The Villiers Island Precinct Plan is an ambitious and inspirational plan to guide the transformation of an industrial area into a new sustainable and inclusive neighbourhood in Toronto’s Port Lands. The area known as Villiers Island will be created through the naturalization of the Don River, flood protection, and the formation of the new river mouth and outlet into Lake Ontario. As Toronto’s first climate positive first community, Villiers Island will showcase real-world solutions to mitigate climate change, and demonstrate excellence in carbon reduction and sustainable neighbourhood design.

In 2013, Waterfront Toronto, in partnership with the City of Toronto and the Toronto Regional Conservation Authority (TRCA) retained Urban Strategies Inc. to lead a multi-disciplinary team of consultants to establish a comprehensive vision for the neighbourhood, with directions on land use, heritage, built form, parks and open space, mobility networks, and infrastructure. The Precinct Plan was prepared through a multi-phase consultative process, which included a robust concept development phase to test and refine concepts against specific metrics related to energy demands and carbon output, sun/shadow and micro-climate conditions, views and relationships to heritage structures, and public realm conditions.

Villiers Island Precinct Plan

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