The Harbord Village Residents’ Association (HVRA) has given Larry Sdao its Community Builder Award. Sdao owns 481 Bloor St. W., formerly home to the Brunswick House. HVRA chair Gus Sinclair said that Sdao worked with the community to deal with “an intractable problem that was the Brunswick House business [Sdao’s former tenant]”. Local residents’ associations […]

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Proposal designates character areas By Brian Burchell The City of Toronto hosted a public meeting to consider expanding the University of Toronto’s exemptions from the Planning Act early last month. Billed as a “pre-application consultation” by the city, it drew community members who questioned the need to broaden the university’s powers. Approved by the city […]

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Preliminary data on the Bloor Street Bike Lane Pilot was released in February. Separated bike lanes were installed along Bloor Street from Avenue Road to Shaw Street last August. The city has released preliminary transportation data, including a traffic volume count and a travel time study along with a public opinion poll. Data collection was done both before and after […]

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  READ MORE NEWS (JANUARY 2017): Laneway living

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Should infill take precedence over upward building? By Brian Burchell With affordable housing at a premium in Toronto, two councillors are proposing to open up the city’s 2,400 laneways to infill development. Arguing that residential growth in the city must not only be vertical and sprawling, Mary-Margaret McMahon (Ward 32, Beaches-East York) and Ana Bailão […]

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Without missing a beat, Freeman Real Estate and Spirit of Math spanned wing-on-wing to make sure one of the area’s holiday traditions would continue to fly. Thanks to their efforts, nearly 500 hundred turkeys flew off a giveaway table set up at 988 Bathurst St. last December. [pullquote]“Certainly we want to continue doing it next […]

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Recommendations for mandating community participation By Annemarie Brissenden Four local residents’ associations, collectively representing the north end of Ward 20, banded together late last month to submit commentary on the province’s review of the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB). In their letter to the Province of Ontario’s planning policy branch, the Annex Residents’ Association (ARA), Harbord […]

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Residents decry loss of green space and heritage impacts By Brian Burchell It was billed as a community consultation, but a Nov. 29 meeting on plans to add an 11-storey mixed-use building and eight stacked townhouses to the north and south of the existing 25-storey tower at 666 Spadina Ave. was more about airing grievances […]

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Year in review reflects community initiatives By Annemarie Brissenden Little did we know last year that our annual holiday cover — a reproduction of a painting by Lawren Harris — would be quite so appropriate for 2016. Harris enjoyed a renaissance this year as the subject of both an Art Gallery of Ontario exhibition curated […]

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Residents glimpse settlement offer By Brian Burchell In an effort to bring transparency to the Ontario Municipal Board’s (OMB) mediation process, Joe Cressy (Ward 20, Trinity-Spadina) took the unusual step of bringing a developer’s confidential settlement offer to the community for comment before that offer is voted on by Toronto City Council. “You have an […]

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Crime in 14 Division for August and September was less than the previous year across six major categories, reported Detective Sergeant Brian Kelly at a Community Police Liaison Committee meeting on Sept. 20. The division’s boundaries are Spadina Avenue, Bathurst, Front, and Adelaide streets. Although six people were arrested for a violent robbery that had […]

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