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Feb 21 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
My column on the Toronto mayoral race: housing is everything. theglobeandmail.com/canada/toronto… #topoli
In an uncharacteristically bold move, Tory just announced some YIMBY planning reform. This must continue.
Unfortunately, city staff aren’t up for it. Today: planning agrees that the new downtown waterfront Villiers neighbourhood can be 30% more dense. In fact it should be 100% more. secure.toronto.ca/council/agenda…
Planning is still committed to a bunch of nonsense aesthetics that mean lower buildings and less housing. They do not, and seemingly will never, acknowledge that this is a crisis. ImageImage
Toronto City Planning simply does not get it. Safe to assume their responses will continue to be lukewarm and incremental.
This is absurd. Image

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More from @alexbozikovic

Alex Bozikovic Profile picture
Feb 20
Ottawa’s mayor does not seem fully aware of the challenges ahead. theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…
Mark Sutcliffe: “Downtown could be a 15-minute neighborhood and Barrhaven could be a 15-minute neighbourhood.” One of these things is true, and the other is absolutely not. Barrhaven:
If the city decentralizes, a low-density, car-oriented exurb like Barhaven will not just acquire any of the qualities of the “15-Minute City.” Neighbourhood retail and services are very hard to run in a place like that.
Read 7 tweets
Alex Bozikovic Profile picture
Dec 9, 2022
Big news in Toronto housing politics. The mayor’s actually-quite-bold 2023 Housing Action Plan: app.toronto.ca/tmmis/viewAgen…
On a high level, this represents a huge change in rhetoric and attitude. The mayor of Toronto committing to “achieve or exceed” high targets of building new housing. Image
(As recently as last week, the city’s chief planner was arguing they’ve done a great job because they *approve* large numbers of new homes. This is defensive and seriously misleading.)
Read 8 tweets
Alex Bozikovic Profile picture
Nov 28, 2022
Some @OntarioPlace Therme plans are out. With 1,000-spot parking garage paid for by the public. That will be ~$100-million, bringing the subsidy for this waterpark to $300-million. theglobeandmail.com/canada/article… #topoli #onpoli
@OntarioPlace Any claim that this project is paying its own way, or "footing the bill" for parkland, is not true. The gov't wi,l pay $200m to remediate the site and $100m for parking. At least.
And that's *before* any money the government puts into fitting out or programming the existing buildings. The real public expense here could easily be half a billion dollars.
Read 5 tweets
Alex Bozikovic Profile picture
Mar 31, 2022
This thread ignores an important fact: Toronto planning is dysfunctional, so every building is a haggle. That’s entirely the city’s fault.
The reality: provincial planning calls for Toronto to intensify, as it should, and Toronto city hall has spent 20 years resisting. It has refused to update its plan and zoning in a coherent and comprehensive way.
Councillor Matlow makes some good points about big projects. But it’s also true that an apartment building next to a subway should be “cookie-cutter.” In Toronto it’s not, because councillors don’t want it to be.
Read 8 tweets
Alex Bozikovic Profile picture
Mar 30, 2022
From Victoria: Double Header House by Darcy Jones Architect, an extraordinary building. Front-and-back duplex for an extended family; frugal construction and spatial complexity that recalls Gehry’s Santa Monica House.
Kitchens in the front and back units, facing opposite directions.
Lucky kid.
Read 4 tweets
Alex Bozikovic Profile picture
Mar 29, 2022
In Victoria’s Centennial Square, site of a Lost Building of Canada: the city’s public market (1891-1962) Image
The square (by Muirhead & Justice) incorporates bricks from the old market ImageImageImage
Local architect Alan Hodgson’s McPherson Playhouse project (1964), extremely James Stirling ImageImage
Read 4 tweets

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