Swansea Street Fighters
If a multi-millionaire wants to tear down their century home at 229 Riverside Drive to build a mansion, what’s to stop them?
Let’s introduce our street fighters. First, we have the Swansea and Etobicoke Historical Societies whose weapon of choice is Heritage Registration. Next, the Swansea Area Ratepayers Association, armed with the Toronto City by-laws. Lastly, we have the neighbours with letters of opposition and easement concerns.
At risk of mixing my metaphors, the ring for this street fight is the latest incarnation of the Ontario Municipal Board, the Toronto Local Appeal Body. A Decision and Order was reached by this body on December 29th, 2020.
It’s fight time. In these annals of wealth, I leave it to you dear reader to identify if there is a “little guy” to root for.
Where are we?
Just as 229 Riverside Drive was being built, Swansea was established as an independent village and remained an independent village from 1926 until amalgamation in 1967. During that time, Swansea had a separate local government which delivered services — including firefighting, policing, and garbage collection.
Today, my neighbourhood is home to a wide stratification of income levels. Those closest to High Park on one side and Humber River on the other, have the highest levels of income and wealth. However, as you move towards the centre south, the single detached homes make way for low-rise tri-plexes, and finally high-rise apartments, including 153 Toronto Community Housing units.
This local dispute is located at the west periphery. Riverside Drive sits atop a hill overlooking the Humber River.
The History of Riverside Drive
Robert Home Smith was a lawyer and entrepreneur who had a heavy hand in shaping the Humber Valley in the 1910’s and 1920’s. He purchased 3000 acres in and around the valley, and built the Old Mill tea room which opened in 1914.
His planned subdivisions on Riverside Drive, Baby Point, and the Kingsway (Glebe) came with thirty-year covenant agreements that homeowners maintain the garden suburban feel. On the first page of a pamphlet advertising his developments (seen below) is inscribed a crest with the Latin “Angliae para Anglia procul” or “a bit of England far from England”.
Other than being built by the Home Smith & Company in the late 1920’s, of note is that the subdivision has one house with Heritage status — 210 Riverside Drive. Beloved Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery is pictured below. She lived there for the final seven years of her life and wrote three novels during her residency.
Heritage Status Today
The Ontario Heritage Act is the provincial legislation that regulates how we designate and regulate heritage buildings and subdivisions. Implementation of the Act is designated in Section 27 to municipalities, and in Toronto is conducted by the city’s Heritage Preservation Services. They review areas and buildings for Heritage status, and keep a publicly accessible Heritage Register.
Architecturally, the English style home that is 229 Riverside Drive and the Tudor homes adjacent have not been special or unique enough to meet the Heritage Act requirements. 210 only received heritage registration designation because Lucy Maud Montgommery lived there — the house itself, and the adjacent houses by extension, have not been deemed to meet the criteria.
Below is the real-estate video for the property from when it was sold to the current owners. Have a look and see for yourself if you would designate it as unique or integral to the community.
Neighbouring Baby Point, with it’s similar Robert Home Smith history is currently under review to become a Heritage Conservation District. Riverside Drive was not included in this review, and therefore has no heritage protection. As such, the Panel Member reviewing the case was statutorily correct in her dismissal of the history of the neighbourhood in her Decision and Order.
Ratepayers Association
The Swansea Area Ratepayers Association (SARA) want to maintain the current “feel” of the neighbourhood — namely the front yard setback and the floor space index.
The proposed new house, sketched below, would sit 11.2m from the road, contravening by-law 569–2013 which requires houses be set 22.22m from the road. This is the “garden” feeling that characterizes the Home Smith subdivisions.
The floor space index is the ratio of home square footage to plot size, and by-law 539–2013 sets the ratio to 0.35. The proposed house will have a ratio of 0.79, or 0.48 if the bottom floor is not included.
This is where technicalities come into play. Traditionally, basements are not included in FSI, but this house is on a slope, and so technically the bottom floor walk-out means it is not considered a basement. All this to say that the increase is more accurately one from 0.35 FSI to 0.48 FSI.
SARA has argued that this increase is a dangerous precedent to set — making way for new mansions that dominate the street and minimize green space.
Adjacent Neighbours
Lastly we have the neighbours who live on Riverside Drive. Many signed letters of opposition similar to the Ratepayers Association. However, the real fighters are the adjacent neighbours who share a driveway that could be impacted. The panel member reviewed the expert evidence about the right of easement, and determined that easement would not be infringed by the new proposal.
TLAB & the Decision and Order
The homeowners first applied to the Committee of Adjustment, where they were denied because the by-law violations were considered to not be minor in nature. They appealed the decision to the Toronto Local Appeal Body (TLAB).
The TLAB is a tribunal that hears evidence and decides if local decisions (in this case by the Committee of Adjustment) should be overturned. It is a branch of the Local Planning Appeal Tribunals (LPAT) and replaced the Ontario Municipal Board (OMB) in 2017.
The replacement was designed to alleviate concerns that developers had too much power, and that the OMB failed to take into account wholistic community concerns. The Ford government changed many of the LPAT rules in 2019, so that although the names have not changed, many assert that the OMB is alive and well.
The homeowners began this process in March of 2019, and a decision was reached on December 29th, 2020. There were 119 supporting documents and four days of hearings to conclude that the new plans met the intent of subsection 45(1) of the Planning Act. Despite the best efforts of our street fighters, the demolition of 229 Riverside Drive was approved.
A conclusion?
The next-door neighbours have filed a request for a Review. Ultimately, I think that Review would only amend the plans for the garage adjacent to their shared driveway. However, as I am not a lawyer nor a local planning expert, time will tell whether this last fighting effort will name a different victor.
