News

Mayor Olivia Chow has proposed a major change to the process of how housing is built in Toronto, one that would allow a new generation of buildings to pop up on major streets across the city.

Chow is looking to implement sweeping as-of-right zoning on Toronto’s avenues that would allow for drastic changes in the city’s built form.

Toronto’s development scene has been dominated by tall towers in recent years, but Chow’s new push to change zoning regulations could result in a more Parisian style of residential density becoming the norm in town.

Rachel Chernos Lin has won the Don Valley West by-election with nearly 55 percent of the vote, beating competitor Anthony Furey by more than 20 points in what began as a wide-open race, but had in recent weeks become a battle of political polarization between the two leading candidates.

Chernos Lin, a Toronto District School Board trustee and the current chair, ended the night with 12,899 votes, followed by Furey with 7,343. Sam Robinson, son of former ward councillor Jaye Robinson, came in third with 1,271 votes.

The Ward 15 By-Election set for November 4, 2024, will decide on a candidate to succeed Councillor Jaye Robinson as Ward 15 representative on City Council.

Voting places will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters can use MyVote to find their assigned voting place, access their voter card and more.

BEPC devised a short questionnaire to be completed by all registered candidates. Read on for survey responses and make sure you vote on November 4!

Under cover of darkness, Infrastructure Ontario began the removal of 865 trees at Ontario Place on the evening of Wednesday, October 2, 2024. Within a single day, workers had cut down the vast majority of those trees.

The work—which includes the removal of every single tree on the western portion of the waterfront site adjacent downtown Toronto—is part of the approximately $200-million in site preparations that taxpayers are funding to prepare the land for Therme, an Austrian spa company, to develop a stadium-sized indoor waterpark on the site.

The next day, October 3, the Province released the details of its 95-year lease with Therme, which journalists and grassroots organizations have…

A proposed development at 589 Eglinton Avenue East has secured approval from the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) for its settlement offer with the City of Toronto from March, 2024. The approved plan increases the height from 35 to 40 storeys and the number of residential units from 442 to 470.

Initially submitted as a 35-storey proposal in November, 2022, the application faced delays prompting an appeal to the OLT. It was resubmitted with the same storey count but a revised design in July, 2023 This culminated in a hearing in March, 2024, where a settlement offer was approved. The OLT’s endorsement led to the latest Site Plan Approval resubmission in July, 2024.

A group of residents in a midtown Toronto neighbourhood is vowing to take their fight against a developer to the city’s ombudsman.

The Leaside Residents Association and the Broadway Area Residents Association had been working with city staff and the Gupta Group on a proposed residential tower to be built over a row of five lots on Bayview Avenue just north of the new Leaside stop on the Eglinton Crosstown LRT route.

But in June, about three months after a deal had been struck with Gupta for a 22-storey tower, the developer went to the city’s committee of adjustment and applied for a “minor variance” that would add five storeys to the project. The committee agreed to let Gupta add three more, for a total height of 25 storeys.

The Leaside Garden Society invites you to our community Flower Show on:

Saturday September 14, 2024 from 12:30-3:30pm
Leaside Library – 165 McRae Drive

We are opening up entries into the Fruit and Vegetable categories to the whole community even if you are not a member of LGS! Enter tomatoes, fruits, vegetables or flowering perennials. Entry drop off 9:30-10:30 a.m.

A by-election will be held to fill the Ward 15 council seat left vacant by the death of Councillor Jaye Robinson.

• Nominations will open Monday, July 22 at 8:30 a.m.
• Nominations will close Thursday, September 19 at 2 p.m.
• Advance voting will be available on Saturday, October 26 and Sunday, October 27 from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Election day will be held on Monday, November 4 with voting locations open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

This is to indicate our support for the staff report and the recommendation for City Council to adopt Official Plan Amendment 680 which amends various Employment Area related policies to bring the Official Plan into alignment with the provincial definition of “area of employment” in the Planning Act, as amended by Bill 97 – Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act.

The Leaside Business Park is the employment area closest to Toronto’s downtown and it is in Toronto’s best interests to preserve the employment area policies, and the businesses and jobs that these maintain.