Scuttled Crosstown deal sparks debate about Toronto transit and development

Toronto “lost a big opportunity” by not incorporating a tower into an Eglinton Crosstown station, a developer says.

TheStar.com
Oct. 12, 2016
By Ben Spurr

A dispute over a piece of land in midtown is reigniting debate about whether Toronto is doing enough to integrate transit with development projects.

Terranata Developments Inc. is slamming Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, for scuttling a deal that would have allowed the company to build a 15-storey mixed-use tower above the planned Avenue Rd. station on the $5.3-billion Eglinton Crosstown LRT line. Metrolinx counters that it couldn’t allow the project to go ahead because it would have delayed LRT construction, and didn’t have the support of the city.

The tower would have incorporated the station and, according to John Aquino, a partner at Terranata, provided Metrolinx and the local community with numerous benefits.

Aquino said Terranata offered millions of dollars for the air rights above the station, and would have granted the agency’s contractor permission to use its property as a construction staging area. Aquino argued that would have reduced the need for road closings and limited the effect on a nearby park, where Metrolinx intends to cut down about two dozen trees to make way for a work site.

“We were very disappointed to be shot down,” said Aquino, who learned the proposal had been rejected via a letter from Metrolinx in August.

“Metrolinx and the government lost a big opportunity here to get revenue to offset the capital cost (of the transit line.)”

Aquino’s comments echo long-standing criticism from urban design experts, politicians and developers who charge that, historically, Toronto hasn’t done enough to unlock the value of transit stations by allowing development on top of them. The argument is that “transit-oriented development” not only produces funding for transit projects, but also provides built-in ridership for the new lines.

At the moment, there is a dearth of co-ordinated development along the route of the Crosstown, which cuts through one of the areas experiencing the most increased density in the province, if not the country. With station construction already underway, only two of the 25 planned stops - at Bayview Ave. and Yonge St. - are slated to include integrated development.

That’s despite the fact that in 2014 the exhaustive city planning study known as Eglinton Connects recommended integrating station sites with new multi-storey buildings to create “a new context for connecting development to transit.”

Five stations - at Bathurst, Oakwood, Dufferin, Keele and Mount Dennis - were singled out for particular attention.

“Are we missing opportunities by not designing more into the stations? Absolutely,” said David Lieberman, an architect and professor at the University of Toronto.

“What we do here is always after the fact … which costs more and is always a compromise,” he said. “We haven’t demonstrated long-term vision.”

Bryan Tuckey, president and CEO of the Building Industry and Land Development Association, said the Crosstown was “an opportunity of a generation” and called on governments to work more closely with builders to develop transit sites.

“All around the world this happens in other cities, and it’s not uncommon,” he said.

Jamie Robinson, director of community relations for the Crosstown project, said Metrolinx was willing to work with Terranata but ultimately determined its proposal would have risked a costly delay to the LRT line.

According to Robinson, the company didn’t present a formal proposal until a few weeks before the agency awarded the Crosstown construction contract, and by that point the station specifications had already been written into the agreement.

“Terranata came very, very late to the dance,” Robinson said. “Ultimately, in order to accommodate what they were interested in, we would possibly have needed changes to the scope and schedule and budget of the Crosstown project, which ... we weren’t prepared to do.”

Robinson also argued that Terranata’s plan did not have city approval. The local councillor, Christin Carmichael Greb, wrote to Metrolinx expressing the community’s support for a midrise building on the site, but the proposed 15-storey tower would be taller than zoning bylaws permitted.

Now that the deal with Metrolinx has fallen through, Terranata plans to go ahead with constructing a 15-storey building on the land next to the LRT stop. But the project will be delayed for years because Metrolinx is expropriating part of the property to build its station.

The city planning department is also opposing Terranata’s project because of its height. The developer has appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board.

Despite the dispute over Avenue Rd., Robinson asserted that Metrolinx has a “keen interest in working with developers” on the Crosstown, and that the agency did what it could to woo them before it started building.

In February 2015, it issued a request for proposals to build at four locations along the LRT line, but the only company that expressed interest eventually walked away, and Metrolinx closed the request two months after it was issued.

However, Metrolinx believes that integrated development could yet come to the Crosstown. The stations were designed to allow for future development and include features such as knockout panels and generous setbacks to leave room for rear laneways of future buildings. The footprints of some entranceways have also been minimized to allow space for redevelopment.

The city’s chief planner, Jennifer Keesmaat, said she’s not concerned about the lack of integrated development on the Crosstown so far. “The opportunity to leverage those assets hasn’t disappeared,” she said, predicting that development will materialize in the future.

With 33 development proposals along the Eglinton corridor under review, Keesmaat said there’s no danger that the LRT will lack for ridership. Instead of finding ways to increase density, her department is more concerned with trying to manage booming residential and commercial growth to make sure that community amenities and vital infrastructure keep pace.

“Should Metrolinx have taken another five years to find development partners and compromise the timeline for implementing the LRT?” she asked.

“We have so much growth going on right now, I think prioritizing the building of the transit and ensuring we don’t preclude the future intensification of those stations is a good strategy.”