Realtor branches out into fundraising
Waleed Khaled Elsayed is trying to find corporate donors to save a 350-year-old oak tree
Realtor Waleed Khaled Elsayed is branching out into fundraising in an effort to sell a property that’s home to what is perhaps the city’s oldest and largest tree.
After asking the city to buy the property in order to save the tree, he says the city came back with a counter offer: it would pay for no more than half the cost of the property, with private donations required to make up the other half.
“I’m excited,” Elsayed said on Thursday. “I’m willing to take up the challenge. Ready, set, go. Let’s get cracking.”
Elsayed represents the owners of the property on Coral Gables Dr. near Sheppard Ave. W. and Weston Rd. that’s home to a red oak that may be 350 years old, which would make it more than twice as old as Canada.
That would also make it 130 years old when the City of Toronto was founded.
The red oak sits close to the historic trading route of the Humber River and was reportedly standing when the property’s owner back in 1837 fought on the Loyalist side in the Upper Canada Rebellion.
At the root of the tree drama is the tree’s roots, which have grown under the foundation of the bungalow, threatening its structural integrity.
The tree is protected by Toronto’s municipal code, which requires homeowners to get council approval before chopping a tree down.
There’s a fine of $500 to $100,000 for illegally cutting down a tree, plus a possible supplementary penalty of $100,000. Toronto council agreed in July to negotiate the acquisition of the house that’s home to the tree, which is about 24 metres tall with a circumference of about five metres. The plan is to tear down the bungalow at its base and turn the property into a parkette, if private donors come up with at least half the purchase price.
That explains why Elsayed, a second-generation realtor, has drawn up a “hit list” of potential corporate donors. “This is a first for me and I am embracing the challenge to go out there and make connections,” he said.
Right now, just $5,000 has been raised, Elsayed said, add- ing he has been told there will soon be a donation link on the city’s webpage.
“My role is shifted from being a salesperson to being a fundraiser,” Elsayed said.
Noted gardener — and Star columnist — Mark Cullen and his wife, Mary, have pledged to come up with $100,000.
Elsayed said major donors should get some sort of public recognition for chipping in.
“It’s reasonable that they would want that,” Elsayed said.
Asked the value of the house and property, Elsayed said: “Ballpark, I would say $900,000, give or take.”
“There needs to be a talk about appraising the property and determining the value,” Elsayed said, adding a comparable property on the same street in the neighbourhood sold for $885,000 in April.
He said an arborist recently checked the health of the tree to determine if it’s worth the effort of saving. Red oaks can live up to 500 years, according to the United States Department of Agriculture.
“The response has come back positive: Yes, the tree is worth saving,” Elsayed said.