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One Hundred | 21 & 17 fl | U/C
#61
if Owen gets the 12.5 m separation between towers then it would be nearly impossible for a tower to be built on arthur place. 100 vic would need to be 12.5. "his" tower 12.5 (25m) and additionally 12.5m on the other from the property on the abutting side assuming they could develop a tower too..the distance between property lines from 100 vic properties and 79 vic (property abutting the row houses on arthur street is aprox 34 m. that would give owen a 9m wide tower which is narrower than most SFD...so essentially if the 12.5m seperation distance between all towers is implemented by him he would be screwing himself over ??? lol anyways how talls this thing gonna be i have read mixed reports that its 18, 14 or 15 and 19 or 17 and 21
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#62
(11-18-2014, 07:55 PM)mbender123 Wrote: if Owen gets the 12.5 m separation between towers then it would be nearly impossible for a tower to be built on arthur place. 100 vic would need to be 12.5. "his" tower 12.5 (25m) and additionally 12.5m on the other from the property on the abutting side assuming they could develop a tower too..the distance between property lines from 100 vic properties and 79 vic (property abutting the row houses on arthur street is aprox 34 m. that would give owen a 9m wide tower which is narrower than most SFD...so essentially if the 12.5m seperation distance between all towers is implemented by him he would be screwing himself over ??? lol anyways how talls this thing gonna be i have read mixed reports that its 18, 14 or 15 and 19 or 17 and 21

You don't seem to understand how separation lines actually work... .the 12 metre separation is 6m on each side of the property line, not 12 each way. If you look at the posts on page 4 by Spokes and Owen that have drawings and renderings of the situation you might get a better appreciation for the nuances of this situation.

Personally I think Momentum is really soiling their image in their handling of this and tower separation guidelines are something that is gonna end up screwing them over in the future if it's not established now and done properly. Imagine someone building another 20 storey tower on the u-haul or ziggy's lot and putting it only 6 metres from the property line. Someone with a 3D program should whip up some quick renders to really drive this home.
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#63
(11-18-2014, 08:28 PM)clasher Wrote:
(11-18-2014, 07:55 PM)mbender123 Wrote: if Owen gets the 12.5 m separation between towers then it would be nearly impossible for a tower to be built on arthur place. 100 vic would need to be 12.5. "his" tower 12.5 (25m) and additionally 12.5m on the other from the property on the abutting side assuming they could develop a tower too..the distance between property lines from 100 vic properties and 79 vic (property abutting the row houses on arthur street is aprox 34 m. that would give owen a 9m wide tower which is narrower than most SFD...so essentially if the 12.5m seperation distance between all towers is implemented by him he would be screwing himself over ??? lol anyways how talls this thing gonna be i have read mixed reports that its 18, 14 or 15 and 19 or 17 and 21

You don't seem to understand how separation lines actually work... .the 12 metre separation is 6m on each side of the property line, not 12 each way. If you look at the posts on page 4 by Spokes and Owen that have drawings and renderings of the situation you might get a better appreciation for the nuances of this situation.

Personally I think Momentum is really soiling their image in their handling of this and tower separation guidelines are something that is gonna end up screwing them over in the future if it's not established now and done properly. Imagine someone building another 20 storey tower on the u-haul or ziggy's lot and putting it only 6 metres from the property line. Someone with a 3D program should whip up some quick renders to really drive this home.


You don't seem to understand actually... if you read the post by owen earlier, hes saying a 25 tower seperation between towers is best practice. "If the OMB enforces the standard best practice of 25 meter separation Momentum will have no choice but to move their tower back to 12.5m" - Owen. So if that is going to be the restriction 25 m between towers what i said earlier makes sense assuming the abutting property wants to develop as well. Either way Owen does not own all the properties next door and nor does he have an application to develop anything on his property. How can any one plan if there plan or tower has to be planned around hypothetical development. IMO the OMB will side with momentum and we will have another awesome development by Momentum. Hats off to them for all their great work thus far.... anyone know how tall thi things gonna be ? as mentioned previously read some conflicting reports regarding how tall it will really be ..hmmm
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#64
Or they could be reasonable and work with everyone and still build a condo and leave room for another beside it. Momentum could simply mirror the tower placement and move the street-facing tower to the east and a future arthur place tower could be built closer to the street or even over it to an extent if there was enough room left between the residential tower and a future amalgamated arthur street property, it would even be a future opportunity for momentum itself. The city itself needs to up its game here with the setback thing and do it right so that the OMB doesn't need to be involved it isn't really a good way to do things.
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#65
(11-18-2014, 08:46 PM)mbender123 Wrote: How can any one plan if there plan or tower has to be planned around hypothetical development. 

Did you read the post referencing the letter from the city of Kitchener? It stated that the land his property occupies is slated for intensification EG a tower. Or that was the impression I got from it. 

So to answer your point: the city can and does plan for these things and based on what Owen has laid out, the city is snookering itself by allowing these towers to be built because they will be wasting the adjoining lands from their own intended future developments there. 
_____________________________________
I used to be the mayor of sim city. I know what I am talking about.
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#66
(11-18-2014, 11:10 AM)Owen Wrote: here are the scenarios:

Scenario A:  City Defers
- Momentum takes city to the OMB, the City has to hire lawyers and external planners, Momentum has to hire lawyers and planners, AND I still have to hire lawyers and planners to come along.

Scenario B:  City Approves
- I take Momentum to the OMB, city is no longer involved and we don't spend our tax dollars on lawyers and planners.   Momentum and I have the same expense as Scenario A.

... It doesn't feel like "the right thing to do" but it's rational.
This is actually a little different.



Scenario A: If this was a 120-day, "non-decision" Zoning By-law Amendment appeal, the City can still call their own internal Planners as experts as there is no conflict. 


Scenario B: If the City (Council) decided to accept their Planning's staff's recommendation to approve, if they chose to take Participant status at the Board and defend their decision (should there be an appeal), they would be involved and be able to again call their own Planners as experts.


Typically, municipalities are only compelled to hire external Planners to appear as experts before the Board if there is a conflict - i.e. if Council went against their Planning staff's recommendation. This gets interesting because the applicant then has the ability to legally summons the City's Planners as experts.
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#67
(11-19-2014, 10:56 AM)Owen Wrote: Interesting!  I guess it was more of the "let the OMB be the bad guy" and maintain a good relationship/reputation with developers motivation then. 

Which is why the OMB is a necessary thing ™. We have a history of cowardly city councils throughout the province who were afraid of upsetting even a single row of houses no matter what the benefits. This is not to say that the OMB couldn't be improved, but so long as councilors chicken out at the first sight of an irate NIMBY we need the OMB around.
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#68
On one hand, it makes sense for an area zoned for towers to have setbacks equal to the distance you want to have as a minimum between balconies/windows. No one would buy a balcony 3m from the adjacent tower, where you could use a ladder to go between towers.

But at the same time, there needs to be flexibility. If the smallest size tower that could be built (accommodating units, hallways, services, etc) needed to be at least 10m wide, and I have a property that is 10m wide, I am not sure we should expect larger adjacent properties to take all the setback to allow for them to build on their property. Nor would I think that, if a 10m setback was required, and a tower needed to be 10m wide, that a development should be eternally halted because an adjacent owner of a 10m wide lot could someday have his lot combined with more lots on their side for the possibility of creating a tower.

We would never tell a business owner he can't create a convenience store on his lot because an adjacent property may someday be assembled with other adjacent properties, and the assembled property owner might want to build a convenience store there someday, which the present day convenience store proposal would make impossible for any number of reasons.

This is far from a simple issue. There is likely to be similar concern for the St. Sophia church in Waterloo. And this won't be the last time these discussions come up.
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#69
Keep in mind Owen, I am not saying I am 100% one way or the other. But as an example, looking at your drawings, if someone assembled all the properties on only one side of Arthur place, say the East side, and built something, then only the Momentum-adjacent properties could be built on, and with a 25m setback, for anything to get built on them, all the setback would need to be on the Momentum properties. The issue here is that when you assemble properties, you can always have partially-assembled adjacent properties, or adjacent non-assembled properties. While we don't want to forever handicap development-adjacent properties' abilities to be assembled, we also don't want to always let development be held hostage to adjacent buildings, forever impeding all but the largest of assembled projects.

You need only look at the orphaned properties on King between University and Columbia, owners of small lots which cannot accommodate anything large given towers on both sides, but which could have otherwise singlehandedly destroyed multiple towers, or drastically held them back, just on the hope that someday, maybe, something. Or the St. Sophia Ukranian church. I'm not saying I am happy or unhappy in either of those cases, but in each one, there is a great risk in always holding back development because of "what if?"
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#70
Just to point out that there is plenty of legal precedent for first-come first-served regulations. For example, minimum distance separation regulations for student housing favour whoever was first to convert. Another example was the Westmount "mall" which for a long time was used to deny any commercial development West of Westmount.
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#71
(11-19-2014, 02:58 PM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: Keep in mind Owen, I am not saying I am 100% one way or the other. But as an example, looking at your drawings, if someone assembled all the properties on only one side of Arthur place, say the East side, and built something, then only the Momentum-adjacent properties could be built on, and with a 25m setback, for anything to get built on them, all the setback would need to be on the Momentum properties. The issue here is that when you assemble properties, you can always have partially-assembled adjacent properties, or adjacent non-assembled properties. While we don't want to forever handicap development-adjacent properties' abilities to be assembled, we also don't want to always let development be held hostage to adjacent buildings, forever impeding all but the largest of assembled projects.

You need only look at the orphaned properties on King between University and Columbia, owners of small lots which cannot accommodate anything large given towers on both sides, but which could have otherwise singlehandedly destroyed multiple towers, or drastically held them back, just on the hope that someday, maybe, something. Or the St. Sophia Ukranian church. I'm not saying I am happy or unhappy in either of those cases, but in each one, there is a great risk in always holding back development because of "what if?"


I completely agree with this...omb will not side with owen. i understand why owen is upset maybe he expect momentum to buy his property but his best investment would be to save his money and let momentum's development increase his property value. Additionally if owen does take momentum to the obm and when he loses momentum can have owen pay all their legal fees
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#72
(11-19-2014, 11:54 PM)Owen Wrote:
(11-19-2014, 11:12 PM)mbender123 Wrote: I completely agree with this...omb will not side with owen. i understand why owen is upset maybe he expect momentum to buy his property but his best investment would be to save his money and let momentum's development increase his property value. Additionally if owen does take momentum to the obm and when he loses momentum can have owen pay all their legal fees

Ha!  My planners and lawyers disagree - and you should see my earlier post about property values: not interested in selling (quite happy with my current value.)   Quite sure you are incorrect about covering legal costs - have already checked into this - However, if I am mistaken it will be great when they are covering my costs!  Smile


If you win, they will not cover your cost since you took them to the board. However if you lose since you took them to the board the omb can have you cover momentums legal fees if "The party being asked to pay apealed incorectly or acted improperly" . I think that this could be the case . You will be presenting to the board with 0 evidence for a hypothetical developments on an entire block you do not even own. As well it took me, someone with no legal or planning background 2 seconds to google the info about recovering legal cost and apparently your lawyers and planners found nothing... in all do respect you my be best saving your money and allowing your property value to increase because of momentum. its a great development and great for the downtown!

http://www.omb.gov.on.ca/stellent/groups...082179.pdf
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#73
(11-19-2014, 01:35 PM)Owen Wrote: It's worth being clear: No one is ever going to build a tower 10 meters wide,...

ASP is building a tower 8m wide in the university district.
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#74
that's awesome! 8m wide! looks like momentum is not killing owens dream of a tower. Back to my original post didnt mean to get involved in this convo but after reading some comments by owen i felt i needed to add my two cents. anyways all i wanted to know is how tall is this building going to be ? i read 18fl ? 19 fl ? and now 21 fl ? anyone know ?
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#75
Here are some renderings to more clearly illustrate the point:

[Image: SCe5uoC.jpg]
In this one you can see that if their setback was only 6m (half of what is illustrated) then if a 25m separation was enforced, it would push the building on Arthur Place right off the properties (i.e. make it unfeasible)
[Image: HcgXc6H.jpg]

your images do not show a 25 (12.5m and 12.5m) setback on the property to the right of arthur place? (79 vic i think ?)
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