Ontario overrules city on West Don Lands
Councillor says move by province ‘sidesteps’ the local community
Premier Doug Ford’s provincial government has overruled city processes for three development sites in the West Don Lands, allowing condo towers as tall as 50 storeys without any public consultation or discussion with local councillors and planners.
The city’s manager for community planning in the area discovered three new ministerial zoning orders from the province posted online by chance on Friday, Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam told the Star on Monday, sending city officials into emergency meetings.
Given no notice of the orders, Wong-Tam, who represents part of what’s also called the Canary District, said they are all still working to figure out what they mean and why they were issued.
“The province has eroded trust, the trust in the planning process,” Wong-Tam said. “I think the province has also overstepped and it’s my assertion that it’s an abuse of minister’s zoning orders.”
Ministerial zoning orders, or MZOs, can be used by the minister of municipal affairs and housing to overrule local planning, including necessary public consultations, and designates how land can be used — including how tall buildings can be and how much residential or non-residential is allowed. It is not possible to appeal MZOs, unlike applications approved through the normal process. While MZOs have been used sparingly by provincial governments in the past, the new orders, all of which appear to have been posted Oct. 22, follow a trend for Ontario’s PC government of employing the tool liberally. While the previous Liberal government issued MZOs just twice in the two years prior to Ford’s government coming to power, the Star has reported, there were 26 issued by this government between 2018 and early October, not including the latest Toronto-area orders.
The orders concern three separate sites all owned by the province and all at different planning stages:
373 Front St. East and 90 Mill
St.: A proposed three-building, mixed-use site with buildings between eight and 13 storeys, including 261 affordable housing units currently set for final approval by council this week
125R Mill Street: An application for two residential towers, 32 and 45 storeys, on top of a six-storey office and retail building with a proposed 231 affordable units still at the preliminary stages in the city planning process after being received in June 2020
153-185 Eastern Ave.: A heritage site home to the old Dominion Wheel and Foundries Company with no active development application
The MZOs appear to permit what was applied for and agreed to by city planning officials at 373 Front St. East and 90 Mill St. with no more than three buildings at heights not to exceed 13 storeys. There have
already been multiple public
. But there is no mention of affordable housing in the order, as is spelled out in the city planning recommendations, or the agreement planned with the development group for more than $500,000 in benefits for parkland and local streetscape improvements.
At 125R Mill St., the order would appear to permit what w heights up to 153 metres, about 51 storeys. There is nothing said about affordable housing or other community benefits.
And at the Foundries site, up to three buildings have been permitted, at least one of which must be an apartment building, with heights of up to 47 storeys allowed and a minimum of just 500 square metres of non-residential use required — meaning most of the site has been zoned for residential use.
The first two sites are being developed by a partnership of Dream, Kilmer Group, and Tricon Residential, the successful proponents of an Infrastructure Ontario bid for 99-year leases in the West Don Lands in exchange for building rental market-rate and affordable housing.
The city is providing financial incentives to the developers through the Open Door affordable housing program and the federal government is acting as the project lender. There is no public development partner for the third site and no application yet submitted. Wong-Tam said the MZO move “entirely sidesteps” the community process and doesn’t secure any benefits for the community, such as parkland, for the other sites and that the city doesn’t know the “true intentions” of the new orders, including the future for the heritage property at the Eastern Avenue site.
“The painful irony here is that the province is framing this as you can either have affordable housing or a good planning process and that is first, a false choice,” said Coun. Joe Cressy, whose ward includes the 125R Mill St. site.
He said the city and the local West Don Lands community have shown they can build a livable and equitable neighbourhood in collaboration with the province.
Cressy said if the move by the province was to really build affordable housing, it would have imposed even more affordable housing instead of not ensuring any. He said the move also sets a bad precedent for future development.
“If you’re a developer, why bother working with the city and the community to ensure that you’re building a livable development and providing enough affordable housing if you can just call the minister and get your deal approved?”