Midtown planning group established
[attach]6338[/attach]City council has established a new midtown planning group intended to manage the onslaught of development projects at one of Toronto’s busiest intersections.
With new residential and commercial applications flooding the Yonge-Eglinton area, a strategy that brings consistency throughout the area has been sorely lacking, says St. Paul’s councillor Josh Matlow, who spearheaded the group’s establishment.
Yonge and Eglinton alone is governed by three councillors — Matlow, Karen Stintz and Jaye Robinson — and two separate municipal planning divisions: North York district and Toronto and East York district.
Matlow says the group should have been established years ago, but it’s taken on more urgency with the incoming Eglinton Crosstown and a sweeping planning study for neighbourhoods along Eglinton.
“Thus far, it’s been ad hoc development applications, always the bigger the better without a lot of thought to building a people-friendly community,” Matlow says. “We need to think about how we’re going to grow as a community.”
Area ratepayers association have high hopes for community involvement in the process now that a stakeholder group has been established, says Franz Peters, president of the Avenue Road Eglinton Community Association.
“We can’t control height and density, we’ve come to that conclusion, but what we can try to move forward with — and developers seem to be responsive to this — is where the feet meet the street,” said Peters, referring to building streetscapes and public amenities.
