A new LRT line is bringing redevelopment -- and gentrification fears -- to Jane and Finch

Jane Finch Mall is one of many sites up for redevelopment that will likely bring new housing. But local residents also fear they and mall tenants could be displaced.

Thestar.com
July 11, 2022
Donovan Vincent

A customer and his son walk into shop owner Huzainatu Bangura’s store inside the Jane Finch Mall, in search of an outfit for the young man.

Fab Boutique sells men’s and women’s ready-to-wear fashions imported from the African countries of Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Senegal.

It’s late June and the store is filled with richly coloured women’s dresses, tops and men’s shirts and pants. The young shopper tries on a short sleeved top.

“That shirt looks good on you. Do you like it? There are pants that go with it,” Bangura, 49, who was born in Sierra Leone, tells him as his father looks on in delight.

"Maybe (a business owner) like me won't survive here," says Huzainatu Bangura, owner of Fab Boutique, about the redevelopment planned for the Jane Finch Mall.

Fab Boutique is busy. Many area residents who hail from African countries shop there, though residents from other backgrounds do as well, she tells the Star.

“My business is valuable to this community. It’s not big ... but as small as it is, it needs to be here.”

The mall is one of many sites in the area up for redevelopment spurred by a new soon-to-be-completed LRT line along Finch that is expected to push up land values, sparking fears among community members of displacement and gentrification.

The Jane and Finch neighbourhood is set to be massively transformed by the new $2.5-billion Finch West light rail transit (LRT) line scheduled to be finished next year.

The 18-stop, 11-kilometre line will run west from Finch Avenue and Keele Street, cut through Jane and Finch and proceed further to Humber College’s north campus near Finch and Highway 27.

The LRT is expected to significantly increase land prices and jump start transit-oriented development in an area that has for years seen depressed real estate values due to underinvestment, poverty, crime and violence.

But massive redevelopment expected with the new line has also bred mistrust and left many local residents with anxieties that a loss of affordability may leave them out in the cold when it comes to new housing and retail, and that shops and services that now cater to their needs culturally might vanish.

In other words, gentrification.

“Maybe (a business owner) like me won’t survive here,” Bangura says.

“The fear of displacement is very deeply rooted here,” says Anna-Kay Brown, a community organizer and longtime resident. Brown works for a local non-profit that is consulting with the community on the possible benefits of new services planned for the area, such as a new, 320-bed long-term care facility set to be completed soon at Humber River Hospital’s Finch Avenue West site.

“People understand the need for redevelopment here. But it must benefit the collective community, not just new folks moving in. It’s about jobs, green space, services, creating affordable housing. Creating equity,” Brown says.

Sue Massa, a real estate agent who works in the area, says house prices for single family detached homes and semis have started to climb, which she attributes in large part to the coming LRT line.

For example, a short distance northwest of Jane and Finch, on nearby Blossom Crescent, homes had sold for 10 to 15 per cent lower than the city average for decades, notes Massa of Right at Home Realty. However, a five-bedroom semi on the street that will begin taking offers in early July is listed at just under $1 million.

“It’s all about transportation and the LRT. Transportation is key,” Massa says.

The new Finch West LRT is set to push up land values in Jane and Finch, which is set to bring development one York expert says will surely push up rents.

Jay Feldman, president of Brad-Jay Investments Limited, which has owned Jane Finch Mall since 1968, says residential uses will “certainly be part” of a planned redevelopment of the mall, though he adds the company hasn’t started thinking about what the buildings would look like or whether they would house rental apartments or condos.

An application to the city to redevelop the 17-acre site, at the south east corner of the Jane and Finch intersection, is at least a year away and the consultations with the local community are ongoing, Feldman says.

To help assuage local concerns about changes that may be coming to Jane Finch Mall, an outreach team of local “animators” -- individuals acting as go-betweens, gathering input from residents, local agencies, community groups, community leaders and others -- is part of a local engagement process that includes the owners of the mall.

A report summarizing some of the input collected from the community states in part: “people express fear of gentrification in general, fear of rising rents that make their lives less affordable and the loss of affordability in local stores.

“People see considerable risk that the strength of the community will be damaged, and community voice lost, by people being forced out of the neighbourhood by high costs.”

Yorkgate Mall, one of the three large shopping centres at the Jane and Finch intersection, is slated to get a new 22-storey, 294-unit highrise with rental apartments, built on the mall’s parking lot.

Mall redevelopment is happening at other locations in Toronto. For example, at the Dufferin Mall, near Dufferin and Bloor, several new purpose-built rental highrises are slated to be built, along with a park and new retail.

Similarly, the Galleria Mall, at Dufferin and Dupont, is set to see a massive redevelopment that includes several new highrise towers, new sidewalks and community amenities.

Emily Reisman, a planner with Urban Strategies, a Toronto urban design and planning consultancy working with the Jane Finch Mall owners, says the landlord is looking at any changes to the property as a “long-term evolution, not just a one-off. It’s thinking holistically about the site and how it can evolve in the community.”

As for retail changes, Feldman says he understands “affordability would be and should be a central concern. We expect that’s something we’ll have to address.”

The Jane Finch Mall, Yorkgate Mall, and Norfinch Shopping Centre on the west side of the intersection, offer brand name as well as discount goods and services for an area that has a large immigrant community along with generations of people from diverse ethnocultural backgrounds -- about 52,000 people living within a larger area bounded by Highway 400 at the west, Steeles Avenue to the north, Sheppard Avenue and part of Black Creek at the southern end and Black Creek at the east, according to one study.

The malls also serve as a meeting place for the community.

Robert Andulo, 14, a Grade 9 student at local James Cardinal McGuigan Catholic high school, has been meeting up at Jane Finch Mall with his friends to eat, drink and chat for eight or nine years since coming to Canada from Colombia.

“This is a really cool space,” he says.

The malls at Jane and Finch also have massive parking lots, appealing for developers, given the spike in land values the new transit line promises.

That increase is sure to result in rent hikes for residents in the area, what Luisa Sotomayor, an associate professor with York University’s faculty of environmental and urban change, refers to as rent displacement.

“Corporate landlords -- they’re there to make a profit and so higher rents will come for sure. Those are real concerns,” she says.

She adds changes will likely include an influx of new residents who have money, which has implications for residents already living there.

“When new residents come to an area that has been underinvested in, the business orientation changes as well. The (Jane and Finch and Yorkgate) malls have all sorts of services, small business space for young people, seniors. There’s a sense of community. With new residents with upper incomes that may change,” Sotomayor adds.

Troy Budhu, 29, another longtime resident and one of several consultants on the future of the Jane Finch Mall, says the consultations have reached a wide swath of the community and one of the major themes coming out of the conversations is a “demand” from residents for transparency.

He notes openness was missing when Metrolinx, the provincial transit agency, initially signalled it wanted to make land it owned near a new Finch West LRT storage and maintenance facility available for a local community centre and arts hub -- then later reversed course.

Metrolinx told the local city councillor it would be selling the land off rather than donating it for the centre.

Community outrage followed. In the end Metrolinx decided to sell the property -- but for a small fee to the City of Toronto to enable the centre to get built.

Despite that positive resolution, feelings of doubt and mistrust from that process still linger, Budhu says.

As a consultant on the mall’s redevelopment he wants to ensure a much smoother process this time around.

“My goal is to make sure residents’ concerns and aspirations are heard and are reflected in the future of our neighbourhood,” Budhu says.

Similarly, Feldman, the president of Brad-Jay Investments, says he understands the basis for the feelings of mistrust in the community.

“That’s why we’re focusing so much on process (and the consultations). We want to make sure it is inclusive, meaningful and respectful to residents.”