Don Mills Centre again dictates community's direction

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Don Mills may once have been Canada's revolutionary community, but that was more than half a century ago.

Has its time passed? Could another Don Mills be built again?

Back in 1953 when residents began moving into new homes in their cutting-edge community, times were different.

Gas, used to motor cars around Don Mills' winding streets and out of the isolated community to other neighbourhoods, cost mere pennies a litre.

Land and house prices were fairly inexpensive, cheap enough that Don Mills homes could be built on generous properties and families only needed one income to pay the mortgage.

Ernie Simpson, who moved into the neighbourhood in 1959, recalls paying $18,000 for the Jocelyn Crescent house in which he and his stay-at-home wife raised their family.

Homes in Don Mills are now routinely listed for sale for $450,000 to $600,000.

Needless to say, times have changed.

Not only have gas and housing prices shot up since Don Mills' early days. Environmental concerns are currently at the forefront of people's minds.

Meandering streets not built for city buses and large properties are outdated.

Of course, subdivisions mimicking Don Mills' twisting roads, aimed at slowing traffic, are still built in the Greater Toronto Area's far-flung new subdivisions.

But these days, planners are more likely to talk about higher density housing that supports public transit.

"Transportation planning oversees policies and projects with the goal of improving transit, discouraging automobile dependence and encouraging alternative forms of transportation such as walking, cycling, subways and streetcars," according to the City of Toronto's website.

But that type of planning threatens the sense of community Don Mills is known for, according to resident and urban planner Gerald Fitzpatrick.

"The beauty of Don Mills is the relatively small houses on large lots," he said.

Drive around the GTA these days to communities such as Brampton, Vaughan and Markham and instead you find huge houses, sometimes even "monster homes," crammed on to small lots.

"The price of land has dictated smaller lots. People want more house and get less land. But you then get a totally different feel and visual impact," Fitzpatrick said.

"Thank God I don't have one (monster home) next to me. When you plunk something in from this new era, dwarfing the houses on either side, it ruins the look of the community streetscape."

Pointing to its winding streets, large properties and lack of social housing, York University's Douglas Young, an assistant professor of social science and co-ordinator of the urban studies program, questions the economic and environmental viability of a Don Mills being built again.

"In some ways you could say Don Mills wasted a lot of land and it is unsustainable," he said.

At the same time, Don Mills could again become the community of the future if it finds a way to allow intensification. Young suggested granny flats and building second-storey apartments above bungalows as possibilities.

"If we look at the future of rising gas prices, can changes be made to Don Mills to address the concerns?" he said.

"I think it is important to always try to do better and look back, not nostalgically, but can we learn something?"

Meanwhile, what about the future of Don Mills itself?

As with the community's beginnings 55 years ago, much of Don Mills' fortunes concentrate around the Don Mills Centre.

The shopping mall was the focal point of the area when community founders E.P. Taylor and Macklin Hancock began shaping Canada's first fully planned community in 1953.

Once again, development of the shopping centre is defining the community's direction.

Not surprisingly for a landmark that has served as the community's heart, opinions have been powerful and mixed.

Don Mills' main architect Henry Fliess and his wife Mimi are appalled by owner Cadillac Fairview's decision to tear down the shopping mall and replace it with big box stores.

"Cadillac Fairview has wrecked Don Mills. The Don Mills Centre was another meeting place for seniors. They had walking groups in winter. It was a second home to them," Mimi Fliess said as her husband nodded his agreement.

Despite the controversy, Fitzpatrick believes the community will ultimately come together and embrace the new Don Mills Centre.

"I'm a strong believer what is happening here will be much better for the community. The most successful areas of Toronto are not centred on a shopping mall, which turns its back on the community. Here, we will almost be creating a mini-downtown," he said, pointing out the centre first began as an outdoor shopping centre before being converted to an indoor mall.

"This is bringing it back to its roots."