Disappointment arises at Toronto area project

Cornell, once a star new urban undertaking, falls short on retail within walking distance. ��

The failings of Cornell, a signature new urban project north of Toronto, were vividly laid out by a Canadian newspaper, the National Post,  on March 13. In a long article, Kathryn Blaze Carlson presented the 2,400-acre development as a place where, in its 1993 new urbanist vision, residents “would swap cars for walking shoes and enjoy a sense of urbanity in what would otherwise have been just another suburb.”
“Instead,” according to Carlson, “cars today zip up and down the narrow avenues and not a pedestrian, charming coffee shop, nor restaurant is in sight.” Though approximately 14,000 people live in Cornell, many occupying tightly spaced detached houses or townhouses, the area has not evolved into a place where residents walk to daily destinations.
Transit service remains limited, too. “Here and there a York Regional Transit bus rolls along, but public transportation to, from and within Cornell is far from comprehensive,” the newspaper pointed out.
The project is in Markham, Ontario, a town of 262,000 which in the early 1990s adopted policies intended to encourage New Urbanism. Michael Spaziani, a Toronto architect who helped create Cornell’s open-space master plan, describes the development now as nothing more than a “cuter form of sprawl.”
What went wrong? The article suggests these as some of the causes of Cornell’s failure to achieve its initial aims:
• Measures were not taken to ensure that retail would survive. Without enough density and mixed uses, Cornell failed to develop a town center that would meet residents’ everyday needs and serve as a social hub.
• Transit links were inadequate. To travel from downtown Toronto to Cornell during off-peak hours requires transferring from one bus to a second bus and then to a third.
• Residents have remained unexpectedly dependent on their cars. Meanwhile, some of the businesses that opened in Cornell complained that the pedestrian-oriented plan did not allow enough parking for them to prosper.
• The original plan, by Duany Plater-Zyberk & Co., was to be carried out under a form-based code, but the development was soon acquired by a private firm — Law Development Group — that made significant changes. The code was not executed.
• “Cornell was sold again and again and again,” according to Toronto architect George Dark, whose firm, Urban Strategies, worked with Spaziani on the initial stages of development. “Those developers went in a bunch of different directions, some of them in more conventional directions,” Dark said.
There were additional problems, not mentioned in the National Post. Houses were commonly built within five to 10 feet of the sidewalk, New Urban News observed in July 2000. “Unfortunately, the intimacy of the streetscape is often compromised, because roadways are too wide in proportion to the two-story homes.” Builders “often offer only half-hearted emulations of vernacular styles,” with many of the facades “marred by superfluous details and inferior materials,” the newsletter noted. Those factors probably undercut Cornell’s appeal as a setting for walking.
Despite all the shortcomings, some say that neighborliness runs strong at Cornell and that the majority of residents love what they see as its “strong sense of community.” Andres Duany said the likely keys to future success are a town center and better transit.
New Urbanism’s standing in the Toronto area, however, seems to have been tarnished by the visible flaws of Cornell and of many other new urban greenfield projects that were begun in the Toronto suburbs in the 1990s. Robert Freedman, who left Urban Design Associates in Pittsburgh seven years ago to become director of urban design for the City of Toronto, has acknowledged that the label “new urbanist” is one that many architects in the Toronto area shy away from — less because they see something objectionable in New Urbanism’s principles than because they’re repelled by many ostensibly new urbanist projects that have built on outlying sites.
Early impressions have made a lasting impact.