Though it seemed a good idea at the time, it’s clear now that the zoning regime that created countless “apartment neighbourhoods” around Toronto was deeply flawed.

Based on misguided notions about how we would live in the future, residents of these highrise suburban communities have instead been trapped in a failed vision of modern life.

But what planning takes, it can give back. The city’s recently implemented Tower Renewal Program, adopted after 10 years of effort, has changed zoning rules that rigidly forbade any use except residential. New regulations mean that the green space that surrounds these apartment buildings, which comprises as much as 90 per cent of a site, can now be used for small shops, daycare facilities, doctors’ offices, markets, gardens and the like.

“The original zoning was very restrictive,” explains Lauralyn Johnston, project manager with the city’s Tower and Neighbourhood Revitalization Initiative. “They could have tennis courts, but not tennis clubs. Not even ATMs were allowed. There was an assumption that there would be lots of cars and that people would drive where they wanted to go, so services weren’t necessary.”

The starting point was a desire to avoid the messiness of the city and make suburbia neat and tidy. Every human activity — living, working, playing, shopping, praying — had its own separate space, all connected by highways. That was the basis of the “tower in the park” model, replicated countless times in the older neighbourhoods of Etobicoke, Scarborough, North York and beyond. Johnston points to towers on St. Dennis Dr. in Flemingdon Park as ideally suited to the program.

As she says, “Theories are nice, but people need things every day. They drive less than expected. They want to walk, to have access . . . We hope to bring a measure of equity to these neighbourhoods and give people the ability to do more.”

The program lists 500 apartment sites that are eligible under the new regulations. Though only landlords can apply, city officials hope that residents will be enabled to make their needs known. Indeed, the worry is that the scheme could be manipulated simply as a money-making opportunity for building owners.

“We don’t want KFCs and Tim Hortons,” Johnston makes clear. “This is not traditional commercial space. Size is limited. This is a small intervention; the new zoning can enable people to change the direction of their own neighbourhood. We see this as an opportunity for grassroots economic development. We hope that residents can now make proposals to owners. This is also about creating complete neighbourhoods and making neighbourhoods safer. We’re allowing these places to expand, grow and flourish.”

It’s tempting to compare Tower Renewal to the Two Kings program that unleashed unprecedented development in the areas around King and Spadina and King and Parliament. Enacted by Barbara Hall, the last mayor of the former city of Toronto, the effect of the zoning changes has been profound. Two decades later, the city has issued more than $8 billion worth of building permits for those two districts. Essentially, the plan replaced land use controls with built-form controls. The city encouraged mixed use growth — residential, commercial, retail — but still had final word over the buildings it approved.

Johnston is quick to note that tower renewal doesn’t have the “scale” of the Two Kings. The suburban neighbourhoods in question remain primarily residential. But, as she says, “we want to make sure these neighbourhoods have the same services as the rest of the city, the same opportunities to start small businesses, non-profit operations and things like market gardens that weren’t allowed.”

“These are fairly stable neighbourhoods,” Johnston notes. “The average age of the towers is 47 years. The newest was built in 1985.” As dreary, even ghastly, as some of these towers may be, unlike recently built condos, they are extremely well constructed and contain many units large enough for families.

City council approved the initiative in 2013, but the changes didn’t make it through the Ontario Municipal Board until last December. Complainants included local businesses concerned about the effect on their bottom line.

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Given that almost a million people live in the 2,000 such towers across the GTA, the need for change is huge. The program falls short of full mixed-use, which would require more than zoning updates, and the new regulations won’t affect many of these concrete slabs. But now highrise suburbs in the GTA have a brighter future, something the past, despite the best of intentions, made impossible.