On May 20, 2016, the City of Toronto released a proposed Official Plan amendment (OPA) to further regulate tall building setbacks in downtown Toronto. Accompanying zoning by-law amendments (ZBAs) to the old and new zoning bylaws containing specific numerical standards will be released closer to the June 14, 2016, Toronto and East York Community Council meeting at which both the OPA and the ZBAs will be considered.
The new OPA will entrench standards provided to date in the Tall Building Design Guidelines, which the City alleges is often neglected during the approvals process. The policies are to apply to all lands located on land generally bounded by Bathurst Street, Lake Ontario, the Don River, Rosedale Valley Road and the CPR tracks. There are very few carve-outs.
Although the OPA is general in nature and does not refer to any specific numerical standards, it does indicate that tall building development is to meet a number of subjective standards, including high-quality comfortable public realm improvements, access to natural light and a reasonable level of privacy and pedestrian-level views of the sky between the towers. The OPA also sets out that sites where proposed tall buildings do not meet these standards will not be considered suitable for tall building development. Proposed developments are also to conform to the streetwall context of the block in which the proposed tall building is situated.
Although the City engaged the industry for comment prior to the release of the OPA and ZBAs, there are still several concerns that arise from the proposals. For instance, it is unclear how the ZBAs' proposed tower setbacks will fit with the proposed OPA requirement to meet existing or planned streetwall experiences, which may vary across downtown Toronto. Entrenching numerical standards in the ZBAs that were previously only located in the Tall Building Design guidelines will surely reduce flexibility and the ability to respond to local context and increase the number of zoning by-law amendments.
The policies are currently open for comment.
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