Robert Smythe
When was the last time a proposed Centretown project left at least 12 additional storeys of development potential on the table, and submitted designs for a new building that is actually less than half the maximum height permitted by the Official Plan?
There are some trade-offs for this seeming gift to community liveability, however.
This development, a nine-storey apartment on a property that could have seen a tower of 21 skinny floors or more, requires the demolition of two protected houses that currently offer affordable accommodation. Unfortunately, from the city’s point of view, residential intensification always trumps the preservation of existing affordable housing.
The sacrificial structures at 230 and 232 Lisgar Street, listed as having contributory heritage significance, are located in a mid-block bump-out on the northern boundary of the Centretown Heritage Conservation District, between Metcalfe and O’Connor Streets.
Both date from the 1880s. The historic integrity of one of the houses has been obliterated by a modern addition, while the other retains some of its heritage features, albeit in a sightly degraded condition.
The new development’s design by architects Project1 Studio Incorporated goes some distance to overcome this obstacle by assuring that “the proposed nine-storey massing of the apartment building has been carefully selected and refined to reduce its presence on Lisgar Street to ensure visual emphasis on neighbouring heritage buildings.” This is achieved through generous expanses of brick, a setback at the third level to reflect the area’s traditional scale, an animated facade that breaks up the tower’s mass, and rhythmic rooftop articulation.
Currently, the existing character of this block of Lisgar is established by six scattered historic red-brick houses, three typical 1960s-era white-brick apartment buildings, and a number of small parking lots. The Centretown Community Design Plan (2013) classifies it as a high-rise “Apartment Neighbourhood’, an intensification area “identified for residential uses at greater building heights.”
The project’s specs list 36 one-bedroom residential units, 13 two-bedroom units, 249 square metres of indoor amenity space, 26 underground car-parking spaces, and a 43-stall bicycle-parking vault on the ground floor. Small reductions in the maximum lot width and front yard depth, and a significant reduction in one of the side yard setbacks would need to be secured via a re-zoning.
Not the best place for underground parking?
What would make this development more responsive to the city’s green transportation and environmental policy objectives? I’d suggest rethinking the multiple levels of costly and difficult-to-build below-grade parking. With its proximity to public transit and bike lanes, this proposal encompasses very small units that might likely be purchased/rented by car-free residents.
And a warning to those who want to build below-grade: the area’s subsoil is highly unstable Leda clay, which has caused numerous problems for adjacent buildings.
Demolitions of listed buildings located in conservation districts designated by the Ontario Heritage Act are strongly discouraged. So it is not surprising that the heftiest of all the applicant’s many statutory studies, technical analyses, and submissions is their “Cultural Heritage Impact Study” (known as a CHIS) prepared by MTBA Associates Inc.
The CHIS contends that 230 and 232 Lisgar Street are of middling historic and architectural importance, stranded on one side of a street that is isolated at the fringe of the Centretown HCD. Because of that, it concludes that: “On balance, the potential positive impacts outweigh the potential adverse impacts of the proposed development, especially with the enhancements made, relative to the defined heritage value of [other] heritage properties and the larger Centretown Heritage Conservation District.”
Incorporation of some of the old buildings’ fabric (i.e., a facadectomy) was not a possibility. Therefore, as mitigation for their loss, a digital recording of the houses is recommended prior to their demolition.
The city’s policies state that for any development in an HCD “new buildings shall contribute to, and not detract from the heritage character of the area.” A private consultant’s contention that, for a very mixed block of Lisgar Street, this proposal scores high on compatibility of materials, height, massing, and urban design in relation to its surroundings would be self-serving but par for the course.
As far as heritage goes, in this case their argument seems to be convincing.
A City Council decision on this planning application is expected in the second quarter of 2023.