Discussion on 10-storey building proposal for Murphy’s Law site to continue at Toronto Council after planning guideline questions raised
By MATTHEW STEPHENS
Discussion about the Queen Street East Urban Design Guidelines (UDG) and their connection to a proposal for a 10-storey building at a high-profile intersection in the Beach continues after Toronto and East York Community Council met earlier this week.
The proposal for the northwest corner of Queen Street East and Kingston Road (the Murphy’s Law site) became the main subject of a public meeting on Thursday, Feb. 19, prior to community council’s vote to move the item without recommendations to the next meeting of full Toronto Council on March 25.
City councillors will gather at the upcoming meeting to discuss whether the Queen Street East UDG are still considered relevant in the city’s planning process for new developments in the area.
“It’s hard to see how a 10-storey building complies with the intent of the Queen Street East Urban Design Guidelines,” said deputant Jeffrey Levitt, Vice-President of the The Beach Triangle Residents Association, at the Feb. 19 community council meeting.
Further uncertainty arose about whether the UDG still applies to Queen Street East in the Beach when city staff acknowledged that some aspects of the local guidelines were considered in the developer’s updated proposal for the Murphy’s Law site at 1684, 1689, 1700 and 1702 Queen St. E.
Adopted by the city in 2012, the Queen Street East UDG was the result of a collaborative effort between local residents, the local councillor at the time, and the city’s planning department. The guidelines limited building heights along Queen Street East in the Beach to six storeys between Coxwell and Neville Park avenues, and also set design standards to preserve the area’s character.
Several deputants and two East Toronto councillors at the Feb. 19 meeting questioned whether the 2012 guidelines had been “superseded” by the city’s all-encompassing 2024 Mid-rise Building Design Guidelines (which define a mid-rise property as five to 14 storeys in height).
“The 2024 Mid-Rise Guidelines are the standard for reviewing mid-rise buildings, but the other guidelines are still to have regard,” said Bousfields’ planning consultant David Morse at the meeting.
In his deputation, Morse said that the latest iteration of the Murphy’s Law application included changes reflective of the Queen Street East UDG, such as lowering the street wall height to three storeys and ensuring the area’s “character” is maintained.
“The 2012 Queen Street East Urban Design Guidelines were specific to the character of Queen Street at the time, and they implemented the objectives of the Official Plan at that time,” said Morse in response to Beaches-East York Councillor Brad Bradford’s questioning of which guidelines took precedence in review of the application.
“Nonetheless they do include some important pieces of information, including helping animate the street, having low street wall heights, and ensuring that the character of the area is reinforced.”
Reference to the Queen Street East UDG sparked confusion amongst deputants and councillors, who stressed the importance of establishing a clear set of design guidelines for residents.
“While the city and the province clearly have the right to establish land use laws and policies, residents of the city have the right to know how these laws and policies will be applied,” said Levitt.
Both Bradford and Toronto-Danforth Councillor Paula Fletcher shared deputants’ uncertainty about how the Queen Street East UDG are applied to new developments in conjunction with the city’s Mid-Rise Guidelines.
“We heard from deputants this morning about the 2012 Queen Street East Urban Design Guidelines – lots of confusion there… Are the 2012 guidelines still referenced in the Official Plan?” Bradford asked city staff.
City staff said the Queen Street East UDG are “still relevant,” and that the Murphy’s Law application is a site-specific approval due to lot depth and proximity to the Queen Street East gateway.
“This specific site at 1684 Queen Street is unique. It’s very deep. It’s located at the gateway to the Queen Street East area, and again, had a different configuration and condition to be able to accommodate taller elements,” said a member of city staff.
City staff also said at the Feb. 19 meeting that they would not approve a 10-storey building further east on Queen Street East in the Beach.
Fletcher told city staff and fellow councillors that better communication is needed to clarify the city’s planning criteria for the area, and that she will work with Bradford to ensure the community is better informed about how the city’s Mid-Rise Guidelines and the Queen Street East UDG are considered when reviewing development applications.
“I’m a little disappointed that planning staff have simply said ‘Well, here’s what we’re doing’ without taking that context as to why that’s shifting,” said Fletcher.
“We have not had a large community-based process on any of this. So, Councillor Bradford, I will be speaking with you between now and Council (Toronto Council meeting on March 25), just to look at how to help everybody understand that things have changed, without making them feel badly. And how to help planning be a little more sensitive to the community that they spent years working with to develop guidelines that the community feels are still in place, when indeed, they are not in place. That is a communications issue…for the city.”
Development plans for the Murphy’s Law site have been a heated topic of discussion for years, with proposals dating as early as 2019.
The first proposal was initially approved by the city for a six-storey residential building in 2022, but developer Sud Group returned two years later with an updated proposal calling for an 11-storey mixed-use residential building. After a community consultation meeting, the final proposal discussed at community council on Feb. 19 called for a 10-storey mixed-use residential building with 168 residential rental dwelling units, 56 vehicular parking spaces and 186 bicycle parking spaces.
In addition to lowering the building’s height by one storey and removing 48 units from the previous 11-storey proposal, Morse said the updated application has also removed balconies on the north facade of the building to prevent overlook impacts, and increased the percentage of two and three-bedroom units to 42 per cent two-bedroom and 21 per-cent three bedroom units.
The application also includes the closure of the adjacent laneway (Penny Lane) for a pedestrian connection, “townhouse” and “landscaping” features, retail space at grade, and the reopening of the Murphy’s Law pub/restaurant.
Although the application currently does not include any affordable housing units, Morse said the property owner would work with Bradford and city staff to include affordable units “prior to council approval.”
Morse told community council that the applicant is also looking to include increased parking at the site following Bradford’s reiteration that the building and its residents would not be included in the city’s permit parking program for the area.
“The applicant is looking at several different solutions, which could include mechanical solutions, but it could also include either a partial or full additional underground level,” said Morse in response to Bradford’s question about parking.
“There’s still more work with respect to affordable housing and some of the parking stuff here on this site that I want to work on between now and (Toronto) Council,” said Bradford in his closing statement on the proposal.
Both my parents fought hard to keep buildings to two stories in the Beach area social Queen because as soon as you allow one building to pull a stunt like this, and I do think 10 stories is way too high and our infrastructure is already completely overburdened …
then you’ve set a precedent and it will look like Florida (been there and I’m so glad our beach is quaint).
I think 10 stories is where the purview of this neighborhood developer and yes, we need housing but not at the expense of the flavour of the Beach area in which I’ve grown up since 1958.
This area would be destroyed with high-rises if it were to come to that but as soon as you allow one giant size building like this, and I don’t like it one bit, then you set a precedent just like Roe v Wade.
It’s a simple concept but that’s the way it is. I found the article really long for this one salient point and it is a huge one.
(Jeff Jarvis is my father and I believe the first president of the Ward Nine News. I’ve seen this place grow and it is now bursting at the seams).