Screenshot of map indicating condos under construction in Birch Cliff. To view the interactive map, scroll down.
By Ian Harvey and Hedy Korbee
Love it or hate it, Birch Cliff Village is being engulfed in a tsunami of redevelopment proposals.
According to research conducted by Birch Cliff News, there are at least 10 condominium projects underway or pending in the area bordered by Kingston Road and the CN Rail line, from Victoria Park Avenue to Birchmount Road.
Those 10 projects, many of them 8 to 11 storeys tall, account for more than 2,200 units under construction or in the application stage, which will inevitably impact the roughly six square kilometers of Birch Cliff.
Furthermore, there are many dark storefronts, abandoned properties, and commercial real estate listings that suggest land assembly efforts are underway that could trigger more redevelopment in the years to come.
If you look further east to the area of the cenotaph, where the boundary between Birch Cliff and Cliffside is a little fuzzy, there are three more large developments with a total of 545 units.
Few would disagree that the Birch Cliff stretch of Kingston Road requires revitalization but many are now questioning the size and scale of development projects in the pipeline.
Some have even taken to calling Birch Cliff’s main thoroughfare “condo alley” or “condo canyon”.
To get a sense of the scope of redevelopment, click on the buildings, “For Sale” signs and question marks on the interactive map below.
Proposed ten-storey condo on Kingston Road at Lakeside Avenue that will replace Lenmore Court. Photo: City of Toronto submission.
“It’s too high, too wide, it’s just too much”
Birch Cliff residents opposed to larger developments cite inappropriate density, traffic pressures, wobbly infrastructure, lack of schools and affordable housing, and a disdain for those glass and steel boxes that seem to be the only condominium design being created these days.
As such, the stage is set for a virtual town hall meeting with Ward 20 Councillor Gary Crawford on Wednesday, Dec. 9 to focus on a Kingston Road proposal east of Lakeside Avenue that has ignited passion in recent weeks.
The meeting has been organized by Anna Dewar Gully, who said she was shocked and angered that tenants at Lenmore Court will be evicted in two years to make way for a ten-storey, 265-unit condo. The news inspired her to resurrect the Birch Cliff Community Association.
Dewar Gully has since spent hours rallying neighbours to fight what she sees as bad planning.
“It’s too high, too wide, and too dense it’s just too much and it will displace our tenant neighbours, encroach on residential streets and cause safety, infrastructure, and environmental, issues,” Dewar Gully said.
Dewar Gully points to the Kingston Road Revitalization Plan formulated a decade ago that approved development height at between four and six stories for the area.
She said she wants to know how the Councillor’s office will bring developers back in line with what she described as “the responsible and consulted upon goals of the community”.
“There has been a rapid expansion of the number of large scale condos on Kingston Road which is totally incompatible with the vision for the neighbourhood as set out by the City and in consultation with the community in the Kingston Road revitalization Plan, with so many developments currently being proposed”, she said. “It’s as though they want to distract us because we can’t fight all of them at the same time.”
Councillor Crawford said it does seem that everything is flooding into the planning department all at once.
“Part of that is the area is pre-zoned already, which speeds up development and developers are moving up from downtown where there’s an incredible amount of density,” Crawford said. “And the planning office was closed for three months so there have been a lot of applications pushed through when they reopened. Developers are entitled to file an application. We have to look at it but that doesn’t mean what they want is approved.”
In terms of Lenmore Court, Crawford said it’s early in the process and the planning department has yet to respond, but the proposal already seems to overreach the prezoning which allows for four to six stories.
”It will take about six months for planning to review and comment and the other 12 or 14 departments to comment,” he said, noting other parts of the riding, such as Cliffside are also seeing an increased number developments.
Rendering of The Manderley, on Kingston Road at Manderley Drive. Photo: Nova Ridge Development Corporation
“Cities have to grow”
Supporters of redevelopment say this moribund strip of Kingston Road is desperate for revitalization, better land use and density, and housing to support local businesses and take the pressure off soaring house prices. Even so, they are cautious about density.
Andrew Williams, a 20-year Birch Cliff Village resident and storefront owner of TaxAction on Kingston Road, said he’s generally supportive of redevelopment because the status quo is not acceptable.
Williams said change isn’t necessarily bad.
“Look at The Birchcliff cafe, which just moved,” Williams said. “That’s the kind of business we should have and with the new buildings, we should have retail along the ground floor for little cafes, even a small grocery store. We need that.”
While he would prefer to see four to six-storey buildings, he’s not inherently opposed to taller buildings.
“The question is of course, how do you decide which is six storeys and which is nine storeys,” Williams said.
In an interview with CBC News, Frank Clayton, a senior research fellow at Ryerson University’s Centre for Urban Policy and Land Development, said heights of eight and ten storeys are not unreasonable on Kingston Road because densification encourages walking and cycling to work, public transit, safety, and energy efficiency.
“Cities have to grow. And they have to grow up or out,” Clayton told CBC. “It can’t be just what the local community wants. “It’s got to be a combination of what works from a development perspective, the developer can make money on because they always want to make money, and they provide housing.”
Residences at the Hunt Club. Kingston Road between Audrey and Queensbury.
Anger, concern, and fear
In addition to some anger and concern in the community, there is also fear, something Councillor Crawford said he understands.
“I’d be scared too,” he said. “it seems like a lot of development.”
There is a fear of change in some cases, fear of the unknown, and fear of the disruption and upheaval that comes with massive redevelopment, cement trucks, road closures, dust and noise for years to come.
It’s not unjustified. Fear is often driven by a lack of information and there is so much we still don’t know about most of these proposals, other than the headline densities and the proffered architectural renderings.
The biggest fear, however, may be loss of control over our community’s future. That fear is palpable because early signals suggest the community is losing the struggle and may be overwhelmed.
The strategy suggested by Councillor Crawford, is to get engaged, to show up, to listen and try and shape the developments as they march through the process.
In some people’s eyes, it’s already turning into a losing battle and the poster child is the community’s long struggle with the Quarry Lands.
Two of the proposed condo towers proposed for the Quarry Lands by the Conservatory Group.
Quarry Lands proposal changed again
The two large scale developments in the Quarry have hung over the community like a dark cloud for more decades.
The first is 411 Victoria Park Avenue, the western Quarry Lands, owned by the City of Toronto’s real estate arm, CreateTO.
The second is the eastern parcel of land owned by The Conservatory Group, which holds a permit issued in 1968 to build 1,450 units in four high rise buildings.
Both those projects popped back onto the radar this autumn and brought some surprises.
On Dec. 2, the City of Toronto convened an online meeting regarding the western Quarry Lands where new developer, Diamond Kilmer, tabled yet another vision that differs substantially from previous iterations.
Back in 2013, with the approval of local residents through the Concerned Citizens of Quarry Land Development, an agreement was reached to build one four-storey building and 200 low-rise dwellings in the form of townhouses and stacked townhouses, as well as 100,000 square feet of retail space.
By 2015 the plan was tweaked again but generally met community approval and was approved by Scarborough community Council. There would be 300 units – a mix of stacked townhouses and apartment units, walking and bike paths, new streets, and a five-acre natural community park where there would be free run for dogs.
A deal with Walmart for the retail space fell through and things changed. Last year a new developer, Diamond Kilmer, proposed scrapping the retail and putting in more housing, pushing the number of units to 798 in both mid-rise apartments and stacked town homes.
The plan grew again in Oct. 2019 to a series of “six to 10-storey mid-rise apartment buildings and a variety of townhouse forms that are surrounded by tree-lined streets, front yards and pedestrian activity.”
Last week, the community was presented with a new plan yet again, with 1,043 units in taller buildings, which is 3.5 times more than was proposed back in 2015.
The irony is the proposal on the city-owned land now approaches 70 per cent of what the Conservatory Group was proposing with their four towers.
Further, the development proposed by the Conservatory Group, once described as “the beast to the east”, has now morphed through a site plan application to a 300-metre tower with 33 stories.
That application seems to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back for the Concerned Citizens of Quarry Development, which has been advocating for responsible Quarry development since 2003.
“Our concern now is the 33 story building that they are proposing to build. Unfortunately, there is nothing to stop them from building that high. The city won’t contest it because that is what the city want the developers to do on their lands. The logic is that more open space on the land will be created. The tower’s footprint will be less than the two tower pedestal that they were proposing to build previously.
– CCQLD Board of Directors
With more than 2,000 condominium units pending or under construction in our neighbourhood, where do we go from here?
It appears as though the Birch Cliff Community Association is picking up where the CCQLD left off.
If you want to be part of the conversation by joining the community association town hall meeting on Wednesday, you can email: savebirchcliffvillage@gmail.com.
Excellent article, very informative and much needed.
You finish by asking “where do we go from here?”
Councillor Gary Crawford says “get engaged, to show up, to listen and try and shape the developments as they march through the process.”
Our community has been doing this for years. As your article describes in detail, CCQLD’s long fight over the type of development at the Quarry Lands is one example. We had an extensive consultation process with the City’s Planning Dept., 2005-2008, resulting in several reports, a promising vision for revitalization and 11 “Guiding Principles” to realize that goal. More recently and focused, there was community consultation regarding the proposed development at Manderley and Kingston Rd. We engaged in good faith, high hopes. We were reasonable, made some concessions, compromised. And developers have always responded, in time, by demanding more – and getting this.
So, again, where do we go from here?
Short term, we must do at least 2 things. First, despite past disappointments, we must “engage in the process” one more time. CCQLD is still active, the Birch Cliff Community Association has been revived. There are a lot of experienced, bright, and talented people involved so we are fortunate that way.
Second, we must connect with other communities facing the same situation to increase our leverage. For a start, within Birch Cliff, establish ties between CCQLD and the BCCA. Further east in our ward, the Cliffcrest Scarborough Village SW Residents Association is fighting a 12-storey, 367-unit condo at Windy Ridge, near Bellamy Rd. Like the Altree proposal at Birchcliff Ave., encroachment into an adjacent residential street is happening there, too, with Nos. 2 and 4 Windy Ridge slated for demolition. Connect with this group, too. Together, these groups could share expertise, experience – what works, is effective. And they would have more clout, could apply more political pressure, and demand more responsiveness, active support from our councillor.
Medium term, we have 2 key elections in 2022 – one municipal, one provincial. I think political pressure must be part of the strategy.
Municipally, I am tired of listening to comments such as “seems like a lot of development” or “looks to be a little dense” from Councillor Crawford. Really? It would be so refreshing to have an elected rep who would call these latest development proposals out for what they really are – bloody outrageous. See them roll up their sleeves, “get engaged” and stand with the community. Point out weaknesses, areas to build a case against the proposals, work to get concessions from the developer. If Councillor Crawford fails to do so, the community associations who have established ties in our ward must work together to agree on one candidate to represent our common interests. This person would be starting from a very strong base.
Provincially, the election is an opportunity to reign in developers. They have always been a powerful group with access. But with the Ford government, this has gone way too far. What is happening in Birch Cliff is just part of a broader trend. Across Toronto, and outside. At Duffins Creek Wetlands in Pickering, for example. Proposed amendments to the Conservation Authority Act is another, the increasing use of Minister’s zoning orders (MZOs). All this must be made an issue next election, and the idea of connecting community associations within the ward and outside, again, would be a start, a means of raising the profile of this issue, that one of the opposition parties will pick up on.
Finally, long term, a cultural change at the Planning Dept. seems needed. I understand the rationale of what they are saying, trying to accomplish. But, once again, they push matters too far. Could we have a bit of balance? Is it necessary to destroy a community (or communities) to build a city? I do not expect the community to dictate what happens in an area, but could we have a truly meaningful dialogue, some compromise between all involved – community, and developer, and planning department? And bring some humanity into the equation. Change, yes, but some consideration that people are impacted.
Thanks, Alex. Very thoughtful.
There is lots that can be done. Lots that the city can do. It just requires the will to do so. I.E. downzoning, heritage designations, rental preservation, anthropological issues, and on and on. The city’s infrastructure is insufficient to support the existing built structure much less the thousand and thousands of units that are contemplated. The first thing you do when you are in a hole is stop digging. Do you think our politicians and planners know that? It is the City itself that wants to build monsters on the Quarry Lands. This is not some evil developer. It is our city that is behind this proposal.