Boho goes condo as developers rule on Queen West
Excerpt from an article by Christopher Hume - Toronto Star
Queen Street West. has always been a shining example of the best of Toronto; now it has also become an example of the worst.
Late last week, the Ontario Municipal Board, that unaccountable, unelected, quasi-judicial body that has final say over development in the province, ruled in favour of three proposals that will alter forever the character of the Queen West Triangle, the area south and east of Queen and Dufferin Sts.
In the meantime, the developers, not having heard from the city after the required 180 days after filing an application, appealed to the OMB. Clearly uninterested in working with Active 18, they carried on regardless and to no one’s surprise got everything they wanted from the board.Early pictures of one of the three, a condo and loft complex named – without apparent irony – Bohemian Embassy, show a dreary series of buildings, the kind of banal and anonymous architecture that could be anywhere in the world, let alone Queen St.
One of the three OMB-approved proposals will see the three-storey warehouse loft conversion at 48 Abell St., an artistic hub for years, replaced with two condo towers, 18 and 14 storeys.
“This isn’t going to be a nice place to live. The people who buy those condos will be looking into somebody else’s windows. There are no public streets between the towers; people are starting to talk about St. James Town. It could even be unsafe.”
“We did get a road we wanted,” he says. “We got a mews and a park. But the big issue – housing for artists – still has to be decided. We think it’s too much. There’s no doubt that five towers, some as high as 18 storeys, will have an effect on Queen Street West.”No question about that. More than anything, the sorry story of Queen Street West. makes it clear the time has come to abolish the OMB now.
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