Raise the Hammer

Mississauga's "downtown" is flatland ... we have the Escarpment and the Bay. Views of which a lot of people apparently feel should be protected.

I'll put aside my curiosity as to whether our plan actually does that and just say that you are fond of pointing to places like Vancouver as examples of places "that get it", but don't seem to acknowledge that they use height limits and that a key component of their planning regime is protected view cones and the notion that downtown towers shouldn't replace the natural beauty of North Shore mountains as the City's backdrop.

And the whole if we are a real city we need to go taller and taller is a trope heard everywhere.

Unhappy developer in Vancouver:

“Grouse Mountain is 4,000 feet high and our Burrard Place, which is the third-tallest building in the city, 550 feet tall. Why should we ever worry that tall buildings could dominate our physical environment? Let’s finally let go of our bucolic fishing-village past and embrace the reality of a city that we have become in the eyes of the world.”

Well respected former chief planner:

“If we don’t want 1,000-foot-tall towers, we’re somehow stuck in a fishing village past?” Toderian asked rhetorically. “Come on.”

He had previously pushed for a select number of sites to be given exceptions to allow towers up to 700 feet ... it's never enough.

https://biv.com/article/2016/01/vancouve...

I think most towers in Vancouver are 20-35 storeys, though as time passes more are 40+

Something to think about ... they built a critical mass of buildings first, then started to liberalize heights starting about 10 years ago. Vancouverism was built off of the tower-podium combo mostly within the height limit we are now looking to implement. Rather than aim for just a few tall projects, I'd rather we repair more space and absorb our demand for condo units across more projects rather than fewer, but much larger ones.