News

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. 

We’re going to rally until the Ontario Government hears us!

Rally will conclude with a peaceful march to the Ontario Science Centre for supporters interested in joining us.

Date: Sunday July 14, 2024, noon – 2:30 p.m.

The Ford government’s decision to shutter the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto’s Don Mills area with no warning Friday is drawing outrage from critics and members of the local community.

The government cited safety concerns after releasing an engineering report on the current structure which opened to the public in 1969. The government used the report to justify closing the Science Centre immediately.

“We were worried this stunt would be pulled by Premier Ford and the Ontario government,” said Jason Ash, co-chair of Save Ontario’s Science Centre, a citizen group campaigning to keep the current site.

City Council recently approved the zoning bylaw amendment (subject to some conditions) and the Ontario Land Tribunal gave an interim decision on the developer’s appeal, for a 35-storey tower over the Leaside station with a podium extending south on the two adjoining properties.

35 storeys? How did we get there?

I hope 2024 is off to a great start for you and your families. The Ward 15 – Don Valley West team is hitting the ground running here at City Hall.

Earlier this month, City staff tabled their proposed $17 billion 2024 Operating Budget and $49.8 billion 2024-2033 Capital Budget and Plan. You can find more information on the City’s website, including the January 10 Budget Committee Launch Presentation.

Facing a persistently sluggish market for office buildings, one developer has pivoted his original plan to construct an environmentally leading-edge mass-timber building in Toronto to instead build lab and research space – without the wood.

The application to build a 34-storey mixed-use building at 1840 Eglinton with 377 units has been appealed to the Ontario Land Tribunal. The hearing date has not yet been set. The LRA has written a response to the appeal report from the City of Toronto, and is a registered participant at the OLT.

In last February’s Leaside Life we described the influx of tall building applications at and within 500 metres of the intersection of Bayview north of Eglinton, and Eglinton west of Bayview. Guess we can blame the coming of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. Well, no, at least not completely.

This whole Ponzi scheme of multiple applications, each new one more audacious than the last, is the result of the province’s overriding (in 2019) the Yonge-Eglinton Secondary Plan (YESP) approved by City Council (in 2018) with specific land use changes to increase density beyond what the City approved – and without any public consultation. Then Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, Steve Clark, in making the changes, specifically referenced Bayview and said it was “…missing a whole lot of density.”