Fight to stop 24-storey Eglinton Ave. condo loses at council
Staff recommendations to allow the high-rise were accepted by council Tuesday night.

TheStar.com
July 5, 2017
Jennifer Pagliaro

A 24-storey condo that local councillors said would undermine plans for the booming Yonge-Eglinton area has been approved by council.

Staff recommendations to allow the high-rise at 90 Eglinton Ave. West and allow the developer to only replace 50 per cent of the six-storey office space there now was accepted by council Tuesday night in a 35 to 6 vote.

Councillor Josh Matlow, whose Ward 22 (St. Paul’s) borders that stretch of Eglinton Ave. was one of those opposed to the plan.

He moved that council request the developer provide full office replacement, as the plans approved by council for that area require, and address additional concerns about the size and shape of the building and its relationship to Eglinton Ave., where mid-rise development was directed by council.

“If we as council go in that direction rather than what my motion asks us to do, we will then undermine our own policy. We will undermine our own interests,” Matlow told his colleagues Tuesday. “And what will happen in your wards along with mine is that over and over again developers’ lawyers will use this as a precedent.”

The city is currently engaged in a years-long fight to defend the office replacement requirement at the Ontario Municipal Board, which hears land-use disputes.

The developer, Madison Homes, has argued the rules regarding mid-rise development did not apply to them at the time they applied for permission to build the condo.

Though planning staff disagreed when the application was first made and council directed a mid-rise development at that site, a more recent staff report said the application at 24-storeys and with 50 per cent office replacement was acceptable.

Staff said at a May meeting of the North York community council they had received “somewhat conflicting directions” about whether the site should be midrise.

Local residents associations, including the umbrella Federation of North Toronto Residents’ Associations, agreed that the tall condo outside the designated Yonge-Eglinton growth area creates “city-wide implications.”

“The city’s official plan is about planning for development and managing growth, not just allowing development after development because it’s near a subway. This development contravenes many principles that have been endorsed by council to make our city liveable,” co-chairs Geoff Kettel and Cathie Macdonald wrote in a June 28 letter to council.

Though council backed Matlow’s motion, the development application was approved as is after local Councillor Christin Carmichael Greb’s motion to refuse the application was rejected in a 9 to 32 vote.

“This development has been going on since before I was elected,” Greb told council. “Residents have been up in arms since the application has been put in and I have been supporting residents with their fight.”