Neighbourhood Retail & Residential

Dan Seljak; Brian Cheung; others

What makes a neighbourhood a neighbourhood? It's not just where you live (although that's certainly a big part of it), but also where you spend your time, where you grab your groceries, get a haircut, have a chat over a drink.

This past winter, a plan to permit new small-scale retail and commercial into Toronto residential neighbourhoods failed to pass through City Council. Your much loved neighbourhood convenience store may only exist due to a grandfather clause; any changes in offerings or use-case could suddenly make it non-compliant in the eyes of the city. So, what's the controversy over grabbing a coffee at the corner store?

Come join a walking discussion in Seaton Village and Christie Pits as we explore existing neighbourhood retail and examples of residential densification in some of Toronto’s most eclectic and established communities.

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Publicly shareable map with route & stops: https://ggle.in/NabeRetail

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Planned stops:

1. Office Art Cafe, 1211 Bathurst Ave: cafe, gallery, & venue in a former art-deco office. Commercial space filtering and re-use.

2. Bianca condos, 430 Dupont: low-rise condos with 1st floor retail. Economics of retail in new builds (why always chains?).

3. El Pocho Antojitos Bar, 2 Follis Ave: neighbourhood bar set further back from major street with patio and previous CafeTO setup. One of the major concerns with neighbourhood retail was possibility of bars/alcohol sales; discussion of rules, space limitations, enforcement.

4. Karma Co-op Grocery Store, 739 Palmerston-Karma Ln: laneway grocery store & co-op, urbanist tri-fecta!

5. Tiny’s General Store, 80 Barton / Emily Rose Cafe, 721 Palmerston: (potential to split group if large) neighbourhood cafes, rules & governance.

6. 91 Barton Ave: site of future 3-storey rental apartment development that was refused twice at Committee of Adjustment until given the go-ahead at TLAB. Project is more multiplex format but number of units classifies as apartment. Will include 1 affordable rental unit. Was site of Art on Burton mural project.

7. Examples of Laneway Houses, 526 Clinton-Lane E Christie S Yarmouth & 215 Christie-Lane: Laneway houses. City's EHON initiatives

8. 42 Yarmouth townhouses: more examples of residential densification

9. Fiesta Farms/Gardens, 200 Christie St: despite Christie having Major Street designation, none of this stretch is zoned commercial. Fiesta Farms must be grandfathered and is an example of the patchwork of permissions and zones. Could get into discussion about regulations around loading, garbage pick-up, noise & emission abatement.

10. Morellina's Italian, 146 Christie: neighbourhood restaurant in converted residential building on corner lot. Rules around eating/drinking establishment vs. takeout/retail food establishment

11. Cabin Cannabis, 688 Bloor St (and directly across from Medicine Wheel Cannabis): Another major concern about neighbourhood retail was cannabis stores. Could talk about rules and economics of that industry.