For 42 years, midtown Toronto residents have enjoyed a square at the northwest corner of Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue.
But, on Tuesday, the North York Community Council is set to approve a plan from developer RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust to replace the square with a three-storey shopping mall.
Back in 1968, the city sold a public street just north of Eglinton at Yonge to a developer and allowed the builder to eliminate it, and erect on the site two office towers, as well as residences. Bylaw 110-68, passed April 10, 1968, is clear: the rezoning that permitted the towers exempted a strip of land 115 feet wide, between 2300 Eglinton Avenue and the sidewalk of Eglinton Avenue West. That strip is now the square.
Council also looks likely to approve plans to add seven storeys on one RioCan office tower here and five storeys to the other.
Both the local councillor and city planning staff support the developer’s plan, while acknowledging that locals want the square to stay.
“The design changes presented by the applicant were not well received by the community,” reads the staff report. The report goes on to support the change, noting that the new plan preserves some of the land, which “offers a significant opportunity to be a programmable space.”
Councillor Karen Stintz (Eglinton-Lawrence) supports building a mall on the square.
“I think it’s a fair report,” she said at City Hall on Monday. “It captures the position of the community that they’re opposed to it, but also captures our policies, our urban design guidelines, and the fact that the space right now is underperforming. My overall view is this is an improvement.”
This may mark the first time that Ms. Stintz opposes the Federation of North Toronto Residents Associations. Ms. Stintz ran for council in 2003 in response to a FONTRA ad in a local newspaper: “CITY COUNCILLOR NEEDED.”
Ms. Stintz noted that she supported residents in an earlier fight over a RioCan’s application for a six-storey building at 1717 Avenue Rd. They lost. On Monday, she sounded gun shy.
“The community ended up with a $40,000 debt lining up independent lawyers and there is still a building there,” she said. This time, she says, “I’ve been pretty consistent with the community that we need to deal with the applicant.”
Michael Visser, a photographer who lives in the area and is active in the Oriole Park Association, says Ms. Stintz’s position bewilders him.
“The city gave up public space in exchange for this space being created,” he said. “There was a deal, and it was pretty straightforward.” His councillor, Michael Walker, agrees, and has called a public meeting March 24 to rally community opposition to the RioCan plan.
RioCan bought the tower at 2300 Yonge in 2007 and moved its head office here. Jordan Robins, senior vice-president of development at RioCan, insists the new structure will improve the location.
“Who’s got a bigger vested interest than me in seeing this centre thrive?” he asked. “Who cares about it more than me?”
With a welcome warm spring sun bathing the square yesterday, people perched on planter edges and leaning on lamp-posts did their best to use the space. (The square has no benches). One man ate a burger. Three men smoked cigarettes. Two toddlers played hide and seek.
Liam Baldwin, who sat on the flagpole’s base reading Salman Rushdie’s “The Enchantress of Florence” and drinking latte, said he won’t cry for the square.
“If it was designed more as a public space then maybe it would be more something worth keeping,” he said.
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