Care about city planning and urban design?  no really!  it’s fun and you meet your enthusiastic neighbours!

Come on… join Active18!

mark your calendar.

June 4th, at the Theatre Centre.

See the full post here.

This proposal by Streetcar developments is the first public presentation of a huge development on the property running from Peel to Queen. Major issues of height and employment.  Condo sales have already begun.

Where: ALEXANDER MUIR PUBLIC SCHOOL.

When: May 3, 6:30 pm

1)   May 1

What: Townhouses at  29 – 51 Florence Ave.  Expensive town homes by Gulf and Western will dramatically impact the neighbourhood west of Dufferin.

Where: Alexandre Muir Public School

When: May 1, 6:30pm
2)   May 2

Lisgar Park Working Group meeting, regarding next stages of  Park Design.  A public meeting will  be held in the next number of weeks.
3)   May 3

What: Planning Meeting regarding the ‘Samko Site’  at 11 Peel Ave.  This proposal by Streetcar developments is the first public presentation of a huge development on the property running from Peel to Queen. Major issues of height and employment.

Where: Mary McCormick Community Centre.

When: May 3, 6:30 pm

4) Pending (Get involved!)

What: 1093 Queen – (Queen and Dovercourt (SW Corner).  The developers have asked to meet A18 to discuss their proposal for this site. We have met with them before. There are significant design and density issues. Anyone interested in joining the Steering Committee for this should contact Charlie Campbell at chascamp@sympatico.ca
What: Dufferin St – ‘Saw Tooth” building.  There is a major development proposal for this site with multiple high-rise buildings. It involves many of the same issues as 11 Peel. There is no Secondary Plan in place for precinct.

Since 2005, Active 18 has been advocating on behalf of the WQW neighbourhood on issues of new development, public space, and retaining artistic and cultural industries to name a few of our initiatives.  As a community group we work with elected officials, city staff and the developers to ensure the neighbourhood is informed and engaged. All are welcome to participate.

On Thursday, March 29th, please join us for a unique opportunity to share a cool neighbourhood experience – socializing, eating, drinking, and dancing inside the rarely seen third floor ‘salon’ of the historic Great Hall from 7pm to 1am.

Before you get your dancing shoes on though…

We want everyone to get to know each other a little.

An informal early evening cocktail social will take place from 7 to 9pm.  Newcomers – come get engaged with your new neighbourhood.

Yes, this is supposed to be a party after all, and from 9pm to 1am, we are proud to have the vinyl slinging “Muscle and Heat”, one of Toronto’s finest DJ collectives, always packing dance floors with a smart set of genre defying soulful ‘party disco’!

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.

@ 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}

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.

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