These acid-white LEDs serve as a lesson for Toronto planners

Hit the lights! When Aura, at the corner of Yonge and Gerrard, turned on its exterior decorative lighting about a year ago, the downtown Toronto skyline changed dramatically. The 78-storey condominium tower was capped by long vertical icicles of acid-white LEDs: Many Torontonians were surprised. And so were some of the city’s planning staff. Through several years of discussion and negotiations with developer Canderel and architects Graziani & Corazza, there had been talk of lights – but nobody, it seems, realized quite how big or bright they were going to be. And on the drawings that were submitted to the city for approval in 2012, there are no lights shown at all.