Cabbagetown residents up in arms over proposed daycare
Some neighbours are concerned that increased traffic will change character of quiet neighbourhood.

TheStar.com
April 7, 2018
Fatima Syed

Depending on who you ask, a proposed Cabbagetown daycare is either desperately needed in the neighbourhood, or will destroy it entirely.

The zoning application for a 130-year-old heritage building at the corner of Sackville and Amelia Sts. seeks to have the Victorian-era, multi-unit residential building converted into a space for 82 children and 16 to 18 staff members. The application has received about 50 letters of support and 80 letters of objection.

Although parents in Cabbagetown insist this is a much-needed service in an area where there are no child-care facilities, others argue it will bring traffic and parking issues to two small, one-way residential streets.

“I see it as lots of trouble,” said Gail Gordon Oliver, a Cabbagetown resident for the past three years.

She worries that if the zoning application is approved, it will create a precedent for other businesses to set up in the quiet neighbourhood, ruining what she calls “the unique residential community feeling.”

Oliver lives a block and a half from the vacant building and worries that the daycare will create more traffic. In a letter she sent to the City of Toronto staff, she said there isn’t enough room for two moving cars to pass each other on these streets.

“When there is a delivery vehicle parked on the no-parking side, it’s a nightmare, with cars driving onto the sidewalk in order to allow others to traverse,” she wrote. “The street and sidewalks are already a safety hazard and would be further compromised in the event that emergency vehicle(s) would need access.”

“It will create a lot of havoc twice a day,” she told the Star. “It’s an accident waiting to happen.”

Thorben Wieditz, a longtime tenant in Cabbagetown and father to a 4-year-old girl, said he’s surprised to hear the outrage over the prospect of a new daycare that is “absolutely very appealing to many parents.”

When his daughter was in daycare, Wieditz walked her across both Parliament and Gerrard Sts. It was a 10-minute journey on foot. Crossing two major roads full of commuter traffic in the mornings and afternoons made him uneasy.

“Establishing a walkable daycare option is important,” he said, adding that arrival and departure times at daycares are spread out; some parents drop their kids early, others pick them up late.

“It’s not dangerous to kids to have a daycare centre there,” Wieditz said, noting that the streets in Cabbagetown are narrow and don’t invite people to drive fast. “Opposing this is unfathomable.”

Property records show the building served as a multi-unit residential dwelling has belonged to Free the Children since 2007. In 2016, it was bought by Robert Ulicki and his wife, Sherry D’Costa Correia, who were attracted to the house’s architecture: the blue door, brickwork-clad patio, iron-rod fence and coach house in the back.

The idea to convert the building into a daycare was not theirs. A neighbour mentioned it to Ulicki as he was about to repair the inside of the building, including upgrading the electrical work and paint.

The process to convert the building has been “frustrating,” said Ulicki, who has dealt with the differing requirements of the Ministry of Education, the City of Toronto and Heritage Preservation Services.

Changes have included limiting children’s access to the third floor of the house and enforcing a 1.2 metre-high perimeter without removing the iron-rod fence. (Ulicki decided to put a glass fence just behind it.)

Councillor Lucy Troisi (Ward 28 Toronto Centre-Rosedale) told the Star she is in “full support” of an affordable child-care facility in the downtown core.

“I just have to make sure it’s a safe location,” she said. “These one-way streets both have parking on them, then there’s winter. Where does the snow get shovelled?”

The community remains divided, and it’s not the first time. Previously, Cabbagetown residents have taken up arms against Bike Share, Toronto Community Housing Corp, even the colour of the neighbourhood splash pad. They have also fought over the development of a three-storey house for 10 years. In each instance, the main concern was to preserve the heritage value of the neighbourhood.

But Monica Oliver, a longtime Cabbagetown resident and mother of four kids under the age of 6, said a daycare is “one of the things lacking” in the area.

“We have rooming house, abundance of restaurants, we have a marijuana smoking lounge, but we don’t have a daycare,” she said.

A meeting to discuss this application will be held at Toronto City Hall on Wednesday.