Tag Archives: hidden gems
Everything you want in a condo, and less
Christopher Hume – Yourhome.ca
North of Danforth, Broadview Ave. becomes a different world. Leaving Riverdale Park behind, it closes in and becomes a landscape of residential towers, many from the 1970s, lowrise apartments of an earlier vintage and assorted convenience stores and houses. Among its hidden gems is one of the city’s few remaining taxidermists, a holdover of a different era. It also serves as a route to and from the Don Valley Parkway and beyond that to the post-war inner suburbs of East York.
Needless to say, the whole is less then the sum of its parts. But at the same time, Broadview is lively and growing livelier. New construction is starting to change the face of the street; much of the new stuff considerably more urban than what was done in previous decades when buildings were set back from the sidewalk and surrounded by acres of empty green space.
On the west, many of the buildings are highrise, but less so on the east, where established lowrise neighbourhoods are now sought after. And although there are spectacular views to the west over the Don Valley, they are long gone, hidden behind a row of giant slabs.
Then, of course, there are the advantages of being well within the city but just enough outside the core not to have to worry about the usual irritations. On the other hand, for reasons of urban geography the street is under some development pressure. The tallest condo tower in the area, Skyy, opened recently and undoubtedly is a sign of things to come.
Condo Critic – 957 Broadview Avenue
There’s nothing wildly exciting about this modest project, but there doesn’t need to be. In a display of excellent civic manners, it fits unobtrusively into its site on the northeast corner of Broadview and Fulton Aves. refusing to call attention to itself.
Such displays of architectural restraint are rare – and welcome – in Toronto, where we’re better at building buildings than building communities. Its masonry and stucco exteriors come with just enough decoration to keep it from complete anonymity. Thankfully, the garages are not on Broadview, which means the front facade is free to be a facade.
And at three storeys, it certainly can’t be accused of blocking the views. This is an infill project of the sort that Toronto could use in almost every neighbourhood. Because of its compactness and willingness to remain unobtrusive, it would be at home almost anywhere.
Grade: B-
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Cabbagetown cultivates lanes
Lane-naming a tribute to ‘hidden gems’, noteworthy Torontonians
Laura Blenkinsop, National Post
City works crews arrived last week amid the Victorian row houses and cottages of Cabbagetown, halting their trucks at eight narrow laneways. Residents watched as they erected street signs with names like Woodward Evans Lane, after the two Torontonians who first invented the light bulb and then sold the patent to Thomas Edison; Drovers Lane, after the occupation of some early City of Toronto residents who drove herds of livestock to market; and Hagan Lane after award-winning artist Frederick Hagan, known for setting up his easel to paint in Cabbagetown’s laneways.
It is the first lane-naming project of this scale in Toronto; before they are done, 44 more lanes will get names.
They are a tribute to the persistence of Douglas Mc-Taggart, who has spent three years pushing to name all the back alleys in Cabbagetown.
“There’s a beauty to the laneways now, and I think it’s really trying to accentuate the positives,” said Mr. McTaggart, chairman of the Cabbagetown Preservation Association Laneway Naming and Signing Initiative.
“They’re part of the Victorian plan so they are historic. I think there is so much potential for them.”
Cabbagetown is the largest continuous area of preserved Victorian housing in North America
Cabbagetown, named for the flood of impoverished Irish immigrants who used their front lawns for vegetable gardens filled with cabbages, is shedding its slum past, although not quickly enough for some residents.
The signs erected this week are all in the neighbourhood’s more troubled western edge.
Mr. McTaggart’s inspiration to name lanes came as a way to deal with the problems he faced in the alley behind the Seaton Street home he moved into in January, 2002.
A Toronto Community Housing Corporation building is across the alley from his home and with all the residents, he said over time garbage was piled five to six feet high and 20-feet long. He found used syringes and broken glass when children in their bare feet were playing nearby.
After a drug deal gone wrong, a person was thrown to their death off a balcony into the alley, he said.
“I believe it’s a liability to have an unnamed thoroughfare in Toronto in this day and age,” said Mr. McTaggart. “It’s really life and property that are at risk.”
His complaints to the city proved fruitless, he said, so in 2004 he decided to submit an application to get the troubled lane a name.
In December, 2005, his back alley was officially named Oskenonton Lane, after a First Nations entertainer from the early 1900s.
Since the lane’s naming, Mr. McTaggart said he’s noticed a reduction in crime.
The TCHC building’s garbage is collected three times instead of once each week and new lighting has been installed.
“It really was a tangle of issues of urban decay,” Mr. McTaggart said. “Naming and signing the lane was a step that really vaulted us forward.”
He decided nearby lanes should also be named so they could be cleaned up, to speed up emergency response times and increase traffic safety.
So the human resources consultant and historical preservation enthusiast bought property data maps and spent three winter weeks canvassing the area and noting down the locations, problems and historical icons of every lane.
He also created the laneways initiative, which submitted the application to name 52 lanes on March 22, 2006. Desmond Christopher, the city’s supervisor for Street and Parcel Mapping, said that is a lot of lanes.
“Normally we don’t name lanes unless we are required for emergency purposes,” he said.
The city also names lanes if a new building’s front entrance looks onto an alley instead of a street, or if city councillors and residents want to honour someone who has died.
For the signage for the first eight lanes, the city has spent about $2,500 in labour and materials.
Mr. McTaggart intends to continue his activism for the laneways, pushing for road surface, sewage and greening improvements until Cabbagetown’s lanes are “hidden gems.”
He said he’s been humbled by thank you e-mails he’s received from neighbours for the signs that have already been installed.
“I don’t think anybody should undervalue the signage that’s in place,” he said. “Signage brings great benefits.”
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960
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Plan Ahead For Buying Your First Home
If you’re in college or university, or if you have just started a job, it’s most likely that home to you right now means a rental apartment, or even your parent’s house. But it’s never too early to start thinking about the future, so why not start now?
Here are five valuable tips to consider that will make your life easier when you do want to buy a home a few years down the road.
1. Establish good credit habits and a favorable credit history. Get a credit card and use it responsibly. Apply for an automobile loan and make your payments on time every month. If you’re renting an apartment, put your own name on the lease and the utility bills and make sure that the rent and the bills are paid every month. If you’re already struggling with credit card debt, or you have large student loans, get some free credit counselling now! Make a concentrated effort to pay your credit card and loan payments on time, every time.
2. Start saving for a down payment and closing costs. In high-cost areas like the Toronto real estate market, starting to save early can be enormously beneficial because you’ll get the advantage of compounding interest and have a longer period of time to grow your investments. Open a savings account or an investment account and make regular deposits and watch that down payment grow.
3. Read some books. Your local library and bookstore probably have at least a few shelves of books about financial management and buying real estate. Not all of them will have the best information, but after reading a few, you should be able to tell good advice from bad advice. The book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” is excellent for this. Take notes, make a financial plan for yourself… you can learn a lot about real estate, budgeting and credit on the web too.
4. Research where you’d like to live. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Beacher who is rarely west of Yonge Street, or if you grew up in Mississauga and Toronto’s many neighbourhoods confound you – start exploring. There are a lot of neighbourhoods to choose from in Toronto and if you don’t know what they’re like, how are you going to know where you’d want to live? Take a few weekend walks (don’t just drive through) around different parts of the city and you may even discover a few hidden gems.
5. Ask your real estate agent relatives for advice. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles or older cousins who have purchased a house or condo can give you good information about the cost of housing in the area where you want to live and what it takes to buy a home. Ask them if housing affordable in this area? How much money would I need to save in order to buy a home? What advice would you give me about planning my financial future? Would you recommend some books that I might like to read about buying a home? Don’t be shy. If you have a question, ask someone in a position to know the answer.
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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information
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