How far should Toronto go to preserve historic streetscapes?
City’s intention to add hundreds of properties to heritage list spurs debate over development
The Danforth is known for its shopping, food and drink, but few would point to the blocks between Coxwell and Victoria Park avenues as a shining example of urban architecture.
A jumble of discount stores and medical offices, food joints and bars, sprinkled with commercial plazas, it is by and large something to get through and drive by.
It’s not that the businesses have nothing to offer — there are retail jewels to be found along the strip, and business improvement associations have added planters to soften the edges — but the buildings seem less than glamorous, without offering the compensatory street theatre that people move to big cities to become a part of.
The city’s heritage department respectfully disagrees. After two heritage buildings in other parts of the city were peremptorily razed by developers, and as part of a citywide effort to better protect Toronto’s history, staff are using a more proactive approach to conservation that would see 167 of the buildings on or adjacent to Danforth Avenue between Coxwell and Victoria Park added to the heritage register.
Being listed on the register means the city must be advised of an owner’s intention to demolish the property. It gives the city 60 days to determine whether the building merits full preservation or whether the demolition may proceed.
The Danforth recommendations include some obvious choices, like the converted bus terminal diner in the art deco streamline moderne style that is a local landmark, and a brick Masonic Temple at 15 Chisholm Ave., built in 1930. It also includes some not-so-obvious ones, like the sagging woodframe building at 2726 Danforth Ave., tucked behind a furniture store, which was once the White House Hotel, serving early settlers.
But the argument for adding them to the registry isn’t so much about individual monuments as it is about the way the buildings work together, forming a largely intact early-20thcentury streetscape.
As part of the effort to update the heritage register, staff also found 325 properties worth adding on Queen Street West and in Parkdale; 257 around King and Parliament streets; 162 along Dundas Street West and Roncesvalles Avenue; 39 along Ossington Avenue; and 16 in Forest Hill Village — 966 in all.
It’s an astonishing number of properties to be added to the heritage register in any one year. In 2017, 299 properties were added. In 2018, only 68. In 2019, there were 153.
In all, there are 14,400 addresses on the register. “When the numbers are so high, you really have to question whether all these properties need to be included,” said Coun. Denzil Minnan-Wong (Ward 16, Don Valley East).
“You wonder if they have an appreciation of the consequences for the property owner.”
Is it too much? There are concerns that adding so many buildings to the registry could hinder intensification in exactly the neighbourhoods that need it the most, located in the so-called Yellow Belt, zoned for single-family and semi-detached homes — especially if the buildings move from being simply listed on the heritage register to being officially designated as protected.
“It doesn’t mean that there aren’t opportunities for future development, but it definitely makes it more difficult to do,” said Brad Bradford, a former city planner and the councillor for Ward 19 (Beaches—East York).
“I anticipate that there will be pushback against the city, not just here on Danforth.”
That so many buildings are up for consideration at the Toronto Preservation Board meeting on Nov. 30 is due in part to the fact that the department itself set a target for identifying the buildings, but it was also directed to do so by council, after a 110-year-old beaux arts bank building on Yonge Street near Eglinton Avenue was summarily demolished in 2017. The city had previously lost the elegant Stollerys building on at Yonge and Bloor in a similar fashion in 2015, wrecked by developer Sam Mizrahi even as Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam (Ward 13, Toronto Centre) scrambled to save it.
The 966 properties being proposed for the heritage register were identified in a variety of planning studies conducted in different neighbourhoods, dating back to 2015. Putting the list together was a year-long project, according to Gregg Lintern, chief planner and executive director of the city’s planning division.
“This is a matter of catching up with a backlog,” he said.
But it’s also the result of a change in the process and in the thinking behind what constitutes heritage, according to Mary MacDonald, senior manager of heritage preservation services for the city.
In the past, city staff would spend days researching a single building, digging deep into the archives, before recommending it be placed on the heritage register. It wasn’t efficient and it prevented deserving buildings from getting on the list. It’s how Stollerys and the beaux arts bank on Yonge Street were lost. They simply weren’t listed at the time, and proving they should be protected couldn’t be done quickly enough to prevent their demolition.
After scanning other jurisdictions for best practices, Toronto began using an abbreviated approach often referred to as “batch listing,” but which MacDonald prefers to call multiple listing.
A historic context statement about a neighbourhood is researched and written, explaining its significance and describing categories of buildings that contribute to that character — say, pre-war apartments or bayand-gable houses or stores that belonged to a main street. Buildings that fit into any of the described categories are pitched for the heritage register by city staff. The register suggestions have to be approved by the city’s preservation board, then the local community council, then city council.
It moves away from a strict emphasis on architectural details, although those remain important.
MacDonald says it also means paying attention to inclusivity and social justice.
“There are some areas that are important to people that are not necessarily going to be architecturally significant, but they represent significant parts of this city’s history,” she said, pointing to Little Jamaica, Little Korea and Little India.
“The story of the Danforth is the story of immigrant communities over decades and how they used those spaces. So we want to make sure there is social inclusion in our lens.”
The development industry is casting a careful eye on the new process.
David Wilkes, president and CEO at the Building Industry and Land Development Association (BILD), said there isn’t currently enough housing supply to meet demand in the city, in particular for affordable housing.
Without commenting on the 966 proposed new entries on the heritage register, he said there are concerns when heritage designations go beyond their intended scope and result in blanket protections on sites that don’t really meet the original intent of the registry.
“We must protect true heritage properties out there,” said Wilkes, adding that designations should not be overly restrictive, “especially in areas like the Danforth, where this is exactly where new housing should be built — new development should be where we need to take advantage of investments that have occurred in transit, like the subway.”
Lintern thinks the two goals can both be met.
“My bottom line on that is that growth and conservation are not mutually exclusive and there’s proof of that all over the city, where we see significant intensification and heritage conservation working hand in glove,” he said.
Billy Dertilis, who runs Red Rocket Coffee, west of Coxwell, and chairs the Danforth Mosaic BIA, which includes part of the area with the 167 buildings, says perhaps there is something special about the fact that stretches of the strip — and not just individual buildings — remain standing together, 100 years after they were first developed, and are still serving the community.
“I do think there is some value in keeping the streetscape intact and having at least some control over overnight demolitions,” he said.
“In my mind it makes sense to preserve the character that already exists.”