By Hedy Korbee
The battle over a proposed ten-storey condominium project covering most of a city block on Kingston Road in Birch Cliff enters a new phase on Monday with a hearing before the Ontario Land Tribunal, formerly known as the Ontario Municipal Board.
At stake is the future of a prime piece of real estate located south of Birch Cliff Public School at 1615-1641 Kingston Road, currently occupied by affordable low-rise apartment buildings known as Lenmore Court.
The fate of two single-family homes at 50 and 52 Birchcliff Avenue also hangs in the balance.
On one side of the dispute are the Birch Cliff Village Community Residents Association and almost 100 individual community members who are seeking status from the tribunal to oppose the current iteration of the development at formal hearings.
They argue, among other things, that the proposed condo is too tall and dense, encroaches on a single-family neighbourhood, and is a danger to the Scarborough Bluffs.
On the other side is Altree Developments, a powerful residential and commercial real estate builder that is investing heavily in Scarborough properties, and says the scale of the project is not unique on Kingston Road.
Lenmore Court apartments. Photo: John Smee/Bluffs Monitor.
Meeting will be procedural
Monday’s Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) meeting is called a Case Management Conference. It will be largely procedural to establish dates for future hearings, consider requests for party and participant status and explore the option of mediation.
The Birch Cliff Village Community Residents Association is seeking party status and has received $28,000 in local donations to hire a lawyer and a professional planner to represent the community at the hearings.
“When you go to the OLT process, it’s not realistic, in my opinion, that an association can represent itself well and really do it justice,” said Rob Carmichael, chair of the community association. “It’s a quasi-judicial process… you need a lawyer who can represent you appropriately in that scenario, who’s skilled in municipal planning. And then you can’t expect to go to a hearing with just a lawyer, you’re going to need some evidence, you’re going to need expert witnesses. So we’ve hired a planner as well, to represent us throughout the process, but particularly at the hearing to provide the evidence.”
Brian McConnell of Kildonan Drive is one of 89 local residents who’ve applied for participant status, which means he submitted a written statement but doesn’t have the right to speak at the hearings.
In an interview, McConnell said he’s in favour of development on Kingston Road but he’s upset that the new projects don’t adhere to the principles of the Kingston Road Revitalization study.
“The city spent good money on the study and the planners recommended four to six storeys. But six goes to seven, goes to eight, goes to 10. It’s frustrating,” McConnell said. “This one crosses a line. Is Altree going to build something there? Absolutely. And that’s fine. Just keep it reasonable. But they’re not. It’s too big, it’s too dense. The encroachment on Birchcliff Avenue, in my mind, is just crazy.”
Anti-development signs on Birchcliff Avenue.
Who else is seeking status?
The primary parties in the Ontario Land Tribunal process are Altree Developments and the City of Toronto.
Monday’s meeting was triggered by an appeal the developer filed in August, based on timelines established under the Planning Act.
Under those rules, municipalities have 120 days to make a decision on proposed Toronto Official Plan amendments such as the one that Altree is requesting.
It’s not unusual for negotiations between developers and city planning staff to take longer than 120 days, which is what happened in this case.
In addition to the community association, the Toronto District School Board is also requesting party status to fully participate in the process.
This comes after TDSB Trustee Parthi Kandavel told a community consultation meeting last March that the height of the building will eliminate sunlight and cast shadows over Birch Cliff Public School, affecting the health and safety of students.
One person who is not requesting participant status is Ward 20 Councillor Gary Crawford even though he was asked to do so by the community association.
Crawford has stated on many occasions that he opposes the development in its current form but said he’s received strong legal advice from the city that his participation could hurt the community’s case.
“The OLT or the tribunal does not look too kindly when you have what they would deem political influence. Because I’m still a decision maker, I’m still part of the decision-making process, and to have me put my name in as a participant in fact would probably hurt the process. So I made the decision not to do that. I didn’t want to put politics into this.”
Crawford will have an opportunity to voice his opinion when the matter comes to city council, which can happen in several ways.
At some point after Monday’s OLT meeting, the city planning department will prepare a Directions Report for city council.
Crawford said the report will consist of advice to the politicians from the professional planning and legal staff on how to move forward with the OLT process. The Directions Report will be brought to a vote at council, according to Crawford.
Latest proposal includes some changes
The development proposal under consideration by the OLT is slightly different than the version discussed at the public consultation meeting in March 2021 because the developer updated its submission in August.
The proposed condo is still ten storeys tall at the back, reaching a total height of 35.5 metres if you include the two-floor mechanical penthouse.
From the front, it’s nine storeys high and 32 metres with the mechanicals.
The land is currently zoned for a total height of 20 metres.
The overall number of units in the development has increased from 264 to 279.
Top: Current home at 50 Birchcliff Ave.
Bottom: Altree proposal.
Significantly, the developer is now proposing a separate four-storey apartment building on the deep lot at 50 Birchcliff Ave., where a single family house now stands.
Altree’s last submission to the city also indicated the building will contain 32 affordable rental replacement units for existing tenants who are being displaced by the new condo.
The tenants were previously told they would be rehoused in the ten-storey building.
The Toronto Official Plan doesn’t permit the construction of an apartment building on the footprint of a single-family dwelling because the land is designated as “neighbourhoods”.
This is why Altree is seeking an amendment to the Official Plan in addition to rezoning for the ten-storey building facing Kingston Road.
Early in the process, the developer scrapped a plan that would have required the tenants at Lenmore Court as well as 50 and 52 Birchcliff to be rehoused about 1.5 miles outside of the community in Cliffside.
As he prepared for Monday’s OLT hearing, Rob Carmichael said he’s optimistic and hoping that common sense will prevail.
“The reality is that any reasonable viewer of this situation, anybody stepping back and looking at what the Official Plan says, looking at what the existing zoning is, looking at what the existing guidelines are for mid-rise developments, and looking at the existing character of the neighborhood, any reasonable individual would look this proposal and conclude that it is too big.”
The OLT Case Management Conference starts at 10 AM on Mon. Jan. 24 and can be watched here.
Hedy Korbee is Birch Cliff journalist.
