What Many Of Us See...

...a circus tent habitated by a bevy of clowns.

Protect Ontario's political heritage

January 14, 2010

Catherine Nasmith

The Legislative Assembly Building must dominate the view from University Ave. from Queen St. and all points north.

To have the silhouette of our most important civic building – the prime symbol of provincial democracy – overwhelmed by taller commercial buildings will say more than we care to admit about the relative importance of public and private interests in Ontario.

A comparable urban situation is The Mall in Washington. Try to picture President Barack Obama's inaugural speech with a commercial building rising behind the U.S. Capitol. Those Washington views have been carefully protected for generations, as have views in Ottawa.

Our national symbols, the Parliament Buildings on the plateau above the Ottawa River, are carefully protected by a system of height controls developed collaboratively by the City of Ottawa and the National Capital Commission. These controls prevent any building rising above the silhouette as seen from several key vantage points along the Ceremonial Route. The views of our Legislative Assembly Building from University Ave. deserve similar protection.

Queen's Park and University Ave. have a shared history. University Ave. was originally called College Ave. because it was purchased and laid out as the ceremonial approach to King's College, the first building of what later became the University of Toronto. As William Dendy wrote in Lost Toronto, "it was laid out for the grandest possible effect ... as a processional approach." It was not until 1859, when the City of Toronto obtained a 999-year lease for both the avenue and Queen's Park, that any streets were permitted to cross this ceremonial approach.

Toronto has always grown faster than it could be planned, so it is an ongoing challenge to protect and pass on to future generations the valuable historic places we have inherited. One of the most important of these is the ensemble of Queen's Park and University Ave., which provide a forecourt and ceremonial routes to the Ontario Legislative Assembly Building.

Today's Four Seasons Hotel at Avenue Rd. and Yorkville Ave. is already too tall; at more than 90 metres, it is double the 46-metre height limit currently in place. It is clearly visible above the Legislature's east wing from anywhere on University Ave. between Queen and College Streets. Permitting the even taller redevelopment proposed for the same site will make protecting views in the future moot.

Unfortunately, without support from the province, the City of Toronto will find it difficult to defend this viewshed from the proposal to redevelop the Four Seasons Hotel site with two new buildings, one 50 per cent taller than the existing one and the second the same height as the existing one but 50 per cent wider. This is because the city, during a period of post-amalgamation amnesia, did not reinstate the strong prescriptive language in its Official Plan that had protected this view since the 1970s. That language was there to protect the vista from further damage after the existing structure was built.

It has been argued by some, including the minister of culture in these pages, that the views of Queen's Park have already been breached and will undoubtedly be breached again. Mistakes of the past should not be used to justify further damage. Ironically, such inappropriate development can only happen if those with the power to stop it are passive.

The Architectural Conservancy of Ontario hopes the city and province will work together to stop and ultimately reverse the damage. Governments must take the long-term view. Over time, we must work to reduce or eliminate the encroachment already permitted. Offending highrise buildings can be cut down as the sites on which they sit are redeveloped in future.

Sometimes Canadians seem apathetic about our institutions. The current backlash over the prorogation of the federal Parliament suggests that the opposite is true. Other signs of our quiet Canadian pride are the gatherings along the Highway of Heroes of citizens paying respect to those who willingly sacrificed their lives to share the peaceful, civil society we enjoy in Canada.

The Legislature building is a key symbol of the long battle to create good government in Ontario. Its dignity as a symbol of our democratic society must be protected.

Catherine Nasmith is past president of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario. Lloyd Alter is the current president.