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By Fox Oliver
On Oct. 12, 2022, Bousfields Inc. submitted an application to build a 30-storey tower at 425 Bloor St. W.
The mixed-use building is designed to make the most out of land in a high-traffic area which currently hosts a single-storey Metro grocery store.
The building, designed by the IBI Group, would feature a six-storey “podium design,” topped with a 24-storey residential tower. The 418 residential units in the building would likely be condominium units, consisting of 79 studios, 229 single-bedroom units, 67 two-bedroom units, and 43 three-bedroom units.
Over 1000 square metres of space on the ground and mezzanine floors would be used for retail purposes.
The proposed tower would replace the Metro at 425 Bloor St. W. and Robert Street that many nearby residents depend on; however, Stephanie Bonk, communications manager at Metro, confirmed that Metro will not be leaving the community.
It will be relocating to an upcoming 35-storey mixed-use building at 350 Bloor St. W. which is being developed by the same team as the 425 Bloor St. W. building.
“The current (Metro) location will not move until the new store is built, so no store closure will be required,” added Bonk.
The development at 425 Bloor St. W. cannot begin construction until site plan approval is administered by the city and the building at 350 Bloor St. W. is complete.
Construction at 350 Bloor St. W. is estimated to last 36 months once it begins, meaning the project at 425 Bloor St. W. will not begin for a minimum of three years. Construction at 425 Bloor St. W. would also take approximately 36 months to complete, if planning goes as expected.
“We’re trying to create a highly animated public realm,” said Peter Venetas, project manager for both the 350 and 425 Bloor St. W. developments.
This involves expanding the sidewalk on Bloor Street to a width of 6 metres, creating active retail space, and expanding upon the work that the Bloor-Annex BIA has done along the Robert St. parkette.
Enhancement of the public realm is particularly important as the building lies within 500 metres of a subway node and is likely to generate increased pedestrian traffic in the area.
The brickwork, archways, and large windows incorporated in the building’s facade are inspired by its surroundings and designed to compliment visual themes in the Annex.
The building will incorporate multiple green roofs totalling at least 60 per cent of available roof space as required by Chapter 492 of the Toronto Municipal Code.
“It is too early to say for certain how the building will affect the area,” said Sue Dexter, a founding board member of the Harbord Village Residents’ Association (HVRA).
Dexter says that it is especially important for the developers to listen to the community while planning, as the building would exist on both the commercial Bloor Street West and the residential Robert Street.
“We (the HVRA) will be engaged in a lot of discussion with the developers throughout the process,” said Dexter.
The likelihood of increased pedestrian and vehicular traffic, the developers’ ability to tap into the University of Toronto’s geothermal project under the adjacent Robert St. Field, and opportunities to engage with the abutting parkette will all be points of conversation for the HVRA and the developers, elaborated Dexter.
Participating in dialogue with the community is not a new initiative for the developers.
“We’ve learned a lot of things from our work at 350 Bloor. We’ve been engaging in community discussion since 2018, and we will continue to learn from our surroundings,” said Venetas.
Currently the development team is planning to engage with a handful of community stakeholders, including the city councillor’s office, the HVRA, the Annex Residents’ Association, the Bloor-Annex BIA, Trinity-St. Paul’s Church, and the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre.
Venetas said that a formal engagement process will also take place with these groups once the application process reaches a later stage.
Venetas invites residents to read more about the development projects on their community consultation websites which can also be used to share comments with the development team.
Comments Off on NEWS: 30-storey tower to replace Metro (Feb. 2023)Tags: Annex · News
By Hailey Alexander
First Baptist Church at 101 Huron St. was founded in 1826 by Elder Washington Christian and 12 other formerly enslaved people who escaped to Canada by way of the Underground Railroad. First Baptist Church is the oldest Black institution in Toronto.
First Baptist Church has experienced many challenges. Penelope Hodge, church historian, stated that Upper Canada passed an act in 1793 to prevent the “further introduction” of enslaved people and limit the term of “forced servitude” in the province.
This statute provided children born to enslaved parents automatic freedom upon reaching the age of 25.
Natasha Henry, historian and president of the Ontario Black History Society, elaborates further in the Canadian Encyclopedia on this matter stating that one of the last recorded sales of a person in Upper Canada was in March of 1824.
By then, black children were legally born free and former enslavers were “required to provide security” for those whom they freed.
First Baptist Church says in their historical statement that existing “white” churches met the original group of 12 fugitives with the conditions that they needed to produce “letters of dismissal” from their old churches in America and repay their former enslavers the “loss of money sustained by their escape from slavery.” Aware of these impossible conditions, the group organized a small Baptist congregation under the pastoral leadership of Elder Washington Christian in 1826. During this time, fugitives commonly formed communities within the context of religious faith and the belief of a Promised Land that would grant them physical freedom.
First Baptist Church’s services first took place in members’ homes and outdoors until the group leased St. George’s Masonic Lodge for weekly services in 1827. In August of 1834, Britain’s Emancipation Act came into effect in the British Empire and about 800,000 enslaved Africans around the world were legally free.
The church moved that same year and held services in a schoolhouse on Richmond Street. It would move several times before settling into its current home at the intersection of D’Arcy and Huron streets in 1955.
It is unclear how people discovered First Baptist Church throughout its history, but the church now stands tall with a diverse group of members under the leadership of Rev. Wendell Gibbs, Toronto Police Chaplain and community advocate. Church services and other amenities are now accessible in-person and online. First Baptist Church invites “all races and nationalities to worship,” further stating that they do not want to repeat the behaviour that once forced their founding members to seek a separate religious institution.
In light of their history, First Baptist Church acknowledges February as Black History Month with special activities, displays, guest speakers, and youth performances.
The church also has a heritage room open to visitors that holds historical accounts, photos, and artifacts. In response to the community’s growing interest in the history of the church, the church plans to release a film about its remarkable progress through “racial tension,” as Gibbs mentions in the trailer. An additional multimedia project titled Lights, Camera, Action: Bringing Black History to Life is underway with the goal of inspiring and informing the community.
Comments Off on NEWS: 196 years of Black history in Toronto (Feb. 2023)Tags: Annex · News
By Fox Oliver
In September, Value Village opened a new location in the former Brunswick House (481 Bloor St. W.), adding one more to their more than 20 stores in the GTA. This new boutique store carries a more limited variety of goods than a regular Value Village, making it able to fit into the iconic space known as a site of debauchery for Toronto youth for over a century.
Built in 1876, The Brunswick House was a bar until 2016. Rexall Drugstore completely renovated the building and rebuilt many historic elements.
This leaves Value Village with some rather opulent digs for the sale of secondhand clothing, accessories, and shoes.
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in December, the Gleaner stood outside the new Value Village Boutique and asked customers what they knew about the store.
One customer was under the impression that a Value Village Boutique is more “chic and expensive” than its counterparts, while another shopper assumed the store’s contents are “curated differently, so the clothes are more expensive.”
However, Sara Gaugl, a representative of Value Village, confirmed that “pricing at Value Village and Value Village Boutique locations is the same,” and that these are just common misconceptions.
A first-time customer commended the boutique style of the store, saying that this makes the store’s contents “more streamlined, when it seems like clothing is already their biggest draw.” This seems to fit with Gaugl’s comment that “customer feedback [regarding the boutique business model] has been very positive.”
A common misconception among customers is that Value Village is a nonprofit organization. Value Village is a for-profit organization, but they source their products by purchasing them from local nonprofits.
Gaugl added that between 2017 and 2021, Value Village paid Canadian nonprofits nearly $390 million for secondhand goods and currently partners with more than 50 nonprofits across Canada.
A customer shared that she was still happy to shop at Value Village even after learning they weren’t a nonprofit.
She believes that buying from Value Village is still “more ethical than shopping at other thrift stores” because money will still end up in the pockets of nonprofit organizations. Value Village also makes shopping for secondhand clothing more accessible to communities across the city, ultimately reducing the waste created from manufacturing new clothing and discarding used garments.
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Comments Off on NEWS: Value Village Boutique takes over former Brunswick House site (Feb. 2023)Tags: Annex · News
By Hailey Alexander
On July 24, 1928, the police arrested 74 men at the Prospector’s Club which was on the upper floor of 527 Bloor St. W. The main floor was Prince & Co. Hardware (now PenguinPickUp.) According to the Toronto Daily Star, police broke up a bank dice game with “thousands of dollars in play” shortly before 3:00 a.m.
The keeper of the alleged betting house, William Kidd, was released on $500 bail until August 8 of that year and the other 73 men were fined $10.
The raiding party was organized by Chief of Police General Draper and supervised by Inspector Mitchell of Court Street police station, Inspector Johnson of Dundas Street West police station, and Acting Inspector Marshall of Belmont Street police station. Assisted by many others, police found $4,170 in bills and a “large sugar bag” containing silver and cheques which were later brought to court among other evidence. In the Star’s detailed description of the events, police seized a revolver, ammunition, dice cups which had been thrown into a piano when the men heard constables climbing the stairs, and other paraphernalia.
“The police acted with the utmost secrecy in laying the plans for the raid,” stated the Star, further mentioning that most plainclothesmen were under sealed orders until they arrived at the building. Associates professed not to have known of the raid until the two vans were being “filled with prisoners” who were brought to the police station. In addition to being the “smoothest and most successful gambling raid ever conducted in the city,” as an officer put it, this was the largest raid in terms of numbers and alleged gambling money within the club as of that date.
Comments Off on NEWS: PenguinPickUp once site of gambling bust (Feb. 2023)Tags: Annex · News
RE: Volunteers needed!
I would like to thank you for your article on St. Stephen’s yard and for drawing attention to the challenges those facing homelessness experience.
It is my belief that many in our community see the struggles and feel helpless because the problem is widespread and complicated and they don’t know how to help.
The reality is, we can all lend a hand. St. Stephen’s Community House on Augusta has a corner drop-in where they provide hot meals, showers, laundry, etc. to our community’s vulnerable population.
They also have programs and services for mental health, addiction, harm reduction and housing.
They do incredible work, but sadly, they are underfunded and rely on volunteers across the organization.
An easy way to get involved and help with the immediate need is to help prepare meals in the kitchen.
For anyone interested in lending a hand, please contact the main line at 416-925-2103 x1255 or via email at info@tngcs.org and ask to be connected to Chef Mike.
—Thank you
Mary Lepage
Comments Off on LETTER TO THE EDITOR (Feb. 2023)Tags: Annex · Letters
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Comments Off on EDITORIAL CARTOON: Winter’s not as cold as these deals! (Feb. 2023)Tags: Annex · Editorial · Columns · Opinion
Doug Ford abandoned us. That’s what a 200-page decision reviewing Ottawa’s invocation of the Emergencies Act says. Written by Commissioner Justice Paul Rouleau and published by the Public Order Emergency Commission, this report points the finger for last year’s Freedom Convoy riots squarely at the premier, whose failure to act, it says, led to some members of the public feeling emboldened.
Rouleau also laments that both Ford and Sylvia Jones, the former Ontario solicitor general, refused to participate in the commission’s review citing their “parliamentary privilege.” These two have a lot to answer for, and they clearly did their best to avoid any opportunity to face questions under oath about their conduct at the time of the Freedom Convoy protest.
The commissioner pulls no punches in his commentary on Ford and his government for inaction during the protest and for refusing to testify at the inquiry held last fall.
“Given that the city and its police services were clearly overwhelmed, it was incumbent on the province to become visibly, publicly and wholeheartedly engaged from the outset,” Rouleau wrote. “I find the Province of Ontario’s reluctance to become fully engaged in such efforts directed at resolving the situation troubling.”
Had Jones attended the inquiry, she would have no doubt been asked about her claim during the protest that Ontario had sent 1500 OPP officers to the scene. The mayor of Ottawa said while under oath that 35 officers was more accurate. According to the report, even Thomas Carrique, OPP commissioner, and Mario Di Tommaso, deputy solicitor general, characterized Jones’s comments “as unhelpful and unwise.”
The report reveals tensions between the federal and provincial governments during the protest. Federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s staff recalled an interaction with the solicitor general where he urged the Ontario government to come up with a plan to do its job since policing is a provincial responsibility. Jones’s response according to the staffer: “I don’t take edicts from you, you’re not my f—king boss.” Like Doug Ford, Jones apparently felt that dealing with the Freedom Convoy was her job not to do.
The commission concluded that the federal cabinet received “credible and compelling information supporting a reasonable belief that the definition of a threat to the security of Canada was met,” and that “the bigger picture reveals that the situation was unsafe and chaotic.”
Di Tommaso, to his credit, did testify, and his contribution included comments that Ontario should create protocols around compelling a municipal police force to accept a unified and integrated command model with national standards for policing a major event. That approach was needed here, because the Ottawa Police Service was overwhelmed but unwilling to cede control of the situation to others. The report endorses Di Tommaso’s recommendations.
In his conclusions, Justice Rouleau states that “the ‘Freedom Convoy’ was a singular moment in history, in which simmering, political, and economic grievances were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, shaped by a complex online landscape rife with misinformation and disinformation, and unleashed in a torrent of political protest and social unrest.”
Rouleau astutely observes that the Freedom Convoy was more than a movement of people protesting in Ottawa about vaccine mandates largely created by provincial governments. These were not just ignorant individuals in need of a civics lesson. It runs deeper than that; Doug Ford recognizes that these are his people and his brand of populism. They hate the government and they are angry, but they are not sure about what; they just want to tear it down.
What is clear is that Doug Ford turned his back on residents of Ottawa in their hour of need. By his inaction, Doug Ford forced the federal government to needlessly bring down a heavy hammer upon our democratic freedoms.
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Comments Off on EDITORIAL: Freedom Ford-style (Feb. 2023)Tags: Annex · Editorial · Opinion
By Dianne Saxe
The first month of the new year has been an eventful one at city hall. I am pleased to report that two crucial issues have successfully moved forward.
Councillors on the infrastructure and environment committee unanimously supported my requests to make permanent the Yonge Street bike lanes from Bloor to Davisville, while doing everything practicable to increase safety for nearby residents. This includes preventing illegal and dangerous behaviour by reckless drivers, like driving on sidewalks.
While community opinion about the bike lanes remains mixed, two-thirds of deputants passionately supported the bike lanes, as did extensive expert evidence.
The medical officer of health explained the substantial health benefits of complete streets.
Paramedic and fire services confirmed that the bike lanes do not interfere with their ability to provide emergency services. TTC confirmed that the bike lanes do not interfere with their shuttle buses.
Bike lanes are good for local businesses while decreasing crashes and the cost of getting around. Other evidence showed that there has been no disproportionate increase in traffic in the area compared to the city as a whole.
Another key achievement was doubling the number of downtown warming centre spaces for the most vulnerable during cold weather alerts.
In mere weeks, we pulled off Toronto’s fourth warming centre at the Cecil Street Community Centre, where I sit on the board. It opened for the first night on Jan. 30.
Congratulations and deepest thanks to the staff and board members of Cecil Street, and to city staff at shelter, support & housing administration.
This month was also dominated by the city budget, the first under the “strong mayor” powers imposed by Doug Ford. Thank you to everyone who has written in about this, or deputed to the budget committee.
The city is in very deep financial trouble, and the consequences are becoming obvious.
The provincial government has downloaded unmanageably expensive responsibilities onto the city, while hamstringing our ability to raise funds, and immiserating the most vulnerable with inadequate housing, mental health, and addiction support.
Toronto hasn’t done enough either to keep its financial house in order.
Keeping property tax increases below the rate of inflation for 13 years has starved the city of essential funds for daily operations and repairs, much less preparing for the future.
Bottom line: the city cannot operate effectively without more funds. We must loudly and consistently demand that the province give us significant revenue-generation tools, such as road tolls and a share of income taxes. I plan to keep this demand front and centre whenever council sits.
In the meantime, I am working with my colleagues to have the city adopt parking levies, which could raise hundreds of millions of dollars to reverse TTC cuts and improve service, while helping with climate goals.
This campaign has gained so much momentum that I hope to see parking levies introduced as early as next year.
The first step, a thorough study by city staff, should begin shortly.
For more updates, please sign up for our newsletter at DianneSaxe.ca.
Dianne Saxe is city councillor for Ward 11, University-Rosedale.
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Comments Off on FORUM: Bike lanes made permanent, more warming centres open (Feb. 2023)Tags: General
By Jessica Bell
The first official Toronto budget under the new strong mayor reign has revealed an unpleasant truth. This is a fantasy budget built on a house of cards. Even with a seven per cent planned property tax hike, the federal and provincial governments need to hand over $1.4 billion to the city for the budget to balance in 2023. And even if they say yes to Toronto’s official funding request, the city will still cut services.
You and I will be paying more for less. Off-peak TTC bus and subway service is facing big cuts, and adult fares are going up. Road maintenance and road safety programs are being cut. Recreation fees are going up. The city’s official climate action plan is underfunded and falls well short of our bold climate targets.
This is not the time for austerity. Our city is falling into disrepair. Commuting times are getting longer. Our parks and sidewalks are dirty and neglected. The high cost of food has driven more and more people into chronic hunger. Housing prices and rent are at record levels of unaffordability. Our city’s escalating mental health, opioid, and homelessness crises are a moral shame.
This is not a new problem. The mayor has failed to maintain and upgrade services and infrastructure throughout his eight-year reign. You’re not imagining things when you notice there’s more garbage on the street or the roads have more potholes than usual. That said, the woes of our city are also very clearly the responsibility of the Ford government who is not only underfunding municipalities and our needs, but sabotaging municipalities’ efforts to fund services as well.
I’m talking about Bill 23, which freezes, eliminates, and reduces the development fees Toronto can collect from new homes to partially pay for city infrastructure, from parks to affordable housing.
In University-Rosedale, about 80 per cent of residents live in buildings of five storeys or more, and that percentage is on the rise. Since more of us are living in apartments with no access to a backyard, it is doubly important for governments to invest in not just essential infrastructure, like transit and sewerage, but the community centers, parks, libraries, and free open spaces needed for urban residents to play, enjoy themselves, learn, and appreciate their city and neighborhood.
I support reducing and waiving development fees for permanently affordable housing, co-ops, non-market housing and to build housing for those in need.
I see no good value in giving a tax cut to developers and downloading even more infrastructure costs onto residents. Developers have a responsibility to contribute their fair share to our city.
This is a province-wide problem. Facing massive shortfalls in development fee revenue, municipalities across southern Ontario are considering cuts to services and big property tax increases ranging from five to 100 per cent. This is a Ford tax.
We are returning to the provincial legislature on Feb. 21. We expect a housing bill, a health care bill to privatize surgery delivery, and the next annual budget.
As your MPP, my goal is to organize with you to increase funding for municipalities, mental health, health care, education, housing, and public transit—all the things that make our city great.
We are not alone, Toronto. Municipalities across Ontario are furious with the funding cuts, and it’s having an effect.
Already the minister for Municipal Housing and Affairs has signaled their intention to help municipalities with the loss of funding as a result of Bill 23. We’ll have to hold their feet to the fire to get them to deliver.
Jessica Bell is the MPP for University-Rosedale and the Official Opposition’s Housing Critic. She can be reached at jbell@ndp.on.ca 416-535-7206.
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Comments Off on FORUM: Toronto’s budget built on a false premise (Feb. 2023)Tags: Annex · Columns · Opinion
By Terri Chu
There’s a lot to love about the Annex: cultural vibrancy, a wide variety of local independent businesses, walkability and trees.
Can you imagine this place without the big, beautiful maples? The streets would feel empty and dystopian.
No one wants to imagine this future, but with the latest Annex Residents’ Association (ARA) tree survey and its preliminary results, it has become all too clear that we can no longer afford to take local trees for granted.
The ARA just completed the first tranche of the 10-year resurvey of its trees.
Thanks to two students from the University of Toronto’s forestry program, the trees were redone. The students did a fantastic job.
The results were less so. It is in fact, devastating.
In 2011, there were 2139 trees on Bathurst, Albany, and Howland streets. Of those trees, only 1603 of them still exist.
With a full 25 per cent of the trees missing, it’s fair to say we are in a crisis situation.
We are down over one in four trees and we can’t even blame this on construction. There hasn’t been very much development in this area over the last four years other than the Bianca; however, that was previously the Wing’s factory and there were not many trees lost to construction.
Many local trees are now nearing the end of life, however, many more are finding it hard to survive under very stressful conditions.
Pollution in the area is high, and tree roots are often covered with asphalt.
Trees are so important for a liveable community.
Researchers have found that residents who live in heavily treed areas have lower instances of heart attacks and other heart health risks.
Trees absorb excess rainwater and reduce the chances of flooding.
Trees also provide evaporative cooling (in addition to shade.) This means in the urban heat island that is this concrete jungle, trees help keep us cool—a critical function as climate change ravages our cities.
Instead of protecting the liveability of this city, the leadership has been making it worse. Trees are little more than an afterthought in planning and development. Mayor Tory has given priority to cars at the expense of all else.
For a song, a car owner can get highly subsidized parking and leave their vehicles all over the city cheaply.
Meanwhile, a family of four pays over $20 to use public transit two ways. No wonder families are choosing cars over transit.
Every unnecessary vehicle trip is another pointless stress on our tree canopy, a stress on our lungs, and congestion in this city.
Study after study has shown economic upticks when car space is given over to people, yet our old school leadership can’t get their minds out of the 70s and are actively holding us back.
There’s absolutely no reason why it should cost more to use public transit than it does to park a car. Our subsidies are going the wrong way to the detriment of all of us.
We need to take a hard look and ask ourselves why we want to put more congestion on our streets, more nitrous oxide in our air, and more sulphuric oxide in our children’s lungs.
If this isn’t the kind of city we want, we need to ask ourselves why we let corporate-led municipal leadership create these policy failures for us.
We absolutely cannot afford to lose our urban forest. The city promised that it would increase the urban canopy to 40 per cent by 2050; instead, we see a drop in canopy coverage of around 22 per cent.
We need the city to step up its efforts and keep its commitment. Residents cannot be left to do this alone. Some homeowners already spend thousands a year to maintain trees and not every neighbourhood is lucky enough to afford this.
Without the data that the ARA and other similar organizations collect, it will be nearly impossible to hold the city to account and have any hope of forcing the city to live up to its commitments to protect and enhance our tree canopy.
The ARA is raising money to hire this summer’s forestry students to continue this work.
If you can, please be generous. We have a $15,000 goal to get two students working this summer.
To make a donation go to theara.org.
Terri Chu is an engineer committed to practical environmentalism. This column is dedicated to helping the community reduce energy and distinguish environmental truths from myths.
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Comments Off on GREENINGS: Our trees are in crisis (Feb. 2023)Tags: Annex · Life · Opinion
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