Additional Farm shadow study

Earlier this month, I wrote my analysis of the application for two towers at the corner of Parkdale and Carling with an explanation of why I'm likely to support that. If you haven't already, you can read that here.

Last week, I received the results of some additional study I'd asked the Farm to do with respect to the effect that reducing the tower heights would have on their research fields. I've appended that document below.

I've taken a couple of days to read and then grapple with the numbers. Having done some further analysis, I have to conclude that the choice in front of Council is clear: either we will approve a development that will have an impact on research activities at the farm, or we won't. Reducing the tower heights to 16 storeys or even nine will make little difference in the context of introducing a variable into some of the Farm's experiments that will make further research of the same type extremely challenging. I have to stand by the conclusions I reached in my earlier post.

To put the additional data in context, I've mapped it to two spots in the Farm to help understand Tables 1-5, pinning the northwest corner of the outline to the same spot as the researchers did.

First, I mapped a point in the field at the southeast border of the shadow where the soybean research is being conducted. As the graphic here shows, there is a point in that field that is roughly 450m west and 150m south of the shadow study's centre point. 

Table 1 of the shadow study addendum indicates that the 27- and 16-storey proposal (27/16) would put that spot in shadow for ~7474 minutes per year (out of 260,000 minutes of total sunlight per year). Table 2 indicates that a two-16-storey tower (16/16) proposal would put it in shadow for ~5799 minutes per year. Table 3 indicates that a two-9-storey development (9/9) would shadow that pin for ~3250 minutes per year.

I take at face value the scientists' assertion that there is no acceptable level of shadow on their research activities. They write that “[s]hade cast on research lands, in any form is detrimental to research…”, and that “[i]ncreased variability from the sunlight moving across the landscape makes these fields unusable for research”, and that “[e]ven small amounts of shade will have detrimental effects on these processes”. One of my questions to the scientists when we spoke was whether some form of regression analysis could isolate shadowing as a variable in their experiments. In their addendum, they write: "[v]ariable sunlight is not a factor that can be easily removed from an analysis using statistics". Whether this field is shadowed for 7474 minutes, 5799 minutes  or 3250 minutes, it's not the absolute number of minutes that counts: it's the variability.

I took a look as well at the field more immediately adjacent to the south to understand whether there might be some more dramatic difference achievable by lowering the tower heights. Unfortunately, the answer is no.

The difference here of reducing the height from the currently proposed 27/16 to two 16-storey towers is negligible. The current proposal would put that spot in shadow for 26,187 minutes. Two 16-storey towers would put it in shadow for 25,304 minutes – 883 fewer than the taller proposal. It’s a much more significant difference if you drop those towers to 9-storeys, where the shadow would only be 17,905 minutes at that spot, or 8282 fewer minutes in shadow than what’s proposed. However, it’s still 17,905 minutes of shadow. If the assertions about the challenge of isolating sunlight from other factors in the experiment are true, then again I’d suggest that even a two 9-storey scenario is problematic for their research.

I wrote in my last post that I would be asking colleagues to vote their conscience, and I'll be sharing this with them. While there are likely to be assertions that Council should constrain this development to some lower height than has been proposed to mitigate the effects on the Farm's research activities, that doesn't hold up to analysis. Councillors will need to consider this proposal with their eyes wide open. The shadow effects could be mitigated by constraining development to some height lower than nine storeys, but that would run counter to our Official Plan that targets the housing growth we need to locations like this that are slated for higher-order transit, on major arterial roads, and in easy distance of amenities. We have a choice to make. It's not an easy one.