TTC rolls into York - density coming

NRU
Dec. 20, 2017
By Dominik Matusik

The TTC's Line 1 extension into Vaughan opened Sunday to much fanfare, but questions remain over whether it will attract enough development and ridership to justify the expense.

The six new stations of the Spadina subway extension opened to the public on Sunday, two of them in Vaughan: Highway 407 and Vaughan Metropolitan Centre.

Ryerson City Building Institute executive director Cherise Burda told NRU that it isn't enough to just build a few towers near these subway stations: planners must ensure the development of complete communities.

"We did an analysis two years ago that showed that the densities around those stations, with the exception of York University, don't even have enough density currently to support a bus in mixed traffic, let alone a subway," she says. "That's not to say the Vaughan Centre isn't making an effort. It is, and it will probably achieve a lot more density, and it probably already has. But given the starting point of really low densities of all those stations...to justify this massive investment, I think we need to pull out every tool in our toolbox to not only maximize densities but build communities."

Malone Given Parsons principal Matthew Cory told NRU that at the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Station the development is already happening.

"The [Vaughan Metropolitan Centre station] is smack-dab in the middle of what's going to be a humongous amount of density and development," he says. "It is happening... Everyone who is pushing for approvals there is pushing for higher heights and densities than the city was even contemplating or originally estimating."

Cory attributes the disconnect between the amount of development proposed for the VMC and the lack of construction to appeals of the Vaughan Metropolitan Centre Secondary Plan and the "insanely long development approval process" in southern Ontario.

"I always, for ease of use, split the discussion into the policy planning and the development planning," he says. "Because a lot of the public just doesn't get the difference. And the finishing of the secondary plan was only the finishing of the policy planning. There's still the entire development planning process to go on after that. ... Everyone still has to go through and do all their development approvals, which could take another year and a half, three years potentially."

He compares the Spadina extension to the 1974 Yonge extension from Eglinton to Finch Station, then in a low- density area that has since had substantial development.

Vaughan ward 4 councillor Sandra Yeung Racco highlights a number of projects either under construction or awaiting building permits in the VMC. She expects that many of the employers in the low-density office park to the north of the station-which is located just outside of the secondary plan area—will either move into new buildings closer to the subway, or redevelop their sites, though there are currently no city policies encouraging the area's redevelopment.

Vaughan Chamber of Commerce president & CEO Brian Shifman told NRU that just the promise of a subway has already led to development.

"The mere fact that the subway was coming has already spurred significant development in the area. We've seen a lot of leading companies that are typically based in downtown Toronto moving significant secondary offices to Vaughan," he says.

Burda says that a challenge in the VMC is creating an actual community, rather than simply being a location where people live only for the subway access.

"Part of the problem is that the surrounding area is all arterial roads," she says. "You've got these buildings and the subway station in the centre of it and they're surrounded by arterial roads. Which don't lend themselves to a lot of great placemaking. Over time, you would hope that you start building something more comparable to CityPlace or any of these other subway-centred areas and start to build the community services."

She says that the Highway 407 Station is a potential blank canvass on which to create a new community, but is currently little more than a parking lot.

"It's basically a parking lot, 600 spots...600 spots is half a subway full," she says. "So if a subway is running at capacity, it holds 1,500 people. So you'rebasically creating a parking lot for 600 cars. So that's 600 people on a subway, which doesn't even fill up a whole subway for the entire day.

Because people park there one time. And that's what you're getting. There's a lot of other ways to generate a ridership of 600 people... This should be the time that we are building complete communities. We want to be transforming our parking lots into communities. So don't start a new subway place with a parking lot."

Burda adds that the abundance of publicly-owned land near these stations is a prime opportunity to realize provincial policy surrounding intensification and density near transit stations.

Shifman doesn't see an issue with the 407 station, and says that the amount of parking may actually be an asset.

"When you look at the Sheppard subway...or other parts of the line, there are stations that are less populated and, when they were built, they didn't have the same level of employment they do now. You can't just have a subway that has increasingly long stops where you can't get on or off. And I think part of the function of the 407 station is the abundance of parking because we don't have that at the VMC station," he says.

Yeung Racco says there is development potential around the Highway 407 station, particularly closer to Jane Street, but agrees with Burda that the area should become a complete transit-oriented community, with residential and employment uses. She hopes that the provincial government will make some of its land holdings in the area available for development.

"I don't want to just see a station there with a huge parking lot. I really hope that we can do something to make it a more viable area," she says.