Tag Archives: City of Toronto

The push for more kids in Toronto condominiums

Posted on April 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

It’s recorder season again. Grade two or three is the perfect time to let budding little minds hone their musical talents, and each class is learning how to play the high-pitched clarinet-like instrument. These younger children are excitedly returning home from school eager to practice Mary Had a Little Lamb on their recorders for the entire afternoon in an effort to impress their teachers and classmates the next day. Like any sane person, parents will usually banish the children to the backyard to practice, and the entire block is then filled with the shrill squeaking of children blowing as hard as they can on their recorders for the maximum amount of noise production. Unfortunately, not even the most prodigious little Mozart could make a recorder sound enjoyable.

This is when one might wonder about living in a neighbourhood that is essentially child-free and for some, condominiums might be the answer. However, the City of Toronto is really starting to push for more families with children in condo buildings when a lot more families are looking to settle in the suburbs.

Other cities, like Vancouver have seen a lot more children move into the downtown area and Toronto wants the same thing. Vancouver is also focusing on building schools for younger students in the downtown area.

Councillors want to socially engineer a lot of downtown Toronto’s condos to create a much more family friendly environment. Before that happens, they’ll need to establish more family-tolerant condo units, which are usually three bedrooms in size and need to be more affordable on average.

Last November it was proposed by the city’s planning and growth community that larger downtown condominium developments ensure that at least 10 per cent of their units are three bedrooms, but developers thought this would be unrealistic. To this day, both sides are still trying to find a resolution that suits them both.

Councillor Adam Vaughan told the Globe and Mail in March that, “what we build is market-driven. And if there were a market for three-bedroom units, we could deliver.”

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Toronto Landmarks: Casa Loma – Toronto’s own castle

Posted on April 9, 2010 | Leave a comment

Those who aren’t yet familiar with the City of Toronto might be surprised to learn there’s a castle nearby, and those aware of it might be soon wondering why they haven’t visited already.

Sir Henry Pellatt was one of the founders of the Toronto Electric Light Company in 1883. In 1911, after having amassed a hefty fortune, Sir Henry decided to build his dream castle right in what’s now the midtown-area. Casa Loma, which means Hill House, took three years to build and was completed in 1914. It took 300 workers to build Casa Loma, but WWI halted much of the construction. At the time, it was the largest private residence in Canada with 89 rooms.

After Sir Henry died, numerous other owners and business ventures used Casa Loma, including a luxury hotel.

The city came to own Casa Loma in 1933 when it was seized for over $27,000 in back taxes. In 1937, the city decided to open the castle to the public.

The building has five acres of gardens, an elevator and central vacuum, as well as three bowling alleys that were never quite completed. The castle is also complete with secret passages, suites, towers and stables.

Casa Loma has also always been a popular place for movie and television filming, including X-Men, Strange Brew and CBC’s television show Being Erica which features the title character working there.

Casa Loma is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every day, closing early on December 24 while being completely closed on December 25. The gardens are open from May to October, and the castle also features a cafe and gift shop. There are guided tours of the castle daily.

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Building permits increase across Toronto, Condominiums in Particular

Posted on February 24, 2010 | Leave a comment

By the end of last year, the money spent on building permits being taken out had risen 15 per cent since the end of November across the city of Toronto. The amount of building permits for the month of December alone totaled $1.2 billion according to a recently released Statistics Canada report.

The city of Toronto is already looking at a significant increase in condominiums dotting the skyline, as permits for multiple dwellings rose 30 per cent in December alone, which could be alluded to the fact that the Building Industry and Land Development Association released statistics showing that Toronto’s downtown condominium sales had risen a staggering 995 per cent in December compared to December 2008, the deepest point in the recession thus far. Only 166 new condos were sold in the city during that month, many of which at discounted prices because of the economy. In December 2009 alone, 1,800 condos were sold at their asking price in stark contrast to the previous year.

The recent announcement of the new mortgage rules, however, are seeding fears that the condo prices might be driven down again because of the higher down payment first-time buyers will have to make on the condos, which is 20 per cent according to the Canadian Press.

More building permit statistics:

According to the federal statistics agency, almost eight per cent more money was spent on building permits for the city of Toronto in 2009 than in 2008, and Toronto had the most money spent on building permits out of all of the Canadian cities surveyed. Toronto had almost twice as much as Vancouver and Montreal, coming in second and third place respectively. Cities with the largest fall in the value of their building permits included Ottawa and Edmonton.

Across the country, over $34 billion in residential building permits were taken out, and $6.2 billions dollars worth were taken out in December by contractors.

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