Posts Filed Under Planning

Jun 01

How you can help

If you’re in support there are two things we need you to do.

Step 1. Sign this petition

Step 2. Get it touch with your councilor. Here’s how:

If you know who your councillor is you can find their contact info here
If you don’t know who your councillor is use this search tool

If you know what you want to say to your city councilor, great – SAY IT.

If you’re not sure where to start or are just plain old nervous about speaking off the cuff, use this sample script or modify it to suit your perspective:

**** Sample Script *****
Hello, my name is and I’m calling you from (city or town or your ward name).

I’m calling today because I’m concerned over the actions and position that Sandra Bussin, City Councillor for Beaches East York Ward 32, has taken against the Teehan family, of 204 Beech Avenue, to stop them from exercising their rights as property owners to make changes to their property that would allow them to live in a modern, wheelchair accessible home.

Councillor Bussin did not give any notification to the owners of 204 Beech to put forward a motion to seek heritage designation for this property. Councillor Bussin’s motion was also misleading in a number of areas. She stated that their home is of “historical significance” as found in an ERA report she commissioned. ERA has made it clear this is not a report, rather just a “simple letter of opinion” that they typically don’t charge for. Councillor Bussin filed this motion and only let the Teehan family know she did so after the fact thus denying the Teehan family to present their case in front of the same committee. Councillor Bussin has even gone on via the media to suggest that the Teehan’s should’ve contacted her before purchasing the property. Councillor Bussin has also made misleading statements that an online petition was created to save 204 Beech Avenue as a heritage site. There is no evidence to suggest that any such online petition exists.

The Teehans and all concerned citizens throughout Toronto need the support of every member of Toronto’s City Council to examine Councillor Bussin’s questionable behaviour and misleading statements as well as to right this wrong. If her motion is not rescinded based on the information that has become available this decision will impact the rights of all Torontonians who own properties for years to come.

Can I count on Councillor _ to support me, the Teehan Family, and other concerned property owners?

*********

Keep in mind – you likely won’t get your councillor on the phone – it’ll be one of his or her staffers. Don’t be disappointed – that’s totally normal. Share your thoughts anyhow. If you’re comfortable – leave your name and phone number so they can follow-up with more questions if clarification is needed.

More on the story can be found here:
204 Beech Ave – A house or a home? – Open File
Beach battle pits accessible home versus old home – Toronto Star
Family plight sparks furor in the Beach – National Post
Love and houses – family tragedy shapes a living space – The Globe & Mail
My Take on 204 Beech – Part 1 – Jim Graham
My Take on 204 Beech – Part 2 – Jim Graham

You can follow me on twitter for updates

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Posted By: Geoff Teehan in: help, News, Planning
1 Comment
May 08

The Globe and Mail Reactions

A recent Globe and Mail article about our project has sparked some conversation on this blog and in our inbox. The opinions and comments range wildly. We’ve had future neighbours welcome us to the street, previous prospective buyers congratulate us on bringing modern architecture to the beach and even previous owners looking for one last peek inside their childhood home. So many of these replies and responses touch us. But the reactions aren’t all positive. A few readers are disgusted at the thought of change to the house with the turret. To be honest, after Melissa and I walked through the home last weekend we had similar feelings. There is a ton of history in that old house – it’s hard not to fall in love with it. However, this can’t simply be about emotions. After all, this is a home that should make our lives easier and more enjoyable.

If we had the choice we’d still be living as a happy, healthy family in the home we thought we’d raise our children in. Unfortunately, that just wasn’t meant to be part of our story.

While 204 Beech is a gorgeous, wonderful old home, it’s simply not fit for our needs. I know there was a good deal of interest in the property when we were looking at buying it, many of them home builders. In fact, I was told that the lot was sold a month before we bought it to a home builder. Their intentions were to tear down the home, remove some trees, split the lot in two and build what I could only imagine to be the terrible cookie cutter home designs that so frequently go up in place of older beach homes. That, in my most humble opinion, would be something worthy of disgust.

The home we’re building won’t be the same as what exists. As such, I’m sure it won’t please everyone. We know it’ll be a beautiful example of modern architecture that suits our family. It will be far more timeless than what builders would put in its place, but perhaps not as timeless as what exists today. Simply put, change sucks – no one knows that better than us, but some types change are certainly better than others.

Globe and Mail: Love and houses – A family tragedy shapes a living space

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Posted By: Geoff Teehan in: Design, News, Planning
22 Comments
Apr 25

New Renders

Apologies for the big gap in posts. As you can probably guess family and business has been taking priority over the blog. Things have been progressing very well in terms of the plans. We’ve all but nailed down the final layout and are beginning to make refinements – especially when it comes to the exterior. Right now we’re trying to simplify some of the lines, shapes and elements for a really clean aesthetic. One thing we’re finding challenging is deciding on exterior finishes. About all we’ve decided is that no matter where we end up, we want it use a minimal amount of finishes. The current renders are primarily exploring the use of a concrete-like material and wood.

Up until recently we’ve been relying on 2D floor plans and the occasional 3D render. Now, we’re able to open the actual model in the same software the architects are using. It allows us to walk through the home as if it were built. It really gives us a great sense of size and scale.

The only hiccup that’s come up (so far) is the trees (again). It seems like we need to get our neighbours permission to damage them. Every tree has a protection zone based on its diameter. If anything is built inside that zone it’s considered “damage”. Our intention isn’t to get rid of or damage any of the trees. In fact, we’ve purposely designed the structure to work around them. Additionally, the new foundation will be in the same as the current one. The architect and arborist will help us make our case to the neighbours – we’re hopeful this is a formality, but you never know.

One last thing before I wrap this post: We’re closing 204 Beech April 29 – Can’t wait to actually own the property we’ve talked so much about.

You can see all the colour renders in this flickr photoset.

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Posted By: Geoff Teehan in: Architecture, Design, Planning, Property
2 Comments
Mar 17

Vacation photos

We’re on our annual family vacation for the next couple of weeks but we didn’t really want that to slow down the process. Our two main contacts at Altius, Tony and Cathy, have been sending us a number of revised plans while we’ve been away. They’ve progressed beyond sketches at this point and have begun their work in Archicad. The 3d and 2d drawings it produces give us a much better sense of room sizes – which is what we’re trying to determine at this point.

The picture above was an exploration that removed the catwalk upstairs to gain some more space for the bedrooms and laundry area. It’s a functional design choice that made us realize that many of the decisions we’ll be making are more emotional than they are rational. So while the catwalk requires some space we like it too much to give it up.

The latest drawings stay true to the original sketches though the overall shapes have changed slightly as real spaces and structure are defined. There are two schemes we’re looking at right now. Scheme A is very similar to the sketches presented but incorporates a laundry closet and moves the kids’ bathroom to the back corner. Scheme B incorporates a double-back stair and uses the extra width upstairs to gain a full laundry room.

We’re leaning to scheme B right now to gain a little more space upstairs for the master bedroom/bath and the full laundry room. Both schemes incorporated generous hallway spaces to help Melissa move freely. In some areas of the drawings you’ll notice large circles (5 feet in diameter), they’re just used to ensure the wheelchair can rotate 360 degrees.

On a personal note, the vacation has been wonderful so far. Melissa and I are getting to spend loads of time with the kids, having fun and making memories. Having the wheelchair has very few benefits but the best one by far has been an access pass to bypass all the crazy lines at Disney – we referred to it as our golden ticket. With Disney done, we’re back at the beach for the next week and a half – then back to work, school and rehab.

You can see all the drawings in this Flickr photo set.

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Posted By: Geoff Teehan in: Architecture, Design, Planning
11 Comments
Mar 05

A first look at a new beginning

Last night our architects came by our condo to present the first round of sketches.

All the concepts revolve around this idea of two major volumes. The main volume houses the majority of the rooms, while the second volume is reserved for the dining area. It was interesting to see how they presented the options to us. They started by walking us through low-fidelity sketches that defined loose spaces. From there the drawings became more detailed, both in terms of their fidelity and thoughtfulness. It showed us in real terms how they ultimately got to where they are.

We were impressive at how mindful they were of form following function – especially as it relates to being wheelchair accessible. For example, the hallways and major flow areas give ample room for the chair to turn or pass through. They also were able to keep the elevator in close proximity to the staircase, so when someone traverses a flight of stairs or uses the elevator they meet at the same place. That way Melissa and I aren’t at opposite ends of the house when we change floors. One of our requirements for the finished product is that guests can come into our home and see it as a beautiful piece of modern architecture, not as an accessible home.

While the house will obviously have a front door, it’ll primarily be used by guests, door-to-door salesmen and people looking for charitable donations. My wife, kids and I will be entering and exiting the house from the rear, since that’s where the garage is. It’s currently shown as being detached from the house but we’re working through ways to make it easy for the Melissa to get to and from the house when it’s cold, wet or snowy.

Because the house is set back a good deal and is about 15 feet above street level we can get away with a ton of glass on the front without giving up privacy. The rear and south facing walls will also use a lot of glass, though in this case, it’s the existing trees that will providing privacy. The initial thought for the ground floor doors will be to look into huge sliding glass doors or even a folding door system so the house can be completely open to the outside in the warm summer months.

The size we’re projecting is fairly modest by new home standards. We’re currently planning for 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. It’s netting out at around 2100 sq ft above grade – the basement would likely be another 1100sq ft, but obviously that’s not all usable space.

We’re incredibly pleased to see the direction it’s headed this early on. We’re waiting on a more detailed survey that includes topography as well as exact tree locations. This will, to some extent, determine the position and exterior dimensions of the structure. Of course, it’s still early days so I’m sure much will change as we detail and iterate.

You can view some additional sketches in this Flickr set.

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Posted By: Geoff Teehan in: Architecture, Design, Planning, sketches
11 Comments
Mar 03

Trees

My last post mentioned that the property we were looking at had quite a few trees on it. This was certainly of some concern since we knew of two previous offers that fell through after they had an arborist’s report completed. From what I’ve been told, they were custom home builders who wanted to split the property in two but couldn’t because of the location of a few of the trees. While we had no intention of splitting the lot, we did want to ensure that a suitable size home could be built on it.

Our agent helped us get in touch with an arborist. When I contacted her by phone she said she didn’t need to go out to the property to create a report, she already had one. The news wasn’t good. There were a number of large trees that couldn’t be removed. They also had limbs that would restrict the location and height of the house.

We had 2 days left to waive the final due diligence clause for the trees in the offer. To date, all signs were pointing to no.

At this point our last hope was to call an architect to come out to the site to weigh in on whether or not we could build a ~2500sq ft home on the property. The problem was, we didn’t have an architect. However, one of my business partners, Jeremy Bell, owner of 360 Winnett had recently moved into his newly built home. He had looked a number of architects and was thrilled with the one he and his wife had finally chosen, Altius Architecture.

I called Cathy, the same Partner that had worked with Jeremy, and asked if she’d help me out. She agreed. The next day I met her at the property to get her thoughts. I showed her the arborist’s report and we walked the property. While she acknowledged that some of trees could be issues, they weren’t insurmountable. She felt confident that we’d have no trouble building a home, even larger than our needs or budget would allow.

I returned back to the condo to let Melissa know that the news had turned from bad to good. Now we were starting to feel excited.

This post brings me to present day. For the past few weeks we’ve been working with Altius on hammering out the contract and getting at some high-level requirements, which I’ll share in a future post. Tonight we get to see the first round of sketches – I look forward to sharing them.

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Posted By: Geoff Teehan in: Planning, Property
No Comments
Feb 25

Finding the property

It was Saturday January 16, 2010 when we received an email from our agent, Geoff Grace. It was a single listing for 204 Beech Avenue. The price was more than we had anticipated, but the street was beautiful and the lot was huge.

We called our agent immediately to set up a time to see the house. Within 45 minutes I was at the property. The small cottage-like house was beige and pink. It sat atop a hill and had a ton of gorgeous trees on the property, something that would soon become a potential issue. The house was very small, probably under 1000 square feet above grade. It was immediately clear that if this was it, an extensive renovation or new build would be required to make this work for our family.

I came home and told Mel about the place. It really was a perfect setting, but the price was going to seriously set us back in terms of renovation or build. After some thought and some emails to our mortgage broker we decided to put an offer in that evening.

The offer came back the next morning with the price back at the original amount. After another round of back and forth we had an agreement. Once we had signed all the paperwork Mel and I felt numb with fear and teeming with doubt of how the hell we were going to afford all of this. The property alone was worth more than our existing house, never mind the new design and build of a house.

Over the next few days the buyers remorse we were feeling began to fade. A few other nice homes on big lots came on the market and illustrated the potential worth of our new property.

After some further financial discussion we felt a little more comfortable with the financing which put us onto the next and final hurdle – the trees.

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Posted By: Geoff Teehan in: Planning, Property
1 Comment