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Volume 54 No. 22
BEACHMETRO.COM
FEBRUARY 3, 2026
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Are the Queen Street East development guidelines now a relic from the past? By Matthew Stephens THE APPARENT dismissal of the Queen Street East Urban Development Guidelines (UDG) by the City of Toronto has raised concerns among some of the people who helped create the planning document for the Beach community more than a decade ago. Discussion about new building regulations in the Beach, and questions about the relevance of the 2012 Queen Street East UDG, were raised at the Jan. 22 meeting of the city’s Planning and Housing Committee. (See our story on Page 2.) “When we have individuals that come down and make deputations, it’s almost misleading like these guidelines from 14 years ago are the law – completely ignoring the planning paradigm and the provincial planning statutes the city is statutorily required to comply with,” said Beaches-East York Councillor Brad Bradford at the Jan. 22 meeting. Adopted by the city in 2012, the Queen Street East UDG was the result of a collaborative effort between local residents, including members of the Greater Beach Neighbourhood Association (GBNA), and current Beaches-East York MPP Mary-Margaret McMahon (who was Ward 32 Beaches-
East York city councillor from 2010 to 2018), and the city’s planning department. The guidelines limited building heights along Queen Street East in the Beach to six storeys between Coxwell and Neville Park avenues, and also set design standards to preserve the area’s character. At the Jan. 22 Planning and Housing Committee meeting, members of the public and councillors discussed a development proposal at 1631 and 1641 Queen St. E. and a portion of 1080 and 1090 Eastern Ave., where an 18-storey residential building facing Eastern Avenue and a sevenstorey residential building facing Queen Street East have now been approved for consideration at Toronto Council. Mark Richardson, a local resident and Technical-Lead of the HousingNowTO group (which is an affordable housing tracking and transparency project), said the Queen Street East UDG was from a “past” era at the Jan. 22 meeting. “It’s important that we contextualize that the rules that were passed in the past are from the past, and that things like the Beaches (Queen Street East) Urban Design Guidelines are only guidelines. They are not the Beach bible, as some people refer to Continued on Page 17
Crossword puzzle proving popular THE CROSSWORD puzzle that we introduced in our last edition has proven extremely popular. Both this week’s puzzle (Be Fuddled created by Barbara Olson of ClassiCanadian Crosswords) and the answers to our Jan. 20 puzzle will appear on Page 20 of today’s paper. Answers to this edition’s puzzle will be in our Feb. 17 paper.
We are continuing to ask readers whether they would prefer the answers be printed in the same edition and if you would also like to see the answers on our website a few days after publication. Please let us know your preference by end of day on Feb. 10, by sending an email to editor@ beachmetro.com.
Embrace, designed by former Beach resident Will Cuthbert, is among the five art installations that will be set up along Woodbine Beach this month as part of the annual Winter Stations display. Winter Stations will officially open on Family Day, Monday, Feb. 16.
Winter Stations announces five winning entries to be set up on Woodbine Beach WINTER STATIONS has announced the five winning entries whose designs will be displayed on Woodbine Beach in the 12th year of the outdoor art installation. Winter Stations will open on Family Day weekend, with the official launch on Monday, Feb. 16, and continue until the end of March. The winners of this year’s competition are Embrace (Canada); Crest (University of Waterloo); Specularia (United States); CHIMERA (Germany/Ukraine); and Glaciate (Toronto Metropolitan University). “This year’s theme, Mirage, invited artists and designers from around the world to submit proposals for installations that play with the boundary of what is seen and what is real in the age of AI, and explore public art as infrastructure that gathers people in shared reality,” said a news release from Winter Stations. Since 2015, Winter Stations has
been displaying outdoor art installations on Woodbine Beach and has become a launching pad for new ideas in public art. Winners receive full materials, fabrication labour, and a $2,000 honorarium to support what is often designers’ first public art installation. Every year, numerous submissions are reviewed by a jury. This year’s jury was made up of Jason Thorne, Katriina Campitelli, Alana Mercury, Luisa Ji, and Janna Hiemstra. Winter Stations is made possible by RAW Design, kg&a, Northcrest Developments, City of Toronto, Mechanical Contractors Association of Ontario, Ontario Association of Architects, MicroPro Sienna, Feeley Group, Sali Tabacchi Brand & Design, and Meevo Digital. Here are the installations to be displayed along Woodbine Beach: Embrace (Will Cuthbert; Canada) “Embrace is an invitation to behold and to be held. Change your
point of view. Gain a new perspective. A prismatic reflection of the warmth and light of the day,” said the news release. Cuthbert, who grew up in the Beach, is now based in Saskatoon and previously was part of Winter Stations in 2022 for The Hive installation, designed with Beacher Kathleen Dogantzis. Both Cuthbert and Dogantzis attended Malvern Collegiate Institute. Crest (Clay te Bokkel, Isabella Ieraci, Matthew Lam, Sasha Rao, Simon Huang, Oskar Peng, and David Shen; University of Waterloo) “Crest emerges from the sand and snow as a sweeping wave positioned moments before breaking. It envelops and invites visitors to gather, to pause and share a fleeting moment of reality like a wave crashing into the shore,” said the release. The University of Waterloo is Continued on Page 18