Active18 facebook page online now – jan 2012

Hey folks,
we’ve just set up a facebook page for the community to connect with one another.
Go on… like us and start the discussion!

Jan 2012 update

Update on some of the items that are brewing in the West Queen West area.

West Queen West Neighbourhood Party:

We’ve been talking about this for a year now!
There are so many new residents in this area – the Steering Committee wants to organize a big ole – Lets Meet Each Other party.
We’re working on a local venue right now and hoping that we can organize something to happen in Feb or Mar.

Why: so many residents that have lived in this neighbourhood – prior to condos arriving – have been committed to making this area vibrant and liveable. Hey New Neighbours meet the folks who have been here for years.

Large Community Meeting:
Why: There are some major developments that are about to happen in YOUR neighbourhood.

The development proposals deal with these addresses:

11 Peel Avenue – Streetcar Development (thinking about a few 21 storey towers that span Peel to Queen)

440-444 Dufferin Avenue – Official City development proposal boards are up in front of the development site. 3 towers ranging from 24 storeys to 4 storeys are proposed. A community meeting run by the city looks like it will be happening soon.

Price Chopper Lands – Rumours fly every so often about the property being sold.

Active 18 has been requesting that the entire area North of Queen up Dufferin be treated with a Secondary Plan to control overbuilding like the Triangle South of Queen. The city has no money to do this work. We still believe it may be the only tool that we have to manage overbuilding. York Master of Environmental Studies students produced 3 Plans for this area (available on this site under documents). We are looking for help and ideas on how to get a Secondary Plan produced – one that will be accepted by the City.

Dufflets (Dovercourt and Sudbury) – technically in Mike Layton’s ward – although those are virtual boundaries – a proposal for a 13 storey building is in front of the city now.

When is this meeting going to happen?
We are looking into space that can accommodate a large community group – and is free.

Lisgar Park:
A few of the Active 18 Steering Committee members have been participating in the City of Toronto run ‘Working Group’ set out to give input to the hired Landscape Architects and Park Designers.
There have been a number of public meetings where the Landscape Architect firm (Victor Ford and Associates) have presented designs and have received public feedback.

The Working Group was shown “Design Number 6” – which seems to be moving along in the right direction.
In the fall, the City and Victor Ford Associates hosted a meeting with a number of Public Art Consultants to get a discussion going around how to integrate a changing programme of public art into the park space.
Active 18 has been lobbying the developer of 48 Abell for years to save and donate some of the beams from the old warehouse. We’re happy to say that 36 of the beams have been collected by Victor Ford and Associates and are being stored and assessed for best use in the park.
We have also all agreed that having a fully wired park will set the ‘stage’ for all the potential and as yet unknown projects that we hope will take place in the park.

Art Hub at Lisgar Park:
Active 18 has also been at the table – with the Developer, City Planning, Ward Councillor Bailao, City Culture, Levitt Goodman Architects, supporting a plan to build a new Not-for-Profit Arts Hub at the south end of Lisgar Park. This 30,000 square foot space will front the park and be home to 8 or 10 Arts advocacy groups, Film and Video Festival organizations, Artist-Run Media Training/Sharing groups, Galleries and hopefully a 200 seat cinema for alternative and experimental film and video.

Active 18 has long worked on keeping the west queen west precinct an active place for cultural production and consumption – and keeping the public realm an interesting and active place for people to live and work.

AGM June 22 7pm at The Theatre Centre

It’s that time again. Active 18’s Annual General Meeting will be held June 22 2011 at 7pm.

@ The Theatre Centre – Dovercourt and Queen.

1087 Queen Street West.

Free and open to all.

Come and find out what is happening in your neighbourhood.

* Gladstone Avenue developments and the potential of the Price Choppper.

* Peel and Gladstone (Samko site)

* 48 Abell (The Epic)

* 2-6 Lisgar (The Edge)

* The new park – current working name Lisgar Park

* 1093 Dovercourt

* Other development applications in the works

* West Queen West Heritage study

Downloadable poster {AGM2011_poster_v03}

June News

Active18 Members Update – June 6, 2011
1. New Park – The third public meeting to discuss park design was May 31 at 7pm at Alexander Muir Public School. The public meetings have been productive and there are still numerous important issues where public input is invited. At the last meeting, it was determined that a 4th public meeting will be held in the near future. The City will distribute flyers when a date and place are determined.

2. The annual members meeting of Active18 will be June 22 at 7pm at the Theatre Centre.
100-1087 Queen Street West, Toronto, ON M6J 1H3

3. A18 is represented at the new Ward Council which meets quarterly by Steve Heuchert of the Steering Committee. Among the topics this new body will address is planning along the rail corridor on the west side of the Ward where many old industrial properties are seeking conversion.

4. A18 met with the developers and architect for the 1093 Queen/Dovercourt building as well. They are working on additional drafts and designs.

5. The land west of Gladstone and south of Florence and continuing west of Dufferin and north to Peel is ‘in play’ with two or three (depending how you count) development proposals being discussed.

a. The zoning on both sides of Gladstone is up for grabs with the main issue being scaling down the permitted height close to the established residential neighbourhoods. Streetcar, the developer of the building at the corner of Queen and Gladstone is seeking permission for a similar sized building due north. Planning is convening a series of consultations with the neighbourhood, the first one is June 16, 6:30 at Alexander Muir School.
b. The Councillor has launched a study of the Ward 18 industrial and vacant lands along the rail corridor to identify where streets and parks will go as development proceeds. Area Study Public Meetings: June 6, 6:30, at the Church of First Born, 72 Perth Ave. and June 13, 6:30 at Bloor Gladstone Library.
c. The A18 Steering Committee is to meet with the new owners and would-be developers of the lands on the west side of Dufferin north of the tracks to ‘get acquainted’. This is hopeful that they are coming to the community before developing plans … but there are numerous difficult issues here so that the planning disaster south of Queen is not repeated.

6. A18 representatives are participating in both the Park Working Group and a subcommittee of it, The Public Art Sub-Committee. The P.W.G. involves more detailed work on park design with the City and design consultants – Victor Ford and Associates. The Public Art Subcommittee is trying to develop a funded programme of temporary art installations in the new park and the peripheral public areas. Volunteers interested in either are welcome.

7. Extensive negotiations took place to consider relocating the MoCCA to the new Condo – The Edge – on the south side of the park. MoCCA eventually decided not proceed with this. Similar negotiations are now underway with an exciting group of artist-run, not-for-profit, Media Arts organizations who are looking for space to share. The Media Arts Alliance are comprised of organizations for Photography, New Music, Film and Video, New media and a number of media festivals. They have all been downtown Toronto ‘residents’ for 30 – 40 years and are being pushed out of their existing locations by rising rent prices. A classic gentrification issue. The ‘hook’ in each of these proposals is that the neighbourhood will have to absorb some further density so that the developer can make this space available to the arts groups at affordable rates. The A18 Steering Committee has said in principle this was acceptable but we need to see the details. There will be lots more on this at the forthcoming Annual Meeting.

8 Storey Condo on Gladstone Avenue?

The Community Consultation Meeting for the building application at 8-14 Gladstone is

  • April 19th
  • 7 – 9 pm
  • Alexander Muir/Gladstone Public School (108 Gladstone)

If you are concerned about the precedent that this building will set for the Price Chopper land and other areas that are ripe for re-development, please come and voice your opinion.

If you can’t make the meeting your comments are valuable and can be sent to Councillor Bailao (416) 392-4044.  Or send a fax to the City of Toronto (416) 392-1330 OR send a letter to

Gregg Lintern, Director,
Community Planning, Toronto and East York District,
City Planning Division,
100 Queen Street West, Floor 18E,
Toronto, M5H 2N2

Some details on the proposal:

  • 8 storey condo that stops at 20 Gladstone.
  • 86 residential units
  • 6717 square meters (720 sq mtr for ground floor retail)
  • Height: 26.4 meters
  • Density: 4.44 times the lot area.

If you are concerned, come to the meeting or call Councillor Bailao to find out more.

Public meeting regarding Park

Open Public Meeting – Community Ideas Workshop

April  13 –  Community “Ideas” Workshop (mtg #1)

7:00 to 9:00 pm

Alexander Muir Gladstone PS

Hosted by City of Toronto.

See some exciting park and public art ideas here.

Barrel Bench from Vancouver area park

March 24 News

Things are really heating up!

Ward Council

1. Councillor Bailao had set up a Ward Council to meet every other month. A18 has been invited to send a rep.

The first meeting is April 18 at the Gladstone Library at 7:30 pm.

The Park

2. The first public meeting with the public to discuss the design of the new park will be April 13, 2011.

3.  A new group, ParkPeople has been set up to advance the cause of parks across Metro. They have two meetings scheduled.

  • April 16 at the Brickworks starting at noon
  • April 7 – a panel discussion at the Faculty of Architecture

www.parkpeople.ca

4. Three A18 reps are continuing to work on the ‘Lisgar Park’ Working Group, a working group of community members and City Hall Staff,  appointed by the Councillor to sort through the many problems and opportunities. The budget for the park is the first issue issue.

5. Two spin off Sub-Committees will be set up and need some community volunteers.

6. The viability and management of an ‘art precinct programme’ requires careful analysis and management. This will be the job of the Art Precinct  Committee.

7.  A Neighbourhood Council needs to get up and running to deal with issues of park management and programming and the management of the public space between the buildings. This will evolve quickly as people move in. There will be issues coming at us this summer. Again it’s an opportunity for volunteers with foresight – and patience to guide the new neighbourhood.

Planning and Design Issues:

1093 Queen (SW corner of Queen and Dovercourt)

8.  A fresh proposal for the SW corner of Queen and Dovercourt has been received by the A18 Steering Committee. There are major massing and design issues regarding this building situated between two heritage buildings. The Steering Committee is developing a SWAT Team to deal with this and needs help.

This memo can be found in the Current Letter Campaigns page.

8 Gladstone and 11 Peel

9.    An eight storey condo just north of Queen has been proposed. The building itself is not bad but the precedent of approving mid-rise north of Queen without an area plan is very bad. This is part and parcel of A18’s efforts to get a plan in place north of Queen along the rail corridor before the development surge to prevent a repeat of planning disaster to the south.  A18 needs help from some far-sighted volunteers to work on planning issues in this area.

See chascamp.com/blog History / 2009 2010 / NW Triangle Secondary Plan

http://www.chascamp.com/blog/?page_id=701

and

This memo can be found at the Current Letter Campaigns page.

Safety Walk

Councillor Bailao is conducting a Safety Walk along Queen and its back alleys on Wednesday March 30 at 7pm and invites members of the community to join her starting at the Theatre Centre at 7pm.

Active18 Poll


(polls)

Park Design process underway

After many months (the election happened), the committee regrouped to begin the selection process for  the landscape architect who will design the Triangle Square Park.

Heritage Study completed

The City of Toronto commissioned an Heritage Study on the blocks between Dufferin/Gladstone and Dovercourt.  The report will soon be available.  For the Executive Summary please visit the ‘Useful Documents’ section of the site.