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Drawings of various sixplexes and other proposed housing designs are seen on the wall of architect firm Hyphen Studios. CITYNEWS<\/p>\nThe war over sixplexes \u2013 a residential building divided up into six different homes \u2013\u00a0may be over in many Toronto wards, but the battles over individual properties continue, block by block.<\/p>\n
Toronto residents against the structures made their grievances known at a recent Committee of Adjustments meeting as councillors approved another development this past week, a proposed sixplex and garden suite on McRoberts Avenue, which was approved in a 3-1 decision. Toronto\u2019s Committee of Adjustment said proximity to transit is a key reason to greenlight the project and potentially even more in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is less than a five-minute walk, probably a three-minute walk to the new Caledonia station on the Eglinton line,\u201d said Larry Clay, Chair of the Toronto & East York Committee of Adjustment. \u201cThis is an area that should be and is going to see a lot more density.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it was not welcome news for those in the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve lived in Toronto all my life. I lived in a decent neighbourhood. Families. All of a sudden council decides that anybody can build six units, garden suites, three storeys high, and that\u2019s it, end of story. No! It\u2019s the end of the city, Toronto sucks!\u201d expressed Jim Kontos, who lives next door to the new development.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the beginning of a quiet, decent neighbourhood in our city that\u2019s gonna be destroyed simply because it\u2019s on the new subway line. What is city council doing? This city is ruined.\u201d<\/p>\n
City councillors had the option to opt in to allowing sixplexes in their wards last year. Nine of them, all in downtown and East York wards ultimately gave the thumbs up, but not all of their constituents are on board. <\/p>\n
\u201cCommunicate with the designer, communicate with the developer and share their valid concern. They cannot be against development,\u201d said Mehdy Ajvand, an architect at Hyphen Studio. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing we can do about that, but we can improve our design based on their concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those in favour argue that sixplexes will help ease Toronto\u2019s housing affordability crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunicate with the designer, communicate with the developer and share their valid concern. They cannot be against development,\u201d said Mehdy Ajvand, an architect at Hyphen Studio. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing we can do about that, but we can improve our design based on their concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those in favour argue that sixplexes will help ease Toronto\u2019s housing affordability crisis, and there are more on the way. Ajvand tells CityNews his studio has taken on another seven of these projects in just the last month, but he\u2019s turned plenty of them down, too, because they\u2019re not a one-size-fits-all solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll over Toronto, all over these nine wards, we do have several different characters, different situations, different requirements. By saying go and build sixplexes, fourplexes, this and that, it doesn\u2019t work. The zoning bylaw should be more specific on that one,\u201d explains Ajvand.<\/p>\n
Drawings of various sixplexes and other proposed housing designs are seen on the wall of architect firm Hyphen Studios. CITYNEWS<\/p>\n
Drawings from the architect show the proposed\u00a0sixplex\u00a0at a fairly similar height to its neighbours, but in reality, the three-storey structure would be much taller than the bungalows next door.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the misrepresentation of the elevation of the adjacent houses is kind of nasty, in my opinion. They show them being two-storey buildings when they\u2019re actually very low one-storey buildings,\u201d said Paul Gogan.<\/p>\n
Those neighbours say the misrepresentation shown at city hall was blatant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re in for money and greed, and they\u2019re gonna do anything to fool the people and the politicians. This is unacceptable. Toronto used to be the good; Toronto now is the bad,\u201d said Kontos.<\/p>\n
Suburban councillors have chosen to keep sixplexes out of their wards, for now. Some argue that the major developments could put the dream of homeownership out of reach for many families.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you upzone or give higher zoning for land owners, it incentivizes the investor class to come in and pick up a bungalow in Scarborough, which traditionally was picked up by a\u00a0young family,\u201d said Scarborough Southwest Coun. Parthi Kandavel. \u201cSo we\u2019re increasing the land values of properties in the suburbs, that makes it more difficult for families to own a home. What ends up happening? They go to the 905. That\u2019s not the Toronto that I want and many Torontonians want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hyphen Studio tells CityNews construction could start in as little as two-and-a-half months, and it will take about a year and a half to complete the project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The war over sixplexes \u2013 a residential building divided up into six different homes \u2013\u00a0may be over in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194291],"tags":[49,48,3302],"class_list":["post-504300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-toronto","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-toronto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}