What’s the hurry to destroy foundry site?
A heritage plaque seen through demolition scaffolding. An unexpected excavator eating away at an old building while people behind a fence yelled “stop!” The scenes that played out at the Dominion Wheel & Foundries Ltd. buildings in the Canary District this week are a cliché.
Owned by the province but listed on the city’s heritage register, giving it some protection, the plaque is courtesy of Heritage Toronto, the city’s arm’s-length organization that does such things, but the destruction of this excellent collection of industrial heritage is due to a minister’s zoning order (MZO) from Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Steve Clark’s office. MZOs override local control and plans, and is a power that has been barely used by past provincial governments, but is a recent favourite of the Ford government, issuing them in multiples, such as in Pickering to overlook wetland environmental concerns.
MZOs should stand for “mendacious zoning orders,” and the Dominion Foundries case reveals why.
The Ford government claims it’s using MZOs to expedite housing construction, especially affordable housing. However, this MZO didn’t come with a plan for that and city officials have said no other plan has been submitted. Only later did they receive word that only one of three tall buildings informally proposed on the foundry site is to be affordable.
If affordable housing is the reason for the MZO, where’s the robust plan? Where’s the money? Why the rushed demolition? Red flags abound here.
A rationale for MZOs is they cut through municipal red tape and kickstart building. To be sure, Toronto planning is not without its faults as there are vast areas that could use development but are off limits, forcing and concentrating development in places like this. But to stand next to the foundry this week puts the lie to that reason too.
A decade ago, this was a fallow, post-industrial zone, but today it’s a dense, well-designed neighbourhood complete with Corktown Commons, a new park that serves as a Don River flood control berm that made development here possible. There is no lack of action or building here, some already affordable.
MZOs are said to be done at the request of local authorities, but the mayor has written a letter against the demolition, the chief planner is against it and the local councillor is leading the defence. The local business community, always a venerated group by Ford have, through the Corktown Residents and Business Association, asked demolition be stopped and for the premier and minister to meet with them to discuss their plan that involves saving the building and building affordable housing too. Late Friday, Clark’s office said that as a “good faith measure” demolition is paused until Wednesday, though crews had spent the week knocking big holes in the buildings.
Aside from all this, the
rushed, non-essential demolition is happening during what is supposed to be the tightest lockdown since the pandemic started. Recall a very grave and worried-looking Doug Ford last week telling Ontarians to stay home. The holes in his “mockdown” are either bulldozer-sized or Clark’s nonessential work here isn’t that different than Rod Phillips’s St. Bart’s trip.
It’s easy to be cynical and say this is typically Toronto, forgetting its heritage, but just about every place I’ve been thinks they’re the worst, so we’re not alone. And cities grow and we can’t preserve everything.
The foundry buildings are worth saving though: massive, wrapped in glass and lanternlike, they contrast and complement all the newness around them. Buildings like this need not be everywhere but they serve as anchors to the past, here a reminder of a Toronto of physical labour and molten iron. Memories are attached to places and even if one never went into the buildings they’re the wallpaper of the city. Some need to stay.
Old industrial buildings like this can have many lives. Think of the Distillery District nearby or the Brickworks just up the Don Valley. Across from Fort York the Wellington Destructor
is set to become part of a community centre amidst new housing.
At Downsview Park old airplane hangars are now sports fields. There’s the tech-company-filled warehouses on Spadina and just a few doors away from the infamous maskprotesting BBQ joint on Queen Elizabeth Boulevard in Etobicoke, the former Fabergé Perfumes Canada building, a Massey Medal for Architecture-winning structure, now houses the Great Lakes Brewery.
Some would argue affordable housing should be plain and unadorned. Lots more of it should be built here, and there’s room on the foundry site without demolition. Living next door to a community amenity housed in a glorious old factory is how affordable housing should be built. It’s how all neighbourhoods should be built, when possible.
Conservative governments once stopped this kind of destruction, like when Bill Davis halted the diggers carving a path for the Spadina Expressway or the ones bulldozing Toronto Island communities.
Once the factory is gone, it’s gone. They don’t build ’em like they used to, but in Ontario they don’t do “good government” like they used to either.