Sustainability : Development News

Three small buildings opened on Leslie Spit last week, giving an air of permanence and purpose to what’s been called an accidental urban wilderness.

According to James Roche, director of parks, design and construction at Waterfront Toronto, the spit was created as a breakwater for the outer harbour, part of a shipping plan for the Port of Toronto that was made obsolete before it was completed by the development of container ships.

Since the 1950s, it has been a dumping ground for building materials, and has grown into a multi-armed agglomeration that over the years has cultivated its own ecosystem.

"A lot of different species of animals live there now," Roche says, "and it’s a very important flyover stop for birds going to South America."

The three buildings -- a staff booth, an environmental shelter and a bird-banding hut -- are an attempt to make official the casual uses it's been put to. The staff booth will serve as a monitored entryway, enforcing the park's hours. The environmental hut will be a sort of interpretive centre, with information about the spit and its species, that also serves as a way to get out of the sun, rain or snow. The bird-banding hut will centralize the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority’s efforts in that area, just in time for the Tommy Thompson Spring Bird Festival on Saturday.

Work started on the project in the fall of 2010, and Roche says the entire project, including a spiffing up of several kilometres of walking and bike paths, cost $8 million.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: James Roche

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Tridel has won the Home Builder of the Year award for the second time.

The award, handed out by the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), is the result of professional adjudication as well as a survey BILD conducts among homebuyers.

"Home Builder of the Year is an all-encompassing award," says BILD’s vice president of membership, Helen Batista. "It includes charitable work, the professional development of staff, and it very much takes into account the opinion of their actual clients, the people who buy and live in their homes."

Batista also cites the developer, which sold 1,109 condos in 2012, for its green building practices, its youth program, known as BOLT, particularly as conducted through Northview Heights Secondary School.

Tridel won the award once before, in 2004, when there were separate awards for high-rise and low-rise builders. This year's prize covers all homebuilders.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Helen Batista

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Live Green Toronto gave out its annual awards on Monday, and the Corporate Award went to the Simpson’s Tower for its near-perfect recycling record.

"Last year, we had an audited rate of 97 per cent," says building manager Arlena Hebert, explaining the success of the waste diversion program administered by property manager Ivanhoé Cambridge, for whom she works.

The program started a little more than five years ago when each of the building’s garbage cans was replaced with three recycling bins. The building’s average diversion over the last five years has been above 90 per cent, according to Hebert.

Hebert credits all parties with the success of the program, including the building’s owner, Hudson Bay Co., the tenants and the cleaning staff.

"The evening cleaning team is really important," she says. "They’re the ones who empty the recycling bins. If people don’t recycle properly, they don’t empty the bins, and the tenant is left with a note on their desk.”

Getting tenants in on it has been a big part of her work, she says, and she’s organized two field trips to the recycling facility that handles their stuff, GFL (formerly known as Turtle Island).

The Simpson's Tower wasn't the only winner.

Justin Nadeau won the individual award, Gordie Warnoff and his A Higher Plane got the small business award, the group award when to James Davis and the Toronto Bicycle Music Festival, and the youth winner was Thezyrie Amarouche. Each of the winners received a $2,500 prize. The Simpson's Tower is donating its prize to Cycle Toronto to help in its efforts to establish secure bike parking around the city.  

Live Green Toronto, funded by the city's Environment and Energy sector of the Toronto Environment Office and various sponsors, has been giving out awards recognizing the city's greenest companies and individuals since 2005.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Arlena Hebert

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The Ontario Architects Association has announced its prize winners for the year, with two GTA projects standouts among them.

"I really liked the Cedarvale Ravine House,” says OAA president Bill Birdsell of the Drew Mandel Architects-designed infill house. The house sits along Toronto's Cedarvale ravine and features floor to ceiling windows, allowing ample light to flow through its open concept design. "It works very closely with its context and the urban forestry, and it maintains sustainability for that site. That, and the really striking cantilever really stands out for me."

The other project, among eight GTA winners, that Birdsell wanted to call attention to was MacLennan Jaunkalns Miller Architects’ Regent Park Aquatic Centre, which opened along Dundas East late last year and features a pool, large windows and wood accents viewable by street. "I just love that," he said. "Again it comes back to sustainability. It was created on a very tight budget, which I appreciate, and I like the way it brings light down into the pool area."

Birdsell says the winners are chosen each year for the clarity of their architectural language. "If the jury can really understand them," he says, "and the project gets its message across, that’s how they win."

The awards will be presented in May at the OAA annual conference.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Bill Birdsell

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If you’ve gone east on either King or Queen to cross the bridge into Riverside, you can’t help but to have noticed the enormous development going on between the two streets. It’s called River City, and few Toronto condos have been more aptly named.

The pilings are just now being put into the ground for River City 2, the second of what will ultimately be four phases of this massive addition to the city, one that may just make that Don River of ours into something people occasionally remember exists.

"We started construction in the beginning of February," says Jeff Geldart, Urban Capital’s development manager in charge of River City. "We’re currently drilling for caissons and piles -- the foundation system -- because we don’t have any program underground. We’re not allowed to build down."

Geldart explains that they’re not allowed to dig out a foundation of the sort we’ve become used to around the city because they’re building on a flood protection landform built by Infrastructure Ontario to protect the city’s core from the sort of flooding New Orleans experienced after Hurricane Katrina. Geldart describes the landform as "an extremely large berm," and says that the first three phases of the project are all being built on it.

River City 2, designed by the Montreal firm of Saucier and Perrotte with 249 units in three 12-storey mini-towers, will be completed in two years, with the entire project is expected to be done sometime between 2018 and 2020.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jeff Geldart

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"It’s been something in the back of our minds for a while," says Jane Welsh, the city’s acting manager for zoning bylaws and the environment, explaining that these new green roof guidelines are not only new, they’re the first one’s the city’s issued.

Toronto was the first city in North America, according to its website anyway, to pass a green roof bylaw, back in 2009. It stipulates that all buildings with a gross floor space of 2,000 square metres or more, whether residential, industrial or commercial, establish a green roof.

"When we released the green roof bylaw, we thought it would be helpful to residents and to green roof installers," she says, careful to point out there were no particular offenders or offences that inspired the release of these guidelines. "We were getting green roofs that were going up near natural heritage areas. You want to provide an extension of the natural heritage area, and provide habitats for butterflies and bird, perhaps, or just add to the native plant population."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jane Welsh

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As more developers and property managers ho on the green bandwagon, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish one’s self from the crowd. The TD Centre has decided to release a full report of its 2012 performance in what general manager David Hoffman calls a "360 interconnected approach."

"We have done a lot, we have pioneered a lot," Hoffman says. "We have been innovative and we simply want to put it together in one package."

The innovation includes their occupant engagement program, their quarterly Green Council, their green brain trust and their daytime cleaning program, which Hoffman says half of his tenants have opted for.

But the biggest thing for Hoffman is how this report differs from the way most large organizations report their carbon results.

"This is the first time in North America that a project-level sustainability report has been put together separate from its parent organization," he says. "We’re doing it at a property level, an asset level."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: David Hoffman

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Don River Park, the 7.3 hectre park in the heart of the West Don Lands that will be largely completed this month, is remarkable chiefly for its incorporation of what’s known as a flood protection landmass into its landscape.

It’s the latest example of a city that’s long been in the habit of blending infrastructure and design.

Like the old Hydro houses and the R.C. Harris water treatment plant, Infrastructure Ontario’s armoured mound near the mouth of the Don at River Street, meant to protect the downtown core from the sort of flooding that might result from a century hurricane, is one of the centrepieces of this new park, working water necessities into itself, much like Sherbourne Commons turned its water purification plant into a water feature.

"I think this is a good precedent for how we can design our spaces," says James Roach, Waterfront Toronto’s director of parks, design and construction.

The park has been in development since September 2010. When completed, it will run along the Don River while simultaneously providing "spectacular views of downtown and Lake Ontario," according to the park's website. It will include areas for lacrosse, soccer, bird watching, picnics, concerts, tobogganing, as well as meadows and hiking trails. 

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: James Roach

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One of the city’s biggest demolition jobs is about to get underway to make room for a new 540,000 square foot mixed-use complex at 88 Scott Street near Yonge and Wellington.

What’s there now, at 185,000 square feet, is a 1951 limestone building, to which several additions were made in the early 1980s. What makes the demolition such a major project is that the developer, Concert Properties, has decided to save the limestone and incorporate it into the new building.

"All the stones will be catalogued, cleaned and repaired if necessary," says Concert’s VP of development, Kelly Wilson. He says they’ll probably end up being stored for at least two years before being reused. In addition to greatly reducing the demolition waste (and the new material needed for construction), one of the side effects of the decision will be that, despite the new design, the building will retain some familiarity.

"From a pedestrian perspective, you’re going to read the building pretty much the way it reads today," Wilson says. "Floors two to five will look virtually exactly the way it does today."

"The 1951 building that we are reconstructing is not a designated heritage building," Wilson says. "But it is what we call a character building and a good example of a modern classic architectural style. Nevertheless, it has been a part of the fabric of the community for the last 62 years and although salvaging and reinstating the limestone and granite is very expensive, we believe it is the most contextually appropriate urban design solution for the site and the reuse of the stones fits Concert’s commitment to building sustainable communities."

Wilson expects the demolition to take eight or nine months, with another 42 months for construction of the 58-storey tower, which will also include five underground levels. Eighty-eight Scott will have 479 residential units, as well as 60,000 square feet of office space and 10,000 square feet of retail.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Kelly Wilson

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According to a recent broadly based and carefully methodological study, streetcar tracks are not good for cyclists.

Any urban cyclist would have been able to tell you that. They get especially bad in snowy weather, when the sides of streets, the bits usually hived off for cyclists, are piled high with snow moved out of the way of motorists. That’s when people on bikes are pushed closer to the grooves that are perfectly sized for bike tires to slip into them, flipping cyclists off and, possibly, into traffic. When you get to an intersection like Dundas and Bathurst where two streetcar lines cross, trying to keep at right angles to the tracks, the safest way for a cyclist to approach them, can start to look like quadrinomial equation.

But now, there is more than anecdotal evidence. The study, conducted in Toronto and Vancouver, asked 690 cyclists in downtown emergency rooms where they had their accidents and studied the conditions of those sites, comparing them to other randomly selected locations along that same cyclist’s route in what is called a case crossover-designed study meant to factor out variables.

"The relative risk is about 3.18 at intersections," says Anne Harris, assistant professor at Ryerson and the lead author of the paper that deals with these aspects of the study. "That’s approximately three times the risk of injury when streetcar tracks are present. It’s four times when not at intersections."

She called it "one of our stronger risk relationships," the strongest of which was the absence of physically separate bike lanes, which is 10 times riskier than the painted lines we have in Toronto, which the study found offer no significant protection.

The report was published in Injury Prevention and funded by the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Anne Harris

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Some might have expected the man to get a highway at least, given the high Jack Layton went out on, but according to Councillor Paula Fletcher, whose ward was part of Layton’s riding, Jack Layton Way is far more appropriate.

In addition to being an avid cyclist (and not an especially outspoken advocate for highways), "He was a very big community person," Fletcher says. "He always had time for difficult little community problems and he was very much connected to his neighbourhood. Even when he was occupied with big national issues, I could always call him up and he’d always have time for me and the area."

The naming ceremony on Sunday, which took place on the 400-metre-long road near the old Don Jail and the new Bridgepoint Hospital, included a lion dance, acknowledging the Chinatown that was so big a part of Layton’s professional and personal life.

Jack Layton Way will not be the only thing named for the late politician, who died of cancer in 2011. "This is our community’s tribute to Jack Layton," Fletcher says. "This is the community where he was elected as a metro councillor, a city councilllor and an MP. There is the ferry terminal named for him, which the City of Toronto named after him. The mayor, councillor O’Connell and Olivia Chow spent a lot of time looking [for] something that was a large piece of city infrastructure that would be appropriate."

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Paula Fletcher
Photos: Paula Fletcher

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From Jane to Kennedy, Eglinton is going to be a different sort of avenue in the next decade, and the city and Metrolinx are inviting residents to be a part of its development.

Starting with a meeting last night at Keele and Eglinton, and continuing on Feb. 26 at the Noor Cultural Centre on Wynford at Eglinton, and on the 28th at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute near the site of a future transit stop at Chaplin, the city’s planning division and Metrolinx will be educating and collecting suggestions and criticism on what will become of one of the city’s biggest avenues.

"What we’re discussing is an overall public realm plan for the whole corridor," says Lorna Day, the city’s project manager for Eglinton Connects. "We’re also looking at ways to green the corridor, to provide better connections to the parks and ravines system, and whether there are opportunities to plant bigger trees."

Like many of the city’s avenues, Eglinton is grossly under-developed, but according to the city’s Avenue and Midrise guidelines, there will likely be a profusion of four-to-eight-storey buildings cropping up along the avenue section of Eglinton (its entire stretch with the exception of the Leaside segment between Mt. Pleasant and Laird) alongside the transit development.

This is the third round of discussions on Eglinton, and there will be two more before Eglinton Connects submits its final report in the spring of 2014.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Lorna Day

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This is the year Toronto makes green living a little more palatable.

The seventh edition of the Green Living Show was announced last week, along with its newest feature, the Ontario Culinary Adventure, done in conjunction with the Ontario Culinary Tourism Alliance.

"This is a collection of a dozen pavilions," says Green Living events VP Robert Orlovski. "Each pavilion represents a chef, a farmer a distiller, vintner or brewer and a destination marketing representative from a region, from Ottawa across the price to Windsor."

In addition to that, there’ll be an eco-parent show-within-a-show (there will, apparently, be mompreneurs), as well as Go Electric, a showcase for electric cars.

"We have been monitoring the marketplace and speaking a lot with car manufacturers," Orlovski says, and "this year, 2013, is a huge year for electric cars. We’ll be featuring tons of electric cars. Not only them, but also charging technologies. A whole section on what the electrification of transportation means in our city."

The Green Living Show, a showcase for marketing and branding firm Green Living whose clients include Loblaws, Samsung, Scotiabank and Tridel as well as the City of Toronto, will be held April 12-14 at the Direct Energy Centre’s halls B and C at the Ex. The  $16 admission can be waived with a drop-off of recyclable electronics at the door.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Robert Orlovski

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Heathwood Homes is being recognized by the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation as a builder of healthy housing, just the sixth GTA home builder to be honoured in the province-wide program's 15 years.

The Healthy Housing Recognition is based on a single house that CHMC inspectors determine, after being contacted by the applicant builder, lives up to its five principles of residential health: occupant health, energy efficiency, resource efficiency, environmental responsibility, and affordability.

“People think about energy,” says CMHC senior research consultant Jamie Shipley about the sort of common misconceptions CHMC’s program is meant to remedy, “but not really about indoor qualities, like using low-emission materials like no or low-VOC paint, or installing balanced ventilation.”

The Heathwood home in question has solar panels on the roof, fibreglass shingles, xeriscaping, permeable pavement, bamboo and stone floors, rain barrels and carpets made from recycled plastic bottles.

CMHC celebrated the addition to the short GTA list with Heathwood president Hugh Heron at the Heathwood New Home Information Centre at 11488 Yonge Street in Richmond Hill yesterday.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Jamie Shipley

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Ryerson's Department of Architectural Science has set its students the task of coming up with novel ideas about how to get more utility and "civility" out of our city's public spaces.

As part of a course led by Associate Professor George Kapelos, students across the faculty have been put into teams to come up with useful public amenities for 16 subway-proximate spaces around the city, from Berczy Park near King station to a 629 square metre city-owned lot near Lawrence station.

Each design must include 15 elements such as a WiFi hotspot, a weather information post, protected seating and phone charging stations, along with at least five others chosen from a list of 22 options, incuding hot water dispensers, food warming stations and donation collection boxes.

The project is in line with the city's officially expressed desire to do likewise. As Kapelos says in the assignment brief he issued his students, "The City of Toronto is seeking to introduce public facilities on city-owned properties or public spaces adjacent to major transportation interchanges that provide civic amenities to the population of the city." The city has just installed the second of a proposed 20 public toilets as part of its initiative.

Interim results will be on display this afternoon (Jan 9)  between 2 and 4 p.m., and again on Friday after 6 p.m.  The final designs will be on display in the form of posters starting at 6 p.m. on Friday at the school's atrium at 325 Church Street.

Writer: Bert Archer
Source: Prachi Khandekar

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