Good afternoon, please refer…

Good afternoon, please refer to the attached letter.

February 3, 2023
RE: ERO Number: 019-5934 – City of Toronto Official Plan Amendment 575 to delineate and
plan for twenty-five (25) Major Transit Station Areas

48 Grenoble Drive – Flemingdon Park Station MTSA

Tenblock is a residential development company that has been building housing for over 65 years. Since the 1950s, our mission has been to provide high-quality housing that enriches life for residents while contributing to complete and healthy communities. Our current generation of development projects is adding over 6000 units across the City of Toronto. Our projects focus on delivering high quality housing that fulfills the City of Toronto’s long-term city building goals and satisfies the tenets of good planning.

We are writing to submit our comments regarding the proposed Official Plan Amendment (OPA) 575 which seeks to establish twenty-five Major Transit Station Areas in the City of Toronto. We own and have active development planning applications for the property located at 48 Grenoble Drive which is located within the Flemingdon Park Station MTSA. OPA 575 designates this MTSA with a minimum density target of 200 residents and jobs combined per hectare. In our opinion the proposed density target set by the City for this MTSA is too low and ought to be increased.

Our project at 48 Grenoble Drive is located at the intersection of Grenoble Drive and Deauville Lane. The development proposal (as of March 2022) consists of a two new towers (41 and 43-storeys) connected by a 6-storey podium. It proposes to add 884 homes to the community, in addition to 109 rental replacement homes. The current proposed density is a floor space index (FSI) of 10.1. In our opinion, the proposed density target set by the City for this MTSA is too low and ought to be increased to more realistic values for the following reasons:
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The subject site will be located approximately 450 metres away (or a 5-minute walk) from the proposed Flemingdon Park Station of the upcoming Ontario Line. As a subway station, the surrounding area will be able to support higher population and job densities.
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Establishing higher minimum density values will greatly assist both the City and applicants in justifying new and existing planning applications which seek increased heights and density. Within the realm of planning applications, minimum density values can unfortunately be interpreted as what may be appropriate for a given site. Proposals that greatly exceed these minimums can subjectively be seen as “excessively” dense/tall, which may not objectively be the case.

We strongly believe that the proposed density target set by the City for this MTSA is too low and ought to be increased to better reflect the current reality of development applications in the area. Redevelopment proposals add significant amounts of new housing, commercial and institutional/community space, increase density, and make better use of existing infrastructure and public investment.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions regarding our submissions.
Sincerely,
Evan Perlman, MCIP, RPP
Senior Development Manager
Tenblock
416-322-4111
eperlman@tenblock.ca