Three proposed condo buildings in the Distillery District are rankling residents and raising questions about what kind of development is appropriate for the national historic site.

Some locals say the proposals will increase congestion and hide the district’s marquee squares in shadow.

But the architects for Cityscape, the developer on two of the projects, say the development is needed to continue revitalizing and preserving some of the city’s most important heritage resources.

The proposals will add around 1,000 new condo units to the district, pushing the density above the target set by the official plan, according to Gooderham and Worts Neighbourhood Association president Michael Brewer.

“It brings a lot of density to the neighbourhood that isn’t needed and can’t really be supported,” Brewer said.

That extra density means more people in the district’s public spaces, especially during high-traffic periods like the Christmas Market. In 2015 market organizers started charging a $5 admission fee in an attempt to curb the crowds that were cramming into the district’s narrow Victorian laneways.

The other major concern residents have is the shadows that would be cast by the proposed towers. As Brewer points out, one of the big draws to the Distillery District is the sunlight the area’s squares and laneways get in the summer.

Adding a 49-storey tower at 31a Parliament will drastically reduce that sunlight, Brewer said.

“It would shade Trinity Square which is the main feature at this national historic site,” he said.

A shadow study presented at an Ontario Municipal Board hearing on May 15th showed that at 2 p.m. on June 21, the tower will cast a shadow over about half of Trinity Square. At that time on that day of the year, the sun is near it’s highest in the sky — the further from that day the calendar gets, the longer the shadow cast will be.

But aside from these issues, the developments raise questions about how to balance heritage preservation with density in Toronto.

“We’re not doing a good job of it,” says architect Catherine Nasmith.

Nasmith specializes in heritage rehabilitation and urban planning, and is a frequent commenter on the city’s development issues.

“When it becomes a forest of towers, it’s just not a place people will want to be. I’m not sure we have an intelligent idea about when enough is enough,” Nasmith said.

The Distillery District is already a national historic site, and is subject to the Ontario Heritage Act. The City of Toronto also has a heritage designation study underway, which could result in the area getting a Heritage Conservation District designation. That would add more protections for the site and require city approval for any alterations, additions or demolitions within the site.

But Nasmith worries that with all the condo development taking place in the area right now, the horse may already be out of the barn before the city even finishes its assessment.

“The city can’t seem to keep up with the development industry. ” she said.

In 2015 Nasmith delivered a lecture in Hamilton called Main Street as Old Growth Forest. The idea was to apply analogies from the environmental conservation movement to city planning and urban design.

Her argument was that you need a mix of new and old buildings for the ecology of a healthy neighbourhood to thrive.

Nasmith said an area like the Distillery District, with its deep historical roots, deserves to be protected from the kind of intense condo development that’s happened in places like Liberty Village or Humber Bay Shores.

“We’re losing that kind of interesting fine-grained stuff that makes the city so unique,” she said.

“Condos are coarse-grained, it’s big money. What we’re creating is a monoculture,” Nasmith said.

On the other hand, the Distillery District is almost by definition an “old growth” neighbourhood. And it likely wouldn’t have survived at all if it weren’t for the development and revitalization that’s already taken place, thanks largely to the district owner and developer Cityscape, argues Urban Toronto publisher Edward Skira.

“I remember when it was a factory, and it was empty and there was nothing down there,” Skira said.

“They took strong bones, and they fixed up a lot of those old buildings and put new life to them. From that perspective it’s great,” he said.

But doing so cost money, and for the Distillery District, that money came from condos, Skira said.

Skira lives in the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood, just west of the Distillery District. He said he sees the same kind of not-in-my-back yard resistance to development there as well, but figures that without it the communities wouldn’t be as vibrant as they’ve become.

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“Frankly it’s two blocks from the subway. It’s three blocks from the tallest building in Canada. To pretend that you’re living in Orangeville or some place like that is rather silly,” he said. “If you’re going to live downtown, that’s part of what you get downtown.”

Updated proposals for a 13-storey condo at 60 Mill St., a heritage building also called Rack House D, and a 49-storey tower at 31a Parliament St. were heard at the Ontario Municipal Board this week.

Part of the 31a Parliament proposal includes a four- and five-storey “ribbon building” that runs along the southern edge of the Distillery District all the way to Cherry St. The north side of that building will include retail and office space, as well as a redesigned Cherry Square with a new café space.

A third proposal, for a 47-storey tower at 31 Parliament, has also been appealed to the OMB, but a hearing date hasn’t yet been set.

Gilles Saucier is the architect behind the Rack House D redevelopment. As he told the OMB hearing on May 15, he and Cityscape see the project as a chance to breathe new life into an important heritage building that’s currently sitting empty and unused.

“It will contribute to the neighbourhood in so many ways, including saving that building,” Saucier said.

Architect Bruce Kuwabara has worked on the proposal for 31a Parliament since 2012. At the OMB hearings he said that the new designs for that condo tower and ribbon building will help improve the district.

“There are very few places where people go and just walk around, actually get out of their cars,” Kuwabara said.

The goal of the ribbon building is to enhance that walkability, Kuwabara said, by adding street-level retail along the southern edge of the district, which is currently a parking lot. That parking will be taken underground into the ribbon building’s basement, he said, freeing up space in both Trinity and Cherry Squares. He compared the vision for the redesigned spaces to that of a European piazza where “there is a café on the ground floor and an apartment above it.”

“It’s convivial. That’s why people go to Europe,” Kuwabara said.

But local residents disagree.

“It’s way too high,” said Kristin Scythes, a resident-owner in the existing condo tower at 70 Distillery Lane. “It’s blocking off the view from the water. It’s a whole city block of concrete from Cherry to Parliament that will be an eyesore,” Scythes said.

Scythes said the increased density and traffic is a concern both for safety at night and more traffic and crowding during the day. The planned café in Cherry Square is steps from her front door, she said.

“It’s my front lawn,” she said. “Would you want a café on your front lawn?”

Residents at 70 Mill St. worry that the new condo floors at 60 Mill St. will encroach on their privacy because the buildings are separated by a laneway that’s a scant 6.5 metres wide.

Brewer said the Gooderham and Worts Neighbourhood Association isn’t against all development. The plans for the ribbon building attached to 31a Parliament are great, he said, and will help improve the neighbourhood. The problem, he says, is that they’ve been down this road before.

The ribbon building was first proposed as part of the existing towers at 70 Distillery Lane, where Scythes lives, and 370 Cherry St.

Those towers were finished in 2013, but the ribbon building was never built.

“They just built the two towers but none of the shops or amenities that would go along with them,” Brewer said.

The original proposals put forward by developer Cityscape called for a 34-storey tower at 60 Mill St. and 57 storey tower at 31a Parliament. Through mediation with city staff, Cityscape reduced 60 Mill St. to 13 storeys and 31a Parliament to 49. The Goldberg Group is behind the pitch for 31 Parliament.

All three of the projects require amendments to the Distillery District’s Official Plan and zoning bylaws. All three were originally rejected by the city planning staff before the developers appealed to the Ontario Municipal Board. A written decision on 60 Mill St. and 31a Parliament is expected sometime this spring.