Week of October 25th
Crime rates in Davisville, a new rental tower proposal goes to council, and welcoming several new businesses to midtown
Crime is up in Davisville, but is the neighbourhood actually unsafe?
The site of a shooting on Saturday at the parking lot just north of Yonge & Davisville. It capped an unpleasant week of public safety in the community. (Source: CTV News)
Last week was a bit of an unsettling week for crime news in midtown.
On Monday, several local schools were put in “Hold & Secure” after a man was spotted with firearms near Allen Road - he was arrested later in the week. This came after another man made threats of gun violence on the weekend against an unnamed Toronto school - he too was arrested days later. And then on Saturday a man was shot and sent to hospital in the parking lot north of Yonge & Davisville.
These events were all unrelated but will only add to the concern amongst some residents that midtown - and Davisville in particular - is becoming less safe. Looking at Toronto Police Services data suggests that the story is…well, complicated.
Mt Pleasant West - the City’s designation for Davisville and the towers to its north - has historically led midtown in its number of major crime incidents (MCIs). When you adjust for its larger population, Davisville is middle of the pack - trailing neighbours like Yonge & Eglinton, Don Mills, and Rosedale-Moore Park. Relative to the City as a whole, Davisville’s crime rate per 100,000 residents seems to be between 30 and 50% lower. So, by Toronto standards, Davisville was and still is relatively safe.
But crime is undoubtedly going up (see below). Between 2014 and 2019, the number of MCIs in Toronto grew by 20%. In the rest of midtown, it grew by 40%. In Davisville, the increase was more than 70% - most of which was a result of property-related crime such as auto-theft, break & enters, and robbery. Some of this increase can be attributed to the above-average population growth in our area - as denser areas (typically) tend to have more crime - but some other factors are clearly at play as to why we’re leading the midtown pack.
In 2020, the trend appears to have continued - as the number of incidents are up by 30%, with particularly large jumps in incidents in June and July. This may have to do with seasonal increases in crime (definitely a factor), the introduction of the new city-run shelter in the area (probably a factor), an increase in frequency of reported incidents (maybe a factor), or an unexpected impact of the prolonged COVID-19 lockdowns (¯\_(ツ)_/¯).
So where does this leave us? Davisville is pretty safe by Toronto standards, but is becoming less so. That is no reason to panic but this isn’t the time for complacency either. There are a few things we can all do right away:
Be diligent about reporting incidents - it is what helps the City make decisions (and gives geeks like me something to dig into)
Contact our local police division about concerns - they have channels like their “Community Liaison Committee” to strategize with neighbourhoods like ours (though the latter appears to have been dormant for some time)
Contribute to the debate about changes to the City’s approach to policing - the next debate at City Council is set for the end of November, and they’ll be plenty of changes for public comment before then
Let me know your takeaway from the data at will@davisvilledigest.ca. This was a tricky and time consuming topic to explore so I don’t think I’m done - stay tuned for more in future newsletters and maybe a blog post or two.
Apartments at 141 Davisville Avenue are getting a twin (and they may not be the only one)
When City Council convenes this week one of the items on the agenda will be a proposed 14-storey rental apartment building at Davisville and Pailton Crescent. The application is a revision by the developer and is intended to avoid further legal delays by acquiescing to most of the City’s requirements around height, building size, and distance from the existing rental apartment building to the south.
What is interesting about the proposal is not the uncertainty about the outcome, as it seems destined to pass: the revised proposal already has the support of the local neighbourhood association (SERRA) and there were only relatively minor signs of opposition on a community call convened by the councillor last week.
Instead, what is interesting is how this proposal may be a sign of what is to come.
The existing 20-story rental building at 141 Davisville Avenue is an example of the “Towers in the Park” style that was popular in Toronto starting in the 1960s. It included large (mostly boring) rectangular apartments surrounded by greenspace - or, what Toronto development community would probably call today “a huge wasted opportunity.”
Now, decades later, developers are looking to fix their “mistake and squeeze additional buildings onto these sites. 141 Davisville Avenue happens to be one of the best positioned for this kind of redevelopment given the lot’s enormous size but it won’t be the last: there are numerous examples along Balliol Street of the “Towers in the Park” style that will look to this site for inspiration in the coming years.
Yet, as developers dip further and further into the list of redevelopment sites, the lots that are available are going to get smaller and smaller - and thus the distances between new and old buildings will be narrower and narrower. As that happens, you can probably expect the opposition to this redevelopment to get louder and louder.
Coffee, Books, Groceries, Office Supplies - here’s what new businesses have opened in Davisville
View into midtown’s newest coffee shop (Source: @CycleYonge via Twitter)
If the recent COVID-19 surge has mostly kept you mostly inside…well, thanks for adhering to public health guidance. But on those occasions where you do need to venture out for essentials like food, fresh air, or relief from your roommates there are a few new businesses in the area you might want to check out:
Hot Black Coffee (Yonge & Belsize) - you may have noticed this pop-up this summer based on the long lines clogging up the sidewalk. It’s okay, you should forgive them: they’re good people. The coffee lives up to the hype too, by the way.
Farm Boy (Yonge & Soudan) - think of it as Sobey’s answer to WholeFoods. It replaces their former main brand location on Mount Pleasant and opens this Thursday (not last week as I thought when I tried to venture in)
Inhabit Books (Mt Pleasant & Manor) - a new Inuit-owned book store slated to open a bit later this fall, a product of the only independent publishing company in the Canadian Arctic.
The Medley (Yonge & Glebe) - a new supper club and show lounge that runs three shows nightly. It plans to open whenever we are allowed to eat inside again which…can’t come soon enough.
Jollibee (Yonge & Broadway) - I’ll admit that I had never heard of Jollibee. But a place that’s famous for fried chicken and spaghetti sounds like a winner to me.
Staples (Yonge & Soudan) - yeah, office supplies aren’t as exciting as the rest of this list, but you know you’ll use it….
It is good to see that even in the midst of the pandemic there are still businesses interested in the area. If you’ve spotted a newcomer to our area that I’ve missed drop me a line at will@davisvilledigest.ca.
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