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Research Report Enabling Complete Communities
In the spring of 2020, the Tower Renewal Partnership completed CMHC-funded research examining the opportunity and challenges of utilizing existing Tower in the Park sites for the creation of new affordable housing to contribute to addressing Canada’s current housing supply challenge. The research identified many opportunities in Tower neighbourhoods including Not for Profit developers as well as private for-profit developers. Download and read the full report below.
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Blog Post Complete Communities: The Ridgeway Court
Recently, ERA Architects was presented with the Community Partnership Award by the City of Mississauga for their involvement with the Ridgeway Court: a once dire parking lot and sidewalk boulevard which through the determination and creativity of the neighbourhood’s youth, transformed into a drop-in recreational space and public space that identifies and serves the community. The multisport court was conceived nearly three years ago by youth from the Erin Mills Youth Centre as a solution to the lack of diversity with…
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Research Report Strong Neighbourhoods and Complete Communities: A New Approach to Zoning for Apartment Neighbourhoods
A follow up to the findings of the Poverty by Postal Code 2: Vertical Poverty (2011) report by the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) and United Way Toronto.
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Impact Area Complete Communities
Transforming isolated tower neighbourhoods into more convenient, livable and resilient vertical villages: Over past decades, Canada’s Apartment Neighbourhoods have emerged as the Nation’s most diverse localities, acting as our ‘Arrival Cities’. While the communities in these towers have changed to reflect modern Canada, their physical forms remain largely stuck in 1960s ideas planning focused on single-use zoning, separated uses and a heavy reliance on the automobile. As a result, they lack key features that many neighbourhoods take for granted: convenient…
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Blog Post New Report from CUG+R and United Way Toronto: Strong Neighbourhoods and Complete Communities: A New Approach to Zoning for Apartment Neighbourhoods
As a follow up to the findings of Poverty by Postal Code 2: Vertical Poverty, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) and United Way Toronto are pleased to release a new report entitled Strong Neighbourhoods and Complete Communities: A New Approach to Zoning for Apartment Neighbourhoods. Download the full report. The aim of this report is to identify existing policy barriers and consider policy alternatives to enable Toronto’s hundreds of apartment neighbourhoods to reach their potential as healthy,…
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RAC Zone – Enabling Complete Tower Communities
The Centre for Urban Growth + Renewal, United Way Toronto and York Region, Toronto Public Health, and the City of Toronto have worked together to replace an outdated zoning category with a new, more flexible framework — paving the way to more complete communities in tower neighbourhoods.
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Blog Post Tower Renewal Partnership: revitalizing communities through research, advocacy, and action
The Tower Renewal Partnership is an initiative working to transform Southern Ontario’s remarkable stock of post-war apartment towers into more complete communities, resilient housing stock and healthy places, fully integrated into our growing cities. Nearly one million people in the Greater Toronto Area live in approximately 2,000 concrete residential tower blocks which were built between 1945 and 1984. These towers were originally intended to promote social progress, alleviate pressures on infrastructure and services in crowded downtown cores, and…
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Blog Post TRP launches retrofit research with EU partners
The Tower Renewal Partnership (TRP) has received CMHC support to kick-start a research program with two new research projects: ‘Advancing Building Retrofits’ and ‘Enabling Complete Communities’. In April, the Federal Government of Canada and the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation announced funding for a TRP research program that includes two research projects. The TRP’s research program will be funded by the Federal Government’s National Housing Strategy, which includes $241 million over 10 years to support research and data on housing…
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Blog Post UPDATE: Tower Renewal Action Forum
The Tower Renewal Action Forum took place on October 5, 2017 at the Evergreen Brick Works. The event assembled international experts and local city-builders to explore innovative strategies for transitioning aging tower neighbourhoods to meet the demands of our 21st century cities. With over 150 stakeholders in attendance, there was representation from government, nonprofit, private, public and community associations. Workshops and panel discussions showcased best practices at home and abroad, to focus on housing resilience and rehabilitation, neighbourhood transformation, and the maintenance of affordability in…
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International Research Program
Findings have been published in various formats including the research brief ‘Tower Neighbourhood Renewal International Best Practice’
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Intermunicipal Tower Platform
The Intermunicipal Tower Platform brings together Ontario’s four largest cities, including Toronto, Ottawa, Mississauga, and Hamilton, to secure the future resilience of Ontario’s tower neighbourhoods.
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Blog Post Intermunicipal Tower Roundtable 2016
Ontario’s post-war apartment towers provide affordable rental housing to more than one million people. These buildings are aging and urgently require rehabilitation, as well as stronger connections to goods, services and transit networks. The renewal of Ontario’s sizable stock of post-war apartment towers represents an opportunity to advance both provincial and municipal goals related to housing quality, affordability, complete communities and greenhouse gas emission reduction. Improving the resilience of apartment tower housing will provide tremendous social and environmental gains across Ontario’s…
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Research Report Toward Healthy Apartment Neighbourhoods: A Healthy Toronto by Design Report
This report was commissioned by Toronto Public Health in 2011 to examine design tools for improved community health outcomes in Toronto’s hundreds of apartment neighborhoods.
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About Tower Renewal What is Tower Renewal?
What is Tower Renewal? Tower Renewal is a strategy that promotes, supports and directs enhancement and reinvestment in Canada’s affordable apartment tower stock. During the boom years of the 1960s and 70s, Canada built a significant volume of modern apartment towers in response to rapid urbanization. Predominantly privately developed, but supported by public planning policy and incentives, these towers shape the urban and suburban landscape cross county – with at least 750,000 Canadian households calling them home. Half a century…
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Blog Post Thorncliffe Park – Cultural Café in the Park
Throughout September 2016, Thorncliffe Park will host a cultural café, music, art and storytelling circles in its R.V. Burgess Park. These events, taking place each Saturday of the month, are spearheaded by the Thorncliffe Park Action Group (TAG), a dynamic collective responsible for the cultural café, and their supporting partner organization, Diasporic Genius. For the second year, ERA has been an active partner in this initiative, working alongside these organizations to design and build a unique mobile landscape.…
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Blog Post Video of Graeme Stewart at the Great Cities Institute
Following up our teaser blog to Graeme’s talk at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Great Cities Institute, we would like to share with you the link to the whole talk.
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Blog Post Arup’s Doggerel Covers Tower Renewal
Image by Jesse Colin Jackson Joshua Thorpe’s article, “How to rethink the suburbs: A lesson from Toronto,” in Arup’s Doggerel explores the new Residential Apartment Commerical (RAC) zone and the potential benefits it will bring to Toronto’s tower neighbourhoods. The article provides background information on the history of these tower neighbourhoods, the challenges they currently face, and how new zoning laws can help promote complete communities with access to business, health, and public engagement. Read the article here and learn more about the…
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Blog Post Cities Alive Podcast – Zoning Out! Pt. 1
How do zoning laws contribute to – or prevent – the creation of complete communities? The Cities Alive podcast episode, Zoning Out! Part 1 addresses issues surrounding this question. Hosts Ross Soward and Danielle Davis invite guest speakers to talk about new trends in zoning that are allowing the formation of vibrant neighbourhoods. Today there is a rethink in how zoning works – from once rigid and separated into fixed single uses – to more flexible and mixed. Desire for zoning reform…
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Blog Post New initiative w/ Evergreen CityWorks & Derek Ballantyne
As announced recently in the Evergreen CityWorks’ Intersection Magazine, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal is teaming up with Evergreen CityWorks and Derek Ballantyne (CEO, Community Forward Fund) to engage in new initiatives in Tower Renewal. The purpose of this Tower Partnership will be to develop feasible funding and implementation strategies for a series of Tower Renewal sites in the GTA, working with project partners City of Toronto, United Way, Metcalf Foundation, Toronto Atmospheric Fund and more. The ultimate goal…
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Blog Post New Tower Study: Affordability Tenuous
Photo by Jesse Colin Jackson Update: A new edition of this report is available as of March 12, 2014. It has long been understood that while Toronto’s tower neighbourhoods are areas of social need (see reports “Vertical Poverty,” and “Tower Neighbourhood Renewal in the Greater Golden Horseshoe”), they also provide a vital source of affordable housing in the region. Just how tenuous that affordability can be, however, is the subject of a recent U of T Cities Centre report by…
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Blog Post Toronto Zoning Reform to Empower Apartment Neighbourhoods
As part of ongoing work on Tower Neighbourhood Renewal, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) has been working with partners United Way Toronto and the City of Toronto to establish a new approach to zoning that will enable Toronto’s hundreds of Apartment Neighbourhoods to emerge as more complete and better-served communities. This work has recently taken a significant step forward, as Toronto’s Planning and Growth Management Committee has endorsed a new zoning category: the “Apartment Residential Commercial” Zone…
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Blog Post New Report from CUG+R and Toronto Public Health: Toward Healthy Apartment Neighbourhoods
The Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) and Toronto Public Health are pleased to release Toward Healthy Apartment Neighbourhoods: A Healthy Toronto by Design Report. Download the full report. As part of the ongoing work related to Tower Neighbourhood Renewal, this report was commissioned by Toronto Public Health in 2011 to examine design tools for improved community health outcomes in Toronto’s hundreds of apartment neighbourhoods. As has been demonstrated in numerous previous studies, growing poverty is linked to poor…
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Blog Post A Vision of Tower Renewal
The Greater Toronto Area contains a heritage of nearly 2,000 post-war concrete residential tower blocks located throughout the region. The presence of this remarkable collection of modern housing represents an architectural, planning and construction legacy unique to North America. (For more on the history, visit here). This inheritance of high density neighbourhoods provide significant opportunities to create a sustainable, prosperous and connected region, able to meet the challenges of the 21st Century; accommodate growth, alleviate poverty and help grow the…
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Blog Post Pockets of inherited high density
For Toronto, the most significant planning question may not be the form and placement of new density, but how to turn our enormous pockets of inherited high density into genuinely sustainable and complete communities. The density of Toronto’s apartment neighbourhoods makes this city unique. In fact, surprisingly, Toronto has a denser metropolitan area than Chicago, Los Angeles, or even Greater New York City. Counter to popular belief, this is not the result of the city core, but rather thanks to…
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Blog Post TRP releases new affordable housing infill report
In the spring of 2020, the Tower Renewal Partnership completed CMHC-funded research examining the opportunity and challenges of utilizing existing Tower in the Park sites for the creation of new affordable housing to contribute to addressing Canada’s current housing supply challenge. The research identified many opportunities in Tower neighbourhoods including Not for Profit developers as well as private for-profit developers. Overall, Not for Profit developers, both public and private, are best positioned to deliver affordable housing through mixed-income developments, as well…
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Blog Post ULI Panel proposes significant City action for Tower Renewal
The Tower Renewal Partnership and the City of Toronto recently partnered with the Urban Land Institute (ULI) to bring experts to Toronto for a weeklong visit to explore one of the biggest resilience challenges facing Toronto: retrofitting our aging apartment towers. Experts from across North America formed an Advisory Panel and visited Toronto during the week of February 24 to learn about Toronto’s challenges, meet with leaders on this topic, and make recommendations. Watch the Advisory Panel’s presentation See the…
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Research Report Ontario Planning Journal – January / February 2018
Graeme Stewart’s article on the RAC Zone tells the context of the new zone and its possibilities for changing the tower landscape, removing barriers and steps towards more complete, resilient communities across Toronto.
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Tower Infill and Neighbourhood Transformation
Designed with 1960s ambitions of smart growth, the inherited legacy of tower neighbourhoods provides a unique suburban form of higher density neighbourhoods. This built form of clusters of towers in open space provides a framework for strategic growth, urban diversification and transformation, from which goals of complete, healthy and resilient communities can be achieved. With emerging investments in mass transit and growth pressures throughout our cities, new models of infill and district design which enhance existing tower neighbourhoods are…
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Tower Renewal Action Forum
Postwar apartment towers are the backbone of Canada’s purpose-built rental stock, and provide affordable housing to millions of Canadians. Our recent map, accessed here, showcases the extent of towers across the nation. As Canada faces a growing housing affordability crisis, now is the time for coordinated action to build a future around more complete, resilient, and affordable cities. Tower Renewal is a strategy for realizing this change. The Tower Renewal Action Forum took place on October 5, 2017 at the…
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About Tower Renewal News Articles
2022 06 23 – MIT Technology Review: The future of urban housing 2022 06 01 – Architectural Record: Housing and Climate 2022 05 17 – Lessons from Grenfell 2022 04 22 – Metropolis Magazine 2022 04 07 – Ken Soble Tower becomes world’s largest residential Passive House retrofit 2021 10 21 – Tall Stories 276: Ken Soble Tower: Monocle Radio – The Urbanist 2021 10 01 – Ken Soble Tower Raising the Bar – Canadian Architect 2021 09 29 – Hamilton’s…
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About Tower Renewal RAC Zone
RESIDENTIAL APARTMENT COMMERCIAL (RAC)ZONING Toronto’s mid-century Tower Neighbourhoods help give the region an urban form unique to North America, reflecting progressive ideas that were considered “smart growth” in postwar Canada. Yet while built with progressive ideas about density and suburban growth, they lack key features that many Toronto neighbourhoods take for granted: convenient and walkable access to local shops, services, amenities and the broader opportunities of neighbourhood life. In fact, these features are not only missing in many of Toronto’s…
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Blog Post The community that could: Ideas from the Storefront
Recently the East Scarborough Storefront published a report documenting a number of aspects of their path to neighbourhood renewal. Since the Storefront’s approach has proven so successful, this report is very valuable for other communities interested in making some positive changes to the neighbourhood. Since the late 1990s, the East Scarborough Storefront has been facilitating community-driven services and initiatives to make the neighbourhood of Kingston Galloway / Orton Park a healthier, happier place to live. The successes of the Storefront…
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Blog Post Radiant City: Photo Exhibition of Toronto Towers
ERA friend and collaborator Jesse Colin Jackson launches his new exhibition at Pari Nadimi Gallery, at 254 Niagara Street, Toronto. The show, entitled Radiant City, runs Sept. 18th, 6-8 p.m. and runs to Nov. 1st. Radiant City considers the evolving presence and status of Toronto’s tower neighbourhoods. The product of optimistic and progressive planning ideologies of post-war Canada, Toronto’s tower neighbourhoods were built as car-centric modernist enclaves for the middle class. Today have evolved into complex urban environments that are important arrival destinations…
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Blog Post Graeme Stewart interviewed: Toronto Zoning
As part of the Tower Neighbourhood Renewal project, the Centre for Urban Growth and Renewal (CUG+R) continues to work with United Way Toronto, the City of Toronto, and key stakeholders to establish a new approach to zoning that will enable Toronto’s hundreds of Apartment Neighbourhoods to emerge as more complete, better-served communities. Recently, Canadian Apartment Magazine interviewed ERA’s Graeme Stewart, as well as Aird & Berlis LLP partner Tom Halinski, on exciting changes coming to Toronto’s zoning laws. Play the…
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Blog Post Apartment Infill in Toronto: A Ten Year Review
Map displaying location of infill development within Apartment Tower properties (red); additional Apartment Tower properties (blue); existing and planned rapid transit; and CMHC rent zones (shades of grey). In March 2012, the City of Toronto released the report Apartment Infill in Toronto: A Ten Year Review. This study examines Apartment Tower sites where new residential and mixed-use development has taken place, or is planned to take place, within their properties. The report has found 39 such examples across the…
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Blog Post 2011 Civic Action Summit
In February 10th and 11th, 2011, the Civic Action Summit assembled over one thousand civic leaders from Greater Toronto to discuss the future of the city reigon. Topics ranged from Arts and Culture, to Transportation, to Sustainability. ERA actively participated in the planning and organizing of discussions related to housing and complete neighbourhoods – particularly how these broader themes intersected with the opportunities of Tower Neighbourhood Renewal, and complete and livable communities in general. A key output has been…
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Blog Post A productive landscape: permaculture and tower blocks
Toronto high-rises under construction in former farmers fields, early 1960’s The idea of the tower in a genuine ‘park’ or ‘landscape’ setting was a popular notion after the Second World War. As a result, during the post-war boom in Toronto, a minimum of 60% open space around multiple dwellings was promoted as a best practice. If developers wanted larger buildings, they were to provide a greater ratio of open space to building footprint. The results are the large towers and…
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Blog Post Thorncliffe Park
Thorncliffe Park from the air, looking downtown, early 1970’s Thorncliffe Park was a bold 1950s plan by the Town of Leaside to redevelop a former racetrack overlooking the Don River. Conceived in 1955 it was proposed to be the first apartment neighbourhood in Canada. Though breaking ground slightly after neighbouring Flemingdon Park, it was recognized internationally as an ambitious attempt to better organize population growth in response to the sprawl found in Toronto’s outer boroughs.
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Blog Post The Bijlmermeer: An Amsterdam Success Story
The Bijlmermeer under construction, late 1960’s / Ongoing renewal, since early 2000s Toronto can learn how its apartment neighbourhoods could evolve by looking at the successes of other cities. Take the Bijlmermeer for instance, a large tower block district outside of Amsterdam, reminiscent in certain respects to modern communities in Toronto. Begun in 1966, the Bijlmermeer was an ambitious housing experiment built in vacant farmland south-east of the city. It was envisioned as a secondary centre for the region,…
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Blog Post Jane and Finch: Progressive intent
Aerial view of Jane and Finch, Courtesy of Lance Dutchak Each area of the City has evolved with its own history. Take District 10 – the area we now know as Jane-Finch. The 1962 master plan proposed to transform the existing farm lots in the area into a complete community based on a set of principles that focused on employment, servicing, and social equity. The basic form of the District Plan was a residential strip bisected by a ravine and…
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Blog Post Flemingdon Park: North America’s first high-rise newtown
Flemingdon Park master plan, including housing, community facilities, commerce, employment and natural space, 1958 Toronto’s aging apartment neighbourhoods are not all the same. They are predominantly based on the idea of the tower-in-the-park; they have large simple tower blocks placed in abundant open space. But after that common denominator there are plenty of differences which provide each of these neighbourhoods with their own individual character. The arrangement and location of apartment neighbourhoods throughout Toronto gives them a loose taxonomy. These…