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Councillors balk at plans for five highrise towers hidden in province’s plan for Ontario Line transit hub

Thestar.com
April 13, 2021
Donovan Vincent

Queen’s Park’s new proposals Monday for transit-oriented communities included a hidden detail: the province’s call for five new highrise towers -- four residential and one commercial -- to be built near a new Corktown subway station, the Star has learned.

Coun. Kristyn Wong-Tam says she was surprised to learn of the details in a briefing note from Infrastructure Ontario Monday morning, a note related to the province’s major announcement about creating subway stations at Corktown and East Harbour on the Ontario Line.

Wong-Tam (Toronto Centre), who represents the Parliament and Front St. area where the Corktown stop is slated to be built, read the briefing note from Michael Fedchyshyn, senior vice-president of transit-oriented development for Infrastructure Ontario, indicating that the province envisions five towers in the area.

The preliminary application, submitted to the city of Toronto by the province, calls for three 46-storey residential towers, one 25-storey residential building and one 24-storey office building.

There would be 1,580 new units, with about five to 10 per cent of the units reserved for affordable housing -- a percentage that is too low, Wong-Tam went on to say. Another sore point for her is the towers would be at the contentious First Parliament site.

The site -- bordered by Front, Parliament and Berkeley streets and Parliament Square Park -- is the area where Upper Canada’s first Parliament buildings stood. The city of Toronto owns about three-quarters of the property, the province the rest. The province wants to obtain two properties on the site to make way for the Corktown stop.

Two of the towers would be located north of the property and three on the First Parliament site itself, Wong-Tam says,

“I was taken by surprise,” Wong-Tam said in a telephone interview, referring to the towers. I didn’t know they were proposing to (put) five buildings on the site,” she said, adding there are no highrises similar in height in the area.

She added that master planning for the First Parliament site has been underway for years with the local community.

Responding to the Star’s query, the province said late Monday that a “future Corktown transit-oriented community proposal is at the conceptual stage, and still requires review and input by the city.

“Once municipal engagement is complete, a refined development concept will be shared with the public for further input,” Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Katherine Green said.

“This proposal aligns with our two governments’ shared objectives as stated in our Memorandum of Understanding on transit-oriented development that aims to increase housing supply and jobs near transit,” the transportation ministry statement goes on to say.

Monday’s public announcement from the province talks about the proposal for the area around the Corktown station offering a “dynamic community with housing, jobs, commercial uses, and community spaces, such as a library, all connected to the Ontario Line subway and TTC bus and streetcar services,” but there’s nothing in the announcement about the specific towers.

Wong-Tam says she supports the need for higher order transit and plans for amenities such as a library, but is not on board for selling property at the First Parliament site to the province.

The Ontario Line is the planned new 16-kilometre subway that is slated to run through dense neighbourhoods in Toronto from Ontario Place on the waterfront to the heart of Don Mills. Construction is set to begin next year, Metrolinx says.

Meanwhile, city councillor Paula Fletcher, whose Toronto-Danforth ward would be the home to the East Harbour stop on the Ontario Line -- a stop the province says could serve as a “Union Station east” -- says she doesn’t see how the province can create housing on the 38-acre site, near Eastern Ave.

”They can’t put housing there. It’s a core employment zone. The province made it a core employment area, which says no residential. Their own law maintained this as a core employment area,” Fletcher said in an interview.

In a decision in the spring of 2019, the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing identified 29 provincially significant employment zones that receive enhanced protection, including the employment areas generally bound by Lakeshore Blvd, Don Valley Parkway, Eastern Ave. and Leslie St., which takes in the location for and around the East Harbour stop.

Green, the Ministry of Transportation spokesperson, said the proposal is in the preliminary stages, but is “consistent with the objectives of Ontario’s Transit-Oriented Communities Program.

“The proposal for an East Harbour site offers a complete, mixed-use community with a diverse range of uses including commercial and residential space, as well as retail, food, cultural uses and public open space,” Green said.

Fletcher said the province would have to use a Minister’s Zoning Order to overcome the core employment designation.

But Green said the province’s aim is to work with the city through a “streamlined review process.”