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Of the residential skyscraper schemes recently given the green light by Toronto's planning officials, none faces a more bruising political struggle than the Four Seasons hotel and condominium complex in Yorkville.

"We are appalled by the height and density, and the rather mediocre design," area resident Mary-Helen Spence said on behalf of one important residents' association girding itself for battle. A $2-million offer made by the builders (Menkes Development and Toronto-based Four Seasons Hotel Inc.) to improve a nearby schoolyard that would be touched by the towers' shadow has been declared unacceptable. "It's simply buying the sunshine from generations of children," Ms. Spence said.

The cause of this fuss in midtown's historic Yorkville district is indeed the largest development ever to come to the neighbourhood. If built as approved, the project will consist of two towers, 46 and 30 storeys tall, on Bay Street between Yorkville Avenue and Scollard Street. It will cast long shadows in a part of town not accustomed to them. But if it is not the most impressive architectural idea to come from the designers of the project -- Peter Clewes and Rudy Wallman of architectsAlliance -- the development will almost certainly not be the aesthetic calamity predicted by some residents.

The Four Seasons is nothing more dangerous than a luxurious reworking of Toronto-based Alliance's usual austere modernism.

Instead of being a tight, trim facing, for instance, the skin of the taller building will cascade down in shimmering, syncopated patterns from a high decorative crown. The transparent podium of the 46-storey tower promises to glow like a Japanese lantern at night, softly brightening what is now an indifferent streetscape. Though the towers are tall, the probable effect on the city will almost certainly be one of lightness, brightness, a sense of urbane lift.

But the best part of the design -- something that is much disliked by residents, by the way -- is what's planned for the street level. Though the podium is hard and aloof on its Bay Street side, on Yorkville, the street-wall gives way to a pleasantly intimate harbour framed by the towers. Cars will enter and exit this principal reception area of the hotel. The slow churn of traffic will likely create a lively sense of to and fro, though the hum will be muted by the streetside garden and other landscape features designed by Montreal architect Claude Cormier.

The Four Seasons will complete the renewal of Yorkville between Bay and Yonge streets -- a process begun by architectsAlliance's 18 Yorkville residential complex, and enriched by Mr. Cormier's sophisticated plan for the plantings.

The whimsical Fire Hall No. 10 (1876) -- one of two architectural senior citizens on the block, the other being the Yorkville Public Library (1906-1907) -- will receive a fix-up, courtesy of the Four Seasons developers.

But before a shovel goes into the ground, the objections of residents deserve another hearing, and as many hearings as it takes until an amicable resolution is achieved. I don't think such an outcome is impossible, though reaching it will surely require large quantities of patience on both sides of the table.

Were I setting the agenda, for example, I would urge the residents to be more realistic on the matter of shadows. The Four Seasons will not plunge the neighbourhood into unrelenting darkness. Long fingers of bright shade will surely sweep over Yorkville each day -- but such conditions of alternating sunshine and shade are common in all grown-up cities, and are not fearful.

As for the architects and developers, I would urge sensitivity toward the people whose little pocket of Victorian housing is being changed forever by the forces of metropolitan culture. The Four Seasons certainly has the kind of heft, height and high style that can transform a neighbourhood -- or, in the case of Yorkville, firmly complete a historical development begun years ago.

It has been a long time, after all, since the old village changed from a working-class residential suburb into the middle-brow tourist district it is today, then became menaced by the outward growth of downtown Toronto.

If the Four Seasons towers are finally put up in Yorkville, they will be among the taller buildings near the intersection of Bloor and Yonge, but hardly out of line with other high-rises soon to be constructed in the area.

Though the march of the skyscrapers into Yorkville is probably inevitable, the developers of the Four Seasons should give fresh thought to the modernizing transformation they are visiting upon the old and picturesque village.

jmays@globeandmail.com