Why does Toronto give more protection to trees than it does to buildings?

Removing a building is as simple as applying for a demolition permit

Thestar.com
Jan. 25, 2017
By Edward Keenan

If you want to remove a tree from your property in Toronto, you need to submit an application, which will then prompt a site visit from an arborist to examine the tree. Unless it is seriously sick or already dead, a sign will be posted on your property alerting your neighbours, so they may submit comments on the tree and its proposed removal over a period of two weeks.

There are more bureaucratic twists and turns to it, but at the end of the process, you may need city council to hold a vote specifically debating the merits of removing or protecting your tree. It’s easy to mock this, the mayor and 44 councillors from across the city weighing in on the fate of a single Silver Maple in someone’s backyard. But clearly, protecting the tree canopy is considered important.

If, on the other hand, you want to remove a building - say, a 110-year-old Beaux Arts landmark bank from a main street in Toronto, you just get a pro-forma demolition permit and then get your crew working as fast as you can to rip the thing down. Think about what will replace it later, deal with the public’s complaints after it’s gone, just get rid of it before anyone has a chance to tell you not to. Because clearly, historic preservation is considered not so important in this city of constant rebuilding.

That was the apparent message, delivered again, this week, when the former Bank of Montreal at 2444 Yonge St. - a building under official review as a property of heritage interest and value for inclusion on the list of heritage properties protected from change and demolition by the city - was unceremoniously torn down on Saturday morning Jan 21. A demolition permit had been granted by the city three days before.

Now, getting a “demolition permit” might sound like a formidable obstacle, but it is actually more of a formality. The city has almost no grounds to deny a commercial building owner a tear-down license, and in fact must grant one within 10-30 days of receiving an application. The only way to deny a developer such permission is if the building is officially listed in the “Inventory of Heritage Properties,” and getting a building listed there takes a lot of time and effort, since the city lacks the staff to review applications on their merits in detail.

So, if you’re a particular kind of weasel, what you need to do if you think people in the city are likely to want to protect the history represented by your building, is you get your demolition permit and rip it down quickly before anyone can decide whether you should be allowed to.

That appears to be what happened here. That was also what happened in 2015 when the Stollerys building at the corner of Yonge and Bloor was demolished in a hurry as the local city councillor raced to try to get a heritage designation. It was the apparent logic at work when the old McBride Cycle building on Dundas St. W. was torn down quickly in 2007 before for sale signs appeared on the then-vacant lot (which has now, finally, been turned into condominiums a decade later).

Christin Carmichael Greb, the city councillor who represents the Yonge and Eglinton area, has been suggesting in media interviews that the teardown of the building at 2444 Yonge represents some kind of mixup between city departments - as she told CTV, “a lack of communication” between city planners who knew the heritage value and the demolition permit office. Mayor John Tory repeated a similar sentiment to a Star reporter in an interview from Los Angeles, saying “it certainly feels like an instance of the right hand and the left hand of the city weren’t talking to each other about the history of this file.”

But that’s nonsense. As the mayor acknowledged when questioned, no amount of communication would change the fact that the city had no legal grounds to delay or withhold the permit. It’s not communication that’s needed. It’s a change in the law.

As the heritage architect Michael McClelland told my former colleague Christopher Hume for a recent piece in the Toronto Storeys website, “Now, if a building isn’t designated, you can go to city hall and get a demolition permit. There are no rules that allow the city to refuse a demolition permit. That’s not a good way to do business in the city.”

That’s why some, like Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam have been saying we need the province to change the law. It seems reasonable to me to have all buildings automatically assumed protected by default, and when a demolition application comes in it is evaluated to ensure there is no heritage concern before it is issued. If there is a concern, it can be adjudicated by the planning department and community council.

Asked about this reverse-onus concept, Tory said he was wary of bogging things down “so nothing ever happens”- and certainly no one wants the city frozen in red tape and crumbling brick that forbids any change. But surely there’s a halfway point between no protection offered and no change allowed.

After all, if there had been a tree on that property at 2444 Yonge, there would have been public notice required, city expert inspections, and possible political debate before it could be removed. How unreasonable is it to suggest we require the same modest protections for the buildings that reflect the city’s heritage?