Toronto's newest development The Well a pedestrian oasis but misses mark on affordability, some say

More than a decade in the making, a sprawling mixed-use development in Toronto's fashion district is finally nearing completion, but some are concerned the city missed a chance to require affordable housing as part of it.

The development, called The Well, aims to inject some European-influenced, pedestrian-first space to the city's downtown core, and includes apartments, offices, retail space and a public square resembling an open-air atrium. 

"There are no roads on this site," said David Pontarini, co-founder of Hariri Pontarini Architects, who created the project's master plan. "It's all pedestrian focused and pedestrian oriented. So it really is about connecting to the community and providing a five-minute or a 15-minute city where people can live here, walk to work, walk to shopping." 

David J. Lieberman, an associate professor emeritus at the University of Toronto's John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, said there positive aspects to the development but has concerns about its upscale nature.

"I think prioritizing the pedestrian is very good," he said. "But are we not building yet another neighbourhood for the privileged few? Yes, there are rentals. But if we read the not-so-fine print, the rentals are all high-priced rentals."

A spokesperson for The Well declined to comment when asked about Lieberman's comments. 

Ken Greenberg, president of the Wellington Place Neighbourhood Association, says the association has been involved in the project from the outset and that one of their priorities was for it to include the pedestrian path network that will bind it together. 

But Greenberg says when it comes to the price of the rental units, which start at $2,524 per month for a studio and go to $6,553 per month for a three-bedroom unit, the city should have used inclusionary zoning to make the residential units include affordable housing.

The city's inclusionary zoning policy is supposed to require new developments to include affordable units.

"The city wasn't prepared to require that or work with the developers to achieve that," he said. 

The city pushed back against Greenberg's assessment.

"To clarify, the City of Toronto did not "drop the ball'," said an email statement from Toronto's city planning division. 

At the time that The Well's zoning by-law amendments were approved, in 2017, there was no provincial inclusionary zoning regulation and the city didn't have the ability to require new affordable housing, the statement said. 

The city is still waiting for provincial approval to implement inclusionary zoning and it won't apply retroactively, according to the department.