King Spadina / King Parliament – Urban Design and Planning

Mark Sterling was the Director of Architecture and Urban Design for the City of Toronto when new planning frameworks for the King-Spadina and King Parliament areas were developed and enacted by City Council. The driving force behind this re-thinking of to planning in these areas was the need to attract investment for a broad range of uses in a manner that would reinforce the historic built form of the area. The vision for the area was implemented through the planning framework for the area which consists of the approved Secondary Plan, a new Reinvestment Area zoning, Urban Design Guidelines and Community Improvement Plan.

As part of a large multidisciplinary staff team, Mark wrote key elements of the secondary plan policy and of the design guidelines. Mark also developed an innovative “Smart Model” for the areas that for the first time linked the City’s GIS system to its digital built form model.

As the urban design lead, Mark worked with the Planning Partnership in the fall of 2005 to complete a focused review of the King-Spadina Secondary Plan. The purpose of the review was to address specific issues that had emerged in the area that were challenging the planning framework.

Mark also provided urban design and planning input into the numerous Sweeny Sterling Finlayson &Co design projects in the King Spadina and King Parliament areas in the years since the Plans were first put in place.