Midtown building owners slam Toronto's unprecedented push for heritage protection
'It’s almost as if the building is being confiscated,' Bayview building owner says

cbc.ca
By John Rieti
Aug. 26, 2017

Ask Danielle Goldstein if the Bayview Avenue buildings she owns have any historic value, and you'll get a blunt response.

"No."

But the city disagrees, and this week Goldstein's buildings, a string of old but simple two-storey brick structures at 1566-1574 Bayview, were among the 258 commercial addresses recommended for heritage designation.

Goldstein was shocked to learn about the decision in a chain email the night before the preservation board's meeting, and is now worried about what the future holds for her property.

"It's almost as if the building is being confiscated," she told CBC Toronto.

Michael McClelland, an architect who specializes in heritage buildings, says owning a designated building usually comes with more expensive maintenance costs, and tight restrictions on how the building should look.

At the preservation board, he questioned the sheer number of buildings on the city's list, suggesting not all would stand up to a review by Ontario's conservation review board.

McClelland says he's concerned the city is using heritage protection as a "powerful cudgel" to stop development where its planning rules haven't been tough enough.

"Using heritage to control planning and development - literally to control it or to stop it, for example - is a misuse of the Heritage Act," he said.

"The Heritage Act is meant to be about conserving historic buildings."

Councillors facing pressure after historic buildings levelled

City council still needs to approve the unprecedented move, but both McClelland and Goldstein believe it will, due to the backlash councillors have dealt with following the demolition of historic buildings throughout the downtown core.

Coun. Josh Matlow, who strongly supports the plan, says the bold step could save architecturally or culturally important buildings on Yonge Street, Eglinton and Bayview Avenues and Mount Pleasant Road from the wrecking ball.

"We don't want to see Yonge and Eglinton, like we don't want to see the city itself, become just rows and rows of glass condos without any story, any connection, to who we are as a city and as a community," he said.

McClelland says he supports saving important buildings, but many of what the city is considering protecting are "fabric buildings" that give neighbourhoods a certain feel, but aren't remarkable on an individual level.

"The designation process is far too restrictive for many of these buildings," he said.

'We don't have enough housing'

City heritage staff say the properties do meet heritage standards, and highlight details like the decorative brickwork on some.

Goldstein says she understands the desire to protect buildings, but her property is nothing like the century-old Bank of Montreal building that made headlines when it was quickly knocked down.

While she has no immediate plan to redevelop the site, she expects there could be more demand for housing in the future once the Eglinton Crosstown LRT is up and running, and worries this would prevent her from capitalizing on that.

"All I hear is we don't have enough rental housing, we don't have enough housing for people," she said.

The heritage designation doesn't necessarily rule out development, but Goldstein says it will likely make an already arduous task of dealing with the city far more complex and expensive.

"The heritage designation definitely does put a stigma on a property and it does devalue the property," she said.