Bloor-Yorkville/North Midtown Area.
The proposed change to “Basil Johnston Terrace” would acknowledge and honour the First Nation presence and positive contribution within our community and our city. Basil Johnston Terrace would commemorate the significant contribution of a brilliant Ojibway author and educator, recognized in his 2015 Globe & Mail Obituary as the “foremost scholar of Anishinaabe life. Andin the Canadian Encyclopedia as “one of the foremost indigenous authors in Canada.”