Who will be the moderator of the debate on May 18th? Sure hope it will be someone who is strictly non-partisan and can represent the community properly. It would be a lost opportunity if the moderator was someone inclined to over-state crime and poverty issues in the area, has a very divisive history in the neighbourhood, or, is prone to using meaningless jargon like "catchment area."
dontate to FB = smart business move
let FB paint on the wall = smart business move
coop student = free labour = smart business move
winner = business
loser = community
smart business move from a community perspective
money for kids' programs, funding of art projects, construction of something that serves the entire community, donation to a local social service or community organization
Starting at 600,000 dollars, these is not a community housing strategy.
Good Karma means sharing your profit with those who helped build it.
lk
Irmina, We are going to do a door to door flyer drop off in the JT catchment only, in English and in 5 other languages, to try to draw as many residents as we can to the debate. As far as the rest of Ward18, I will email different groups, residents, bia's, ratepayer ass., inviting them to the debate. I will also send out the info to different media outlets, I already have confirmation from couple of the media about attending. Like others said there will be other debates in ward18 before the election in October.
For some residents the venue might be to far as we are at the very tip of ward18.
The other thing was we were orginally going to do a double debate night, with the Mayor Candidates, but the Ledrew show was having there own debate the same night. So both CP24 and myself decided not to divide the Mayors. As I had 4 out of the 6 Mayors committed. I am still working on a date for (some) Mayor candidates debate. JF
I would hope that ward 18 will have more than one debate. Last time there was also one at McCormack Arena. Our ward is so long that it really has 3 different zones that tend to equate themselves east west more than north south. No offense to any of those that have put their names forward but this crop is definitely 3ard string. With all the talented people we have in the ward you would think that we would have better choices. Why dont we?
I am looking forward to this debate. Thanks to the organizers for putting it together. However, I am curious, is this debate publicized outside of our area for other Ward 18 residents to attend? I only ask because Ward 18 is large and wondered if residents, around, say, King St. between Dovercourt and just west of Lansdowne would also know about this too? It would make an interesting Q&A to hear questions from residents outside of the JT but who are also part of Ward 18.
I checked those out today. Definitely fake....hollow, and very light.. Yeah, looks like leftovers from some kind of art project or stage setup. The holes do look like they maybe had a speaker behind them at some point.
No idea who put them there or why.
I wonder if they took away the garbage and recycling bins from some of the Railpath entrances because they were being used for household garbage. That seems to be a serious problem for alot of those bins, that one in particular, and up at Osler. The garbage cans at Symington get stuffed full of household garbage too.
Cool. But you are aware that they donated to FB and let FB use the DM building as a sign too? They also helped a local student with his co-op hours in terms of painting that sign.
My apologies for saying "sleazy". I hope my second posting made my position clearer. Fuzzy Boundaries is good people with good intentions. The developer and how he used the community in this case sounded sleazy to me. It was not my intention to slur my neighbours. I look forward to seeing FB's next community based initiative. And I agree to play nice.
tt
respect. My point, and I guess I should have made it more clearly is as follows: If a developer uses the as you state - "the time that locals spent on the project; and they spent a huge amount of time on it and got a lot of positive attention for the area.", then I believe they should put something back into the neighbourhood. I'm sure that the Lofts are not not-for-profit. When I spoke to the real estate agent, he stated that "naming the lofts this is giving something back". And I don't believe he is right. He also said that the company came to the name after the naming of the neighbourhood, not by doing the research that you did. I have nothing against the people who were involved in FB. They are good people, if not naive about how developers come into communities and use them without any vision. And I'm not against development either, but there is community development and there is exploitation. If I hear that the company gives back with more than just naming the lofts, I'll be satisfied. I hope that I will be because I agree that FB did a lot of work. I just don't want to believe that unknowingly they worked for developers. If that's all that comes out of this, I'm sure they'd be disappointed in this as I am I'm sure.
Could they be the Rocks that Parks is putting in to stop cars driving on the Path? Could the holes be for bolts to attach to the cement part of the Path?
Naomi and I will be doing a sweep of Railpath this Saturday as part of Clean Up Day. We will be starting at the top (Osler) at 1 pm and working our way south. Please feel free to join us. I have posted this info on the Railpath Group as well.
Friends of Railpath met with Metrolinx recently and City officials to look over the plans and see where the trouble spots are.Building rail infrastructure is a massive undertaking so even getting a seat at the table is a big deal. Obviously there is a PR value for MX to be seen helping Railpath and frankly we will take it in this case. Going Electric is still a better idea than the current dirty diesel they are pursuing and the 407 style for profit airport link.
In discussions these are a few points that stood out and I present them just to inform: NOTHING HERE IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SOLVE so don't get worried. Things are at an early stage and there are many ducks to line up and finding problems is part of getting the job done. Remember that some people thought stage 1 would never happen and it did. With stage 1 done there has never been more interest and will to see stage 2 happen. So just for info sake......
Dundas Bridge (at Sterling Road)--- a hanging or suspended path will have to be built under Dundas to swing east and over the Newmarket line to get Railpath back on the East side of the tracks. (next to the No Frills parking lot).
Lansdowne Bridge- will need abutments from MX to allow City to build out from bridge for additional lane.
Northern Place and Delaney Crescent ---Fantastic opportunities exist for Railpath entrances here.
Brock Bridge---will need abutments from MX to allow City to build out from bridge for additional lane.
The Dufferin Street Overpass (being constructed as part of the Dufferin Jog) and the Queen Street Overpass (being constructed as part of the Dufferin Jog)----in both cases there is some confusion about how much space is available. The City insisted on space for Railpath but MX is saying they need more space. Everybody is trying to figure the exact dimensions of everything going on here. Screwing this up would be a major embarrassment for the City and MX so look to see a solution here.
From here southeast things get crowded in the corridor but there are many possibilities which could work in different combinations.
Sudbury Street----will be extended a bit west and form an entrance. In the worst case scenario if Railpath cannot squeeze over the King bridge then there would be the option of:
A) running a bike path along Sudbury (on the road) and then starting a separate Railpath again on Douro Road just south of King. This option uses streets to bypass a tight spot.
B) Same as above but instead of crossing King on street level a Railpath bridge over King is built just east of the existing King rail bridge allowing Railpath to start again at the east end of Sudbury. Think of a bridge from Sudbury over King just east of the existing rail bridge.
C) Similar as the above ideas but instead of using Sudbury the Railpath would travel through the south part of the parking lot behind the townhouses on Sudbury and then cross in the same spot as above. This idea would still use about one block of the new west end of Sudbury.
D) In a perfect world...Find a way to keep Railpath right next to the rail corridor AND find space on the King Rail Bridge. Expanding the rail bridge would be more expensive than building a purpose specific bridge to cross King so this seems unlikely.
Western Battery Road or Pirandello Street---these two street are under consideration by the City as locations for a pedestrian/bike bridge up to Douro Street. This opens some possibilities in terms of heading to Strachan Ave.
Douro— this last stretch over to Strachan seems to have room for a separate Railpath.
East of Strachan--- may be too crowded to get Railpath further east than this.
I assumed that Ranajit just meant that after his statement, he was asking others to respond nicely and not start bickering. We all know what can happen on this site when we start disagreeing with one another. I thought Scott's comment was very polite in response to traintrack.
The amount of fantastic press and support from local churches, schools, business speaks for itself as does this poster: http://www.fuzzyboundaries.ca/node/120
Take a bow JT and lets get onto other fun projects.
What do you mean Ranajit, play nice? Someone has come onto the site and completely smeared the efforts of community volunteers and described a relationship with a local business person as sleazy. What's nice about that? Why would you even make such a ridiculous statement?
The sad part within all the rumours spread about the FB project (since the beginning) is that no matter how many times the truth is spoken and written about, there will be others who will continue to believe what they want and continue to embellish their version of the story, despite the facts.
You are entitled to your opinion and you have stated it clearly but in some respects your impressions are not accurate. The FB process was underway quite some time before anybody donated money to promoting it and those that donated had little else to do with the process. The idea that those companies that donated money, and not all were real estate agents, were somehow secretly behind the process is just is not true. Their logos were up front for all to see. FB also received support from the Library and businesses like Boo Radlys; business is part of the community too.
Talk to the people who did the real work; residents. Don't overlook the fact that the largest donation was in fact the time that locals spent on the project; and they spent a huge amount of time on it and got a lot of positive attention for the area. I don't know how anything could be suspicious when the winning name was the long time front runner and a name that had been used by many since the 70's. If anything it confirmed the status quo but gave people a chance to try something different if they wished and most did not.
People used JT as a name in 1977 and in 1983 and they are using it today. At the end of the day I sense you believe in a story that is just not there.
So they are building a butt-ugly strip mall where the D&M Hardware was. The D&M Hardware building was no beauty queen either, but still it had character and people used it. Now we have theses lofts.
I'm not against development, but calling it Junction Triangle Lofts is the most suspicious thing I've seen in a while. So the real estate agents bankroll the Fuzzy Boundaries campaign to rename the neighbourhood. The Fuzzy Boundaries campaign uses the community to mobilize everyone around the name of the hood, gets press, ups the profile of the neighbourhood...the name is selected and presto, the name of the new development is Junction Triangle Lofts with Fuzzy Boundaries bragging about them and advertising for them on their website. Fuzzy Boundaries is a great name for this group because I don't know where the real estate agent starts and the community group ends. I did call the real estate agent and ask him what the company planned to put back into the neighbourhood since they worked so hard at helping them come up with the name of the lofts and promoting this up and coming area for them. He said giving them that name was giving back to the neighbourhood. Right! He said, 'Let me give you a macro example". If someone wants to call their business Toronto Restaurant, they can. I agree, but there was no group who was working the neighbourhood to change the name and get the people together to do all this work...is the name trademarked. No, and I doubt it should be, but there is something sleazy with this whole connection. Development is good, exploiting a neighbourhood to do it is bad.
This land is zoned R2 (residential) at a density of 0.6 and with a height allotment of approx 3 stories (the church is higher than that already). Obviously the zoning changed long after the church was built.
No matter what happens to the church, whether it is converted to lofts, or is torn down (It does not have a historical designation) and townhouses are built, the new owner will have to apply for some kind of rezoning and generally speaking the City will be in favour of increasing the density level for the site which makes sense.
In terms of the church sale itself that may be tricky as they are asking for a 2007 price (they have been trying to sell since then) but we now have 2010 interest rates. I am just guessing but the 2.3 million dollar may have to come down a few hundred thousand to make this enticing enough for a developer.
Starting at 600,000, this is not a community housing strategy.
And man, from what I saw of the design on the website...they are not going to add to the architectural beauty of the area either.
Who will be the moderator of the debate on May 18th? Sure hope it will be someone who is strictly non-partisan and can represent the community properly. It would be a lost opportunity if the moderator was someone inclined to over-state crime and poverty issues in the area, has a very divisive history in the neighbourhood, or, is prone to using meaningless jargon like "catchment area."
dontate to FB = smart business move
let FB paint on the wall = smart business move
coop student = free labour = smart business move
winner = business
loser = community
smart business move from a community perspective
money for kids' programs, funding of art projects, construction of something that serves the entire community, donation to a local social service or community organization
Starting at 600,000 dollars, these is not a community housing strategy.
Good Karma means sharing your profit with those who helped build it.
lk
Irmina, We are going to do a door to door flyer drop off in the JT catchment only, in English and in 5 other languages, to try to draw as many residents as we can to the debate. As far as the rest of Ward18, I will email different groups, residents, bia's, ratepayer ass., inviting them to the debate. I will also send out the info to different media outlets, I already have confirmation from couple of the media about attending. Like others said there will be other debates in ward18 before the election in October.
For some residents the venue might be to far as we are at the very tip of ward18.
The other thing was we were orginally going to do a double debate night, with the Mayor Candidates, but the Ledrew show was having there own debate the same night. So both CP24 and myself decided not to divide the Mayors. As I had 4 out of the 6 Mayors committed. I am still working on a date for (some) Mayor candidates debate. JF
I would hope that ward 18 will have more than one debate. Last time there was also one at McCormack Arena. Our ward is so long that it really has 3 different zones that tend to equate themselves east west more than north south. No offense to any of those that have put their names forward but this crop is definitely 3ard string. With all the talented people we have in the ward you would think that we would have better choices. Why dont we?
I am looking forward to this debate. Thanks to the organizers for putting it together. However, I am curious, is this debate publicized outside of our area for other Ward 18 residents to attend? I only ask because Ward 18 is large and wondered if residents, around, say, King St. between Dovercourt and just west of Lansdowne would also know about this too? It would make an interesting Q&A to hear questions from residents outside of the JT but who are also part of Ward 18.
I know for a fact that the issue at Osler is the auto shops and their clients.
I checked those out today. Definitely fake....hollow, and very light.. Yeah, looks like leftovers from some kind of art project or stage setup. The holes do look like they maybe had a speaker behind them at some point.
No idea who put them there or why.
I wonder if they took away the garbage and recycling bins from some of the Railpath entrances because they were being used for household garbage. That seems to be a serious problem for alot of those bins, that one in particular, and up at Osler. The garbage cans at Symington get stuffed full of household garbage too.
-Vic
Cool. But you are aware that they donated to FB and let FB use the DM building as a sign too? They also helped a local student with his co-op hours in terms of painting that sign.
My apologies for saying "sleazy". I hope my second posting made my position clearer. Fuzzy Boundaries is good people with good intentions. The developer and how he used the community in this case sounded sleazy to me. It was not my intention to slur my neighbours. I look forward to seeing FB's next community based initiative. And I agree to play nice.
tt
respect. My point, and I guess I should have made it more clearly is as follows: If a developer uses the as you state - "the time that locals spent on the project; and they spent a huge amount of time on it and got a lot of positive attention for the area.", then I believe they should put something back into the neighbourhood. I'm sure that the Lofts are not not-for-profit. When I spoke to the real estate agent, he stated that "naming the lofts this is giving something back". And I don't believe he is right. He also said that the company came to the name after the naming of the neighbourhood, not by doing the research that you did. I have nothing against the people who were involved in FB. They are good people, if not naive about how developers come into communities and use them without any vision. And I'm not against development either, but there is community development and there is exploitation. If I hear that the company gives back with more than just naming the lofts, I'll be satisfied. I hope that I will be because I agree that FB did a lot of work. I just don't want to believe that unknowingly they worked for developers. If that's all that comes out of this, I'm sure they'd be disappointed in this as I am I'm sure.
Could they be the Rocks that Parks is putting in to stop cars driving on the Path? Could the holes be for bolts to attach to the cement part of the Path?
I was 20 years old with a skinny tie and dyed black punkish hair. I remember all the civic activity in JT at the time.
Scott,
Early 80's!! You must have been 1o years old!! :o)
G
Naomi and I will be doing a sweep of Railpath this Saturday as part of Clean Up Day. We will be starting at the top (Osler) at 1 pm and working our way south. Please feel free to join us. I have posted this info on the Railpath Group as well.
Friends of Railpath met with Metrolinx recently and City officials to look over the plans and see where the trouble spots are.Building rail infrastructure is a massive undertaking so even getting a seat at the table is a big deal. Obviously there is a PR value for MX to be seen helping Railpath and frankly we will take it in this case. Going Electric is still a better idea than the current dirty diesel they are pursuing and the 407 style for profit airport link.
In discussions these are a few points that stood out and I present them just to inform: NOTHING HERE IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SOLVE so don't get worried. Things are at an early stage and there are many ducks to line up and finding problems is part of getting the job done. Remember that some people thought stage 1 would never happen and it did. With stage 1 done there has never been more interest and will to see stage 2 happen. So just for info sake......
Dundas Bridge (at Sterling Road)--- a hanging or suspended path will have to be built under Dundas to swing east and over the Newmarket line to get Railpath back on the East side of the tracks. (next to the No Frills parking lot).
Lansdowne Bridge- will need abutments from MX to allow City to build out from bridge for additional lane.
Northern Place and Delaney Crescent ---Fantastic opportunities exist for Railpath entrances here.
Brock Bridge---will need abutments from MX to allow City to build out from bridge for additional lane.
The Dufferin Street Overpass (being constructed as part of the Dufferin Jog) and the Queen Street Overpass (being constructed as part of the Dufferin Jog)----in both cases there is some confusion about how much space is available. The City insisted on space for Railpath but MX is saying they need more space. Everybody is trying to figure the exact dimensions of everything going on here. Screwing this up would be a major embarrassment for the City and MX so look to see a solution here.
From here southeast things get crowded in the corridor but there are many possibilities which could work in different combinations.
Sudbury Street----will be extended a bit west and form an entrance. In the worst case scenario if Railpath cannot squeeze over the King bridge then there would be the option of:
A) running a bike path along Sudbury (on the road) and then starting a separate Railpath again on Douro Road just south of King. This option uses streets to bypass a tight spot.
B) Same as above but instead of crossing King on street level a Railpath bridge over King is built just east of the existing King rail bridge allowing Railpath to start again at the east end of Sudbury. Think of a bridge from Sudbury over King just east of the existing rail bridge.
C) Similar as the above ideas but instead of using Sudbury the Railpath would travel through the south part of the parking lot behind the townhouses on Sudbury and then cross in the same spot as above. This idea would still use about one block of the new west end of Sudbury.
D) In a perfect world...Find a way to keep Railpath right next to the rail corridor AND find space on the King Rail Bridge. Expanding the rail bridge would be more expensive than building a purpose specific bridge to cross King so this seems unlikely.
Western Battery Road or Pirandello Street---these two street are under consideration by the City as locations for a pedestrian/bike bridge up to Douro Street. This opens some possibilities in terms of heading to Strachan Ave.
Douro— this last stretch over to Strachan seems to have room for a separate Railpath.
East of Strachan--- may be too crowded to get Railpath further east than this.
I assumed that Ranajit just meant that after his statement, he was asking others to respond nicely and not start bickering. We all know what can happen on this site when we start disagreeing with one another. I thought Scott's comment was very polite in response to traintrack.
Let's play nice. :-)
The amount of fantastic press and support from local churches, schools, business speaks for itself as does this poster: http://www.fuzzyboundaries.ca/node/120
Take a bow JT and lets get onto other fun projects.
What do you mean Ranajit, play nice? Someone has come onto the site and completely smeared the efforts of community volunteers and described a relationship with a local business person as sleazy. What's nice about that? Why would you even make such a ridiculous statement?
Amen! I had the same warm fuzzy feelin myself about this.
But I guess everyone has their own opinions.
Now lets play nice.
Ranajit
The sad part within all the rumours spread about the FB project (since the beginning) is that no matter how many times the truth is spoken and written about, there will be others who will continue to believe what they want and continue to embellish their version of the story, despite the facts.
Such is life, I guess.
You are entitled to your opinion and you have stated it clearly but in some respects your impressions are not accurate. The FB process was underway quite some time before anybody donated money to promoting it and those that donated had little else to do with the process. The idea that those companies that donated money, and not all were real estate agents, were somehow secretly behind the process is just is not true. Their logos were up front for all to see. FB also received support from the Library and businesses like Boo Radlys; business is part of the community too.
Talk to the people who did the real work; residents. Don't overlook the fact that the largest donation was in fact the time that locals spent on the project; and they spent a huge amount of time on it and got a lot of positive attention for the area. I don't know how anything could be suspicious when the winning name was the long time front runner and a name that had been used by many since the 70's. If anything it confirmed the status quo but gave people a chance to try something different if they wished and most did not.
People used JT as a name in 1977 and in 1983 and they are using it today. At the end of the day I sense you believe in a story that is just not there.
So they are building a butt-ugly strip mall where the D&M Hardware was. The D&M Hardware building was no beauty queen either, but still it had character and people used it. Now we have theses lofts.
I'm not against development, but calling it Junction Triangle Lofts is the most suspicious thing I've seen in a while. So the real estate agents bankroll the Fuzzy Boundaries campaign to rename the neighbourhood. The Fuzzy Boundaries campaign uses the community to mobilize everyone around the name of the hood, gets press, ups the profile of the neighbourhood...the name is selected and presto, the name of the new development is Junction Triangle Lofts with Fuzzy Boundaries bragging about them and advertising for them on their website. Fuzzy Boundaries is a great name for this group because I don't know where the real estate agent starts and the community group ends. I did call the real estate agent and ask him what the company planned to put back into the neighbourhood since they worked so hard at helping them come up with the name of the lofts and promoting this up and coming area for them. He said giving them that name was giving back to the neighbourhood. Right! He said, 'Let me give you a macro example". If someone wants to call their business Toronto Restaurant, they can. I agree, but there was no group who was working the neighbourhood to change the name and get the people together to do all this work...is the name trademarked. No, and I doubt it should be, but there is something sleazy with this whole connection. Development is good, exploiting a neighbourhood to do it is bad.
More info about the sale here:
http://www.icx.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=9187314
This land is zoned R2 (residential) at a density of 0.6 and with a height allotment of approx 3 stories (the church is higher than that already). Obviously the zoning changed long after the church was built.
No matter what happens to the church, whether it is converted to lofts, or is torn down (It does not have a historical designation) and townhouses are built, the new owner will have to apply for some kind of rezoning and generally speaking the City will be in favour of increasing the density level for the site which makes sense.
In terms of the church sale itself that may be tricky as they are asking for a 2007 price (they have been trying to sell since then) but we now have 2010 interest rates. I am just guessing but the 2.3 million dollar may have to come down a few hundred thousand to make this enticing enough for a developer.